Those three letters could stand for anything. And maybe they do.
Doing Nothing Always
Drive New Autos
Dinner Napkins Absorb
Will the real DNA please stand up? Yes. DNA. We know it best as deoxyribonucleic acid. It is our inner ID card. The thing that defines how we are and what we are. In most ways.
It contains all the information that makes up an organism. Big or small. Our secret code isn’t so secret, though. Every human being shares 99.9% of their DNA with every other human. All I have to say is thank GOD for that differentiating 0.1%.
It is a good day to be talking about this, as it was on this date, April 25, 1953, when Francis Crick and James Watson’s discovery came about. The double-helix structure of DNA was published in “Nature” magazine. And then we knew.
Actually, we knew much earlier. The credit for who first identified DNA is often mistakenly given to Watson and Crick. Their work in the 1950s came over 80 years after DNA was identified.
The first man behind the microscope was a Swiss doctor named Friedrich Miescher. He’s the one that saw a strange “substance” in the nuclei of cells. The building blocks. All of this was in 1869.
But there is a lot to know about our DNA. We hear about it mostly in the news when it comes to solving a crime. The reporter nods at the camera, stating that “new DNA evidence” implicated Curly Jo Spudnecker in the death of his next-door neighbor for mowing the grass too early in the morning.
I mentioned the 99% thing earlier. But we also share 60% of genes with fruit flies. And 98.7% of your DNA in common with chimpanzees and bonobos. So when you feel the bizarre need to suck your grapes and scratch your butts, there is a good reason, lurking deep in your cells.
Truthfully, DNA is one of those things that perplex me. As much as I have read about DNA, I still don’t get the big picture there. And there is A LOT there. If you put all the DNA molecules in your body end to end, that DNA would reach from the Earth to the Sun and back over 600 times. That’s a long way.
All that information. Did I mention that we also share 85% of our DNA with a mouse and 41% with a banana?
Here is one thing about DNA that is important. DNA is a fragile molecule. Scientists have found that about a thousand times a day, something happens to DNA to cause errors. Like, I’m not sure what these errors are. This bothers me. I mean, what kinds of errors can DNA make for crying out loud?
Yes, those DNA molecules go a little wonky. The change, somehow. Many times, there are repair mechanisms that put things back in order. But, occasionally, some damage isn’t repaired.
This means we carry mutations. Now this part sort of scares me. Because if I am only 0.1% away from other human beings — very certain human beings — I don’t have a whole lot of breathing room to be mutating.
At any rate, some of the mutations cause no harm. And. A few can be helpful. But then there are those that can cause diseases, such as cancer. A new technology called CRISPR could allow us to edit genomes. And this, in turn, might lead us to the cure of such mutations as cancer, Alzheimer’s, and, theoretically, any disease with a genetic component. And that would be a good thing.
So. Thanks to Crick, Watson, Miescher, and all the other scientists who are keeping one eye on the proverbial DNA ball.
We share about 84% of our DNA with frogs. So I should mention this.
A frog got his DNA test back.
He’s part German, part Irish, and a tad Pole.
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“The greatest single achievement of nature to date was surely the invention of the molecule DNA.”
― Lewis Thomas
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[When asked by a student if he believes in any gods]
“Oh, no. Absolutely not… The biggest advantage to believing in God is you don’t have to understand anything, no physics, no biology. I wanted to understand.”
― James D. Watson
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“My soul is a hidden orchestra; I know not what instruments, what fiddlestrings and harps, drums and tamboura I sound and clash inside myself. All I hear is the symphony.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
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