But for scientists who share both marriage and laboratory—who live together, raise children together and work together—the language of love is often indistinguishable from the language of science. As one such scientist puts it, "My wife and I are so intimate professionally that we can discuss science in shorthand. It's wonderful." Another is more cryptic: "Science is the only bit of our marriage that has always worked 100 percent." continued...

Photo: Fred Mertz

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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
December 2002, pages 18-21.
©2002 Howard Hughes Medical Institute