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The rails of the staircase are made of linked sugars and phosphates. The treads are paired molecules called
nucleotides.
There are four kinds of nucleotides: adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine, designated A, G, C and T. Adenine
always pairs with thymine, and guanme always pairs with cytosine, so that there are four kinds of treads along the
DNA staircase: A-T, T-A, GC and C-G. It is the sequence of these threads that is the genetic code.
The instructions for making a human being is written in a chemical code of just four letters.
Now, imagine the human DNA as a strand of sewing thread.
On this scale, the DNA in the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a typical human cell would be about 150 miles long,
with about 600 nucleotide pairs per inch. That is, the DNA in a single cell is equivalent to 1000 spools of sewing
thread. This represents two copies of the genetic code.
Take all that thread the 1000 spools worth and crumple it into 46 wads (the chromosomes). Stuff the wads into
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a shoe box (the cell nucleus) along with oh, say enough chicken-noodle soup to fill the box. Toss the shoe box into
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a steamer trunk (the cell), and fill the rest of the trunk with more soup.
Take the steamer trunk with its contents and shrink it down to an invisibly small object, smaller than the point of
a pin. Multiply that tiny object by a trillion and you have the trillion cells of the human body, each with its full
complement of DNA.
OK, now here comes the really astonishing part.
All that DNA those tens of trillions of wads of thread is not just sitting there, static. As you read this article, a
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factory of a thousand workers. A trillion cells humming with the business of life.
The more one thinks upon it the more unbelievable it sounds.
Can we believe it? You bet.
Sometime within the next year or so researchers will have provided a complete transcription of the human
genome a listing of the 3 billion nucleotide pairs that are the plan of a human life- one of the great milestones in the
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history of science.
Other researchers have developed ingenious ways using microscopic plastic spheres and laser “tweezers” to
manipulate single DNA molecules stretch them, snip them, measure forces, watch the protein motors at work,
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Chet Raymo is a professor of physics at Stonehill College and the author of several books on science.