Laurence D. Hurst, Laboratory of Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath NICK MORRISH PHOTOGRAPHY
These days Laurence Hurst pores over data sets. As a kid, he pored over bones. “You find plenty of dead sheep on the moors down in Cornwall,” he says. “I’d go out collecting these stinky sheep bones and bury them in the garden. I was utterly fascinated by the idea that every bone had a name.”
He was also mesmerized by microbes. “I remember the shock I felt the first time I looked in a microscope and saw a Euglena swimming away. There was this whole other world sitting there. That was pretty mind-blowing. To this day I have a love of protists, in no small part because I’ve always gravitated toward simple problems to answer big questions.”
The biggest question of all: Is the ...
