Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse: Applying for a Green Card Can Be Dangerous

Although Sir Paul has some nifty jewelry and despite his Presidency the Royal Society (perhaps not of the intellectual quality of some of his predecessors: Newton, Rutherford or Wren but then who is?), he was not the first person I thought of when I heard the word raconteur.
I may have been wrong.
From the Telegraph:
Sir Paul Nurse: Geneticist inherits a mystery 

We all know that the Americans are picky to the point of paranoia about whom they allow into their country, but when he applied for a Green Card, Sir Paul Nurse had no reason to suspect that he would be deemed an undesirable.

The Nobel Prize-winning geneticist had not only lived in America for three years, but is president of Rockefeller University New York – a powerhouse of American research, so when his application was turned down by the Department of Homeland Security, he assumed that it was nothing more than a bureaucratic blip. "I know they have high standards," he joked, "but this is ridiculous."

The problem was that the details on Sir Paul's birth certificate did not carry the names of his parents. Mildly indignant, but still unconcerned, he applied for a fuller version from Britain's General Register Office and went on holiday....MORE

The Telegraph piece goes on to give a workmanlike description of the story but it does not compare with hearing Nurse tell the tale. And here he does, at something called The Moth Radio Hour:

Sir Paul Nurse is a 2001 Nobel Laureate for his discoveries regarding cell cycle regulation. He is the former president of Rockefeller University in New York, the current president of The Royal Society of London and Chief Executive Director of the Francis Crick Institute.

Discussing Family Trees in School Can Be Dangerous 

Apr 9, 2013

When applying for a green card a professor of genetics discovers a family secret.