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    DNA: A Graphic Guide to the Molecule that Shook the World
    DNA: A Graphic Guide to the Molecule that Shook the World
    DNA: A Graphic Guide to the Molecule that Shook the World
    Ebook329 pages2 hours

    DNA: A Graphic Guide to the Molecule that Shook the World

    By Israel Rosenfield, Edward Ziff and Borin Van Loon

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    About this ebook

    A graphic portrayal of a complicated science for a wide range of readers, full of humor, depth, and philosophical and historical insight.
     
    Suitable for use in and out of the classroom, this volume covers DNA’s many marvels, from its original discovery in 1869 to early-twentieth-century debates on the mechanisms of inheritance and the deeper nature of life’s evolution and variety.
     
    Even readers who lack a background in science and philosophy will learn a tremendous amount from this engaging narrative. The book elucidates DNA’s relationship to health and the cause and cure of disease. It also covers the creation of new life forms, nanomachines, and perspectives on crime detection, and considers the philosophical sources of classical Darwinian theory and recent, radical changes in the understanding of evolution itself. Already these developments have profoundly affected our notions about living things. Borin Van Loon’s humorous illustrations recount the contributions of Gregor Mendel, Frederick Griffith, James Watson, and Francis Crick, among other biologists, scientists, and researchers, and vividly depict the modern controversies surrounding the Human Genome Project and cloning.
     
    “A unique, richly detailed, and fun biography of DNA grounded in deep historical and philosophical knowledge . . . Everything we need to know about biology’s most important molecule.” —Olive Sacks, author of Everything In Its Place
     
    “A remarkable book . . . Novel, easy to read, and fun . . . I spent many years mastering genetics yet learned new and valuable things from this book.” —Robert Trivers, author of Wild Life: Adventures of an Evolutionary Biologist
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateFeb 2, 2011
    ISBN9780231512312
    DNA: A Graphic Guide to the Molecule that Shook the World

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    • 4/5
      I took a genetics course in college. Needless to say, I didn't do so well. This book Sums up everything from that class, with easy to understand pictures. Some concepts that I was really didn't understand made a whole lot more sense. I really could of used this book in the genetics course, and, I would think, it would cost considerably less than my bulky genetics books.This book isn't perfect. I would have liked the subjects more separated. As it is written, its hard tell when a new topic starts and an old topic ends. Also, my version was written in 2011. Not a long time ago, but each year more is understood about how DNA controls protein function, that I suspect that this book might be a bit outdated.Highly recommended if you want to know more about the subject, or need a study guide for a basic genetics/cell biology course.

    Book preview

    DNA - Israel Rosenfield

    Preface

    Israel Rosenfield, Edward Ziff, & Borin Van Loon

    This book is about DNA, the molecule that has a broad impact on our daily lives, affecting virtually all our activities. The original version of this book, DNA for Beginners, appeared at a time when DNA was already considered a fascinating subject, but no one would have foreseen that more than twenty years later its impact would reach almost every nook and cranny of human activity. The subject itself has radically changed. Our aim is to acquaint readers with this change and point to the deep moral, political, legal, financial, and scientific implications that now come into play.

    The unveiling of the human genome has given us a new understanding of where we come from, who we are, and what we might become. It has shed light on our health and states of mind and affected our political and social relations. It has changed the study and practice of medicine – in terms of both diagnosis and treatment. The use (and abuse) of DNA in the courtroom has become common practice and has altered our notions of law. DNA has transformed our very understanding of what life is all about and has changed our view of evolution; we now have new insights into how our bodies are formed and a new understanding of our relation to other species.

    It is our hope that this book combines humor, scientific depth, and philosophical and historical insights and that it will interest a wide range of readers, including those without any scientific or philosophical background, who seek to gain a sophisticated sense of the subject. The book can be read at several levels. Those not wanting to spend time with too many details can skim over or skip some of the more technical passages and can be easily carried along by the humorous illustrations, which often convey scientific and philosophical information. Some readers and students may want a deeper sense of the subject, and they may reread or spend more time on passages that delve into aspects of DNA that make it scientifically unique. It is important to realize that the humor and illustrations are as much a part of our conception of the book as the scientific text.

