'Harry Noller had earlier worked in my protein–rRNA interaction lab in West Berlin in 1975 during a sabbatical year when he also, with considerable foresight, learned the new DNA sequencing technique in Fred Sanger's lab in Cambridge. He generously invited me back to Santa Cruz for annual working visits and on one of the last visits in the early 1980s, while staying with Harry, the phone would often ring around midnight followed by long animated conversations on rRNA structure and, since I knew most of the rRNA nucleotides by number, I could follow some of the discussions. When asked: why always at midnight? Harry’s reply was essentially: “I think Carl sits through the evenings with rRNA secondary structure maps, and a bottle of whisky, and by around midnight he needs someone to talk to.”
