Kary Mullis

Photo Mosaic

Kary Mullis was the brilliant, restless biochemist whose flash of insight split biology into two epochs: before PCR and after PCR. His Sun sits in Capricorn, the old-soul climber ruled by Saturn, the sign of career, mission and the patient ascent to the highest rung; his polymerase chain reaction earned him the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Japan Prize the same year, a technique now central to molecular biology. That Sun shines in his 9th house, the house of the philosopher and the big questions, where the hero is meant to shine as a global thinker forever asking the universe how things really work. It also warns of the dogmatic, contrarian streak that comes when this placement turns radical, and Mullis wore that too, downplaying humanity's role in climate change and questioning whether HIV causes AIDS, positions the scientific mainstream firmly rejected.

His Moon is in Gemini in the 3rd house, an exalted, quicksilver Moon that lives in words and ceaseless mental movement, the news junkie whose comfort is curiosity rather than depth.

With Aries rising, he met the world as the pioneer and the go-getter, wearing the Martian mask of childlike, bitter honesty. First at everything, unafraid to stand alone: that was Mullis, for better and worse.