Word: acidity
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...chemists synthesize life? Not quite yet. But famed Biochemist Gerhard Schramm of the Max Planck Institute for Virus Research at Tubingen, Germany, is coming remarkably close. Last month he told a conference at Munich that he has managed with simple chemicals to build nucleic acid, the most vital compound in living organisms-and he used the same processes that are thought to have created the first life on earth...
...animals. Lightning flashes, so the theory goes, forced these gases to form complicated chemicals that dissolved in sea water. There the chemicals reacted with each other and the water, forming bigger and bigger molecules. After millions or billions of years of this process, a single molecule-perhaps a nucleic acid-was formed that had the ability to grow, reproduce and evolve into higher organisms...
When Watson and Crick began their research in England, DNA (Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid) had already been identified as the genetic substance of cells. Information on its chemical composition suggested that it was a very long, thin molecule made up of sugar groups (deoxyribose), phosphate groups, and nitrogen-containing "bases." Further, X-ray diffraction patterns of fibrous DNA indicated that the form of the molecule was a double helix...
...Holt Jr. Four years ago, Dr. John P. Gibson of Abilene, Texas, had come to a similar conclusion, from studying 150 normal, full-term babies. He got the idea from mothers who had forgotten to warm a bottle. Dr. Holt figured that he could put the idea to the acid test by trying unwarmed formulas on premature babies, who would react much more sharply if cold formula did not agree with them...
...Fifteen years ago, random research at Corning led to a photosensitive glass. Then, imprinting images with ultraviolet rays and heat, Corning tried to market the glass as decorative wall panels. The effort flopped, but curious scientists found that intricate images could be easily etched on the new glass with acid. Now it serves in miniaturized printed circuits for missile systems. With such attention to the laboratory, Corning has built a file of 100,000 different formulas for glass and ceramics, and boasts that 25% of its sales are of products introduced in the last five years...