- A library of info telling your body’s cells how to build you.
- Shaped as a double helix, this chemical spiral codes for life.
- Full name is deoxyribonucleic acid.
Some people think that I’m a totally twisted individual, but while my slinky curves turn heads,
I'm actually quite a bookish character. I'm so astounding that within my graceful folds and
sinuous switchbacks lies the secret of life itself.
Cell has a library of me, called the genome, stored for safekeeping in the nucleus.
The library has 46 “books” in it called chromosomes.
Each page of each book is a gene that holds the code for one attribute - your hair color or
weakness to certain diseases, for example. The words in these books of life are molecules
that link together to make a corkscrew chain. Strangely, most of your DNA is junk - it has no meaning.
Although each person's DNA is unique, 99 percent of it is identical to that of everyone else.
- Discoverer: Friedrich Miescher (1869)
- Number of human genes: 20,000 to 25,000
- Number of times the body’s DNA is damaged per day: 10,000
adapted from Basher Biology 2008
