When police traced the origins of a red laser dot to the third-floor window of the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, they were surprised to discover that the offending room belonged to Nobel laureate Kary Mullis. The esteemed scientist had been staying in the Swedish capital for days in anticipation of receiving the Nobel Prize and making his laureate speech. Mullis had developed a laboratory technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR), in which a small amount of DNA can be copied in large quantiti...