Word: dna
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Back in the late 1950s, Stuart Ressler was one of the eager young scientists trying to crack the genetic code of the DNA molecule. In the mid-'80s, he works the night shift for a computer billing outfit in Brooklyn. What brought Ressler to this dead-end job? That is only one of the questions posed and answered by this demanding, dazzling novel. Also on display are two love stories, two intertwined narratives, vast erudition and a white-knuckled, suspense-filled investigation into the meaning of life...
Back in the late 1950s, Stuart Ressler was one of the eager young scientists trying to crack the genetic code of the DNA molecule. In the mid-'80s, he works the night shift for a computer billing outfit in Brooklyn. What brought Ressler to this dead-end job? That is only one of the questions posed and answered by this demanding, dazzling novel. Also on display are two love stories, two intertwined narratives, vast erudition and a white-knuckled, suspense-filled investigation into the meaning of life...
...polymerase chain reaction, a deceptively simple process with an ungainly name, may turn out to be the most important tool for genetics research since Mendel's peas. PCR takes a snippet of DNA and in a matter of hours clones up to a billion perfect copies. In the past year it has proved invaluable in everything from making prenatal diagnoses of genetic diseases to identifying rape suspects from a single sperm cell...
...from a carbon dioxide molecule. And at Stanford University, physicist Steven Chu has mastered techniques for levitating millions of sodium atoms inside a stainless-steel canister and releasing them all at once in luminescent fountains. Of late, Chu and his colleagues have amused themselves by stretching a double-stranded DNA molecule as taut as a tent rope. When they ! release one end, the molecule recoils like a miniature rubber band. Boing...
OPTICAL TWEEZERS. With a single beam of infrared laser light, scientists can seize and manipulate everything from DNA molecules to bacteria and yeast without harming them. Among other things, optical tweezers can keep a tiny organism swimming in place while scientists study its paddling flagella under a microscope. Optical tweezers can also reach right through cell membranes to grab specialized structures known as organelles and twirl them around. Currently, researchers are using the technology to measure the mechanical force exerted by a single molecule of myosin, one of the muscle proteins responsible for motion. Scientists are also examining the swimming...