Final answer:
Watson and Crick's paper on DNA structure was published in 1953 in the journal Nature, and it significantly advanced the understanding of genetic mechanisms, later earning them a Nobel Prize.
Step-by-step explanation:
James Watson and Francis Crick published their now-famous paper entitled Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid in the year 1953, in the journal Nature. This groundbreaking article, which outlined the double-helical structure of DNA, is renowned not only for presenting a structural model of DNA but also for hypothesizing a semi-conservative mechanism of DNA replication.
Their findings were based on various pieces of previous research, including Rosalind Franklin's X-ray diffraction images that depicted DNA's helical nature and Chargaff's rules concerning the equal proportions of nucleotide bases. Later, Watson and Crick's work, along with that of Maurice Wilkins, was honored with the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1962, illustrating the significant impact of their research on the field of biology.