    The idea for this revised version of the book came from Jim Jordan, the director of Columbia University Press. Its unusual format – the cartoons and the need for technical accuracy – required considerable assistance from the staff of the press, and we owe a special debt of gratitude to Milenda Lee for her gracious acceptance of our numerous revisions of both text and drawings. Our thanks to Patrick Fitzgerald for his editorial comments and to the two anonymous reviewers for carefully correcting and improving the text and drawings. We also thank Irene Pavitt for her fine proofreading of the book.

    Introduction

    In December of 1949, almost four years before James Watson and Francis Crick published their model of DNA, launching the revolution in modern biology, the mathematician and designer of the computer, John von Neumann, gave a lecture explaining how a machine could reproduce. All it needs, he said, is a description of itself.

    A machine with a magnetic core could not reproduce the magnetic core by making a mold. However, if it had a description reading, magnetic core: electric wire tightly wound around metal bar five hundred times, etc. and it had the necessary raw materials, it could easily follow the description and build the magnetic core.

    The machine’s offspring could reproduce as well, if the machine made a copy of the description of itself and inserted that copy into every new machine. Given the necessary raw materials, the machines could go on making copies of themselves. As the necessary raw materials became scarce, much like their human designers, the machines would go to war.

    The description in von Neumann’s machine is analogous to the DNA found in living things. Like the description of the machine, DNA contains the coded description of the organism and is responsible for its capacity to reproduce.

    DNA was discovered in 1869 by Frederick Miescher, who was then 25 years old.

    Miescher was the son of a well-known physician in Basel. In 1869 he had gone to Tubingen to study the chemistry of white blood cells with the biochemist F. Hoppe-Seyler. He used pus obtained from postoperative bandages, as a source of the cells. When he added weak hydrochloric acid to the pus he obtained pure nuclei. If he added alkali and then acid to the nuclei a gray precipitate was formed. The precipitate was unlike any of the known organic substances. Since it came from the nucleus, Miescher called it nuclein. Today it is called DNA.

    Shortly after Miescher’s discovery, new staining techniques were developed which revealed band-like structures in the dividing cell that stained very darkly. In 1879 Walther Flemming introduced the term chromatin (chroma: Greek for color) to describe the intensely stained material in the nucleus. In 1881 E. Zacharia found that chromatin reacted to acid and alkali in the same way as Miescher’s nuclein. He concluded that nuclein and chromatin were one and the same.

    The chromatin material observed in the 1880’s was called chromosomes, the carriers of genes that are the basis of heredity. What is most remarkable is that some scientists studying fertilization made the connection between chromatin (chromosomes) and heredity already in the 1870’s. Using the light microscope, Hermann Fol in Switzerland and Oskar Hertwig in Berlin independently observed that the sperm penetrates the egg and that the nuclei of the sperm and the egg fuse. And Edouard Van Beneden, studying the threadworm Ascaris (a parasite of horses) noted that the sperm contributed the same number of chromosomes as the egg to the developing embryo. He also discovered meiosis, the halving of the number of chromosomes in the germ cells (the egg and the sperm). It was Flemming who observed cells dividing and saw chromosomes replicating. He concluded that chromosomes were a source of continuity from one generation to the next.

    So by the 1890’s scientists had come to have a clear idea of the nature of fertilization, and were even declaring that DNA (Miescher’s nuclein) was the basis of heredity.

    Modern genetics begins with Gregor Mendel’s famous experiments with garden peas in the 1860’s. Mendel had chosen peas that had certain pure traits which always breed true. He had plants that produced yellow seeds, and others that produced green seeds. When he cross-bred these types, all the progeny were yellow-seed-bearing plants. Mendel called the yellow trait DOMINANT, and the green RECESSIVE. He argued that the progeny of these first-generation crosses had each received an equal genetic contribution from each parent, but only the dominant yellow trait was manifested.

    When he crossed these first-generation hybrids with each other he found that 75% of the progeny were yellow and 25% green, confirming his supposition that the green gene (he didn’t use this term) had been there all the time. Mendel concluded that green and yellow were discrete genetic units which

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