35 Amazing Facts about DNA | Amazing Facts 4U
- DNA or Deoxyribonucleic acid has a double helix structure like a twisted ladder. The sides of the ladder are made of sugars and phosphate atoms. The steps of the ladder are bases, the nucleotides called adenine(A), guanine (G), thymine (T), and cytosine (C). DNA holds the “blueprint” of life.
- The amazing property of DNA is self-replication using cellular machinery made of proteins.
- Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher discovered DNA in 1869, although its significance wasn’t understood.
- James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 figured out the structure and function of DNA. Prior to that time, it was widely believed that proteins stored genetic information.
- Amazing fact is that meteorites that fell on the early Earth brought reduced phosphorus to the planet. This allowed oxidation to phosphates, thus providing a mechanism for the generation of DNA and RNA.
- Amazing fact is all humans have the DNA structure that is 99.9% similar, and the last 0.01% is enough to identify different DNA sequences and that makes everybody different.
- The DNA within each cell is almost 2 mtr long, but it is amazingly constrained in no more than 0.09 mm . Humans have about 100 trillion cells containing DNA.
- There are approximately 3 billion chemical letters (Called bases) in the DNA code in your body. One million bases of DNA sequence data is roughly equivalent to 1 megabyte of computer data storage space . A complete 3 billion base genome would take 3 gigabytes of storage space.
- Amazingly you could fit 25,000 strands of DNA side by side in the width of a single adult hair.
- Fact is the full stop at the end of a sentence is the size of one thousand cell nuclei which hold DNA.
- Besides the DNA present in the nucleus, people also have DNA present in mitochondria. This DNA is only inherited from the mother as only eggs have mitochondria and not sperms. Due to such inheritance, the genetic abnormality will be expressed in all children of the abnormality carrying mother and in no children of the father with the same abnormality.
- The DNA is tightly coiled up and structured into 46 chromosomes. Our chromosomes are arranged in pairs. We inherit one copy of the pair from each of our parents. One chromosome can have as little as 50 million base pairs or as much as 250 million base pairs.
- The sex determining chromosomes ( X & Y) are the only asymmetrical chromosomes. X chromosome has about 153 million bases while Y chromosome has 60 million bases.
- Amazing fact is if you put all the DNA molecules in your body end to end, the DNA would reach from the Earth to the Sun and back over 600 times.
- If you could type 60 words per minute, eight hours a day, it would take amazing 50 years to type the human genome.
- Sections of DNA that code for proteins are called genes. The complete set of genetic information for an organism is called the genome. The latest estimate is that there are between 20,000 and 25,000 genes in the human genome. Amazingly genes only make up 2-3% of genome.
- The average gene is 10,000 to 15,000 bases long.
- Fact is scientists completed final draft of human genome sequence only in 2003.
- Amazingly only 2 percent of the human genome contains information regarding the formation of proteins. All the rest are so called non-coding regions.
- DNA is amazngly fragile molecule. About a thousand times a day, something happens to damage it to cause errors and the body has an elaborate and constantly active system to repair it. Failure to repair DNA can lead to cancer or even cell death.
- Changes in the DNA sequence are called mutations. Many things can cause mutations, including UV irradiation from the sun, chemicals like drugs etc.
- DNA is like an engineer! It draws a plan known as RNA (Ribonucleic acid). It constructs a building called Protein! A mistake made by an engineer results in the mistake in his plan which in turn affects the building. Thus any mutation in DNA results in change in RNA which synthesizes wrong protein leading to genetic disorders.
- Amazing thing is that a teaspoon of DNA, could contain all the information needed to build the proteins for all the species of organisms that have ever lived on the earth and there would still be enough room left for all the information in every book ever written.
- All non-Africans are part Neanderthal, and you can get DNA testing to tell you how much Neanderthal you are as well as your ancestral lineage, and any potential genetic health problems.
- Amazingly about 8 % of the human DNA is made up of ancient viruses that used to infect us.
- It’s amazing that you have 98% of your DNA in common with a chimpanzee and 92% common with mouse. Human DNA is closer to a rat than a cat.
- Human DNA is 50% similar to bananas and cabbages.
- The technique to identify the similarities of the DNA fragments of 2 individuals is called DNA fingerprinting developed by Alec Jeffreys (1985). It is used as a forensic tool to solve paternity, rape, murder etc. it can also be used for the diagnosis of genetic diseases.
- DNA testing can be done on blood, cheek cells and urine samples.
- In forensics, DNA analysis usually looks at 13 specific DNA markers (segments of DNA). The odds that two individuals will have the same 13-loci DNA profile is about one in one billion.
- Fact is that DNA has a 521 year half-life, which means that the oldest cloneable samples of DNA could be no more than 2 million years old, ruling out any possibility of ever replicating dinosaurs, as the youngest dinosaurs were around more than 65 million years ago.
- In an experiment conducted by Harvard researchers, they were able to store amazing 700 terabytes of data on a single gram of DNA.
- There is a memory device orbiting the Earth aboard the International Space Station that contains the DNA of Stephen Hawking, Stephen Colbert, Lance Armstrong, among others, in case of some worldwide catastrophe. It is called the “Immortality Drive.”
- The amazing fact is instead of venom, the Braconid wasp produces an immune-suppressing virus, which paves the way for its parasitic larvae in the host. This adaptation is the result of a 100-million-year-old virus, which altered the wasp’s DNA leading to the formation of an organ, whose sole purpose is to assemble the virus.
- The Hornsleth Deep Storage Project has lowered a cast iron sculpture into the Marianas Trench, which will be filled with human blood, hair samples, and animal DNA so that it could be used to bring people and endangered species back to life in the future.
Fill your life with LOVE: www.wisdomlovequotes.com
