DNA
Have you ever wondered why my eyes are this color? Or any questions about why we look like this. All of our characteristics boil down to our genetics. Those genetics are family traits that are passed down through our lineages. It all comes down to what are considered the fundamental building blocks of life, DNA is the basic substance in the life forms you see around you, but it is a complicated concept. Your DNA determines the color of your eyes, skin, hair and enables functions such as sight and hearing. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, which contains the biological aspects that make each person different. DNA is all contained in one molecule, and there are millions of tightly packed DNA cells throughout many life forms, making it the building block of DNA. DNA. We’ve all heard about DNA for years, but what do you really know about it? What is DNA made of? In this article, we will talk about this mini miracle called DNA.
Like any good story, we have to start at the beginning. DNA was discovered in 1868 by a Swiss medical student named Johann Friedrich Miescher. Miescher was working with pus from an operating room, where he was investigating white blood cells. It was in these white blood cells that he found the instruction booklet for making us who we are. It is important to note that DNA is in all living things. Although Miescher discovered DNA in 1868, it would be more than 80 years before DNA was considered actual genetic material. After Miescher found DNA, the medical and scientific communities of that time felt that DNA was too simple to be genetic material. They would further discover that DNA is a long complex polymer made of repeating nucleotides.
So complex and long, in fact, human chromosome number one has been recorded to be 85 nanometers long and contains 220 million base pairs. The double-stranded DNA structure is made up of alternating sugar and phosphate bonds. Holding together these sugar and phosphate bonds is hydrogen. We mentioned earlier that DNA was considered too simple in early discoveries to be truly viable genetic material. This was thought due to the four base materials found throughout DNA. These are adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine with these four bases attached to the sugar / phosphate that make up the complete nucleotide. This is just a brief definition of what alone are the three most important letters in existence, DNA.