Word: dna
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...took the geniuses of our time to reveal how beautifully ordered life is deep down where we can't see it at all--in the molecular workshop where we become who we are. James Watson and Francis Crick did not discover the existence of DNA; they discovered its structure, which means they unveiled its power as well as its beauty. If you could uncoil a strip of DNA, it would reach 6 ft. in length, a code book written in words of four chemical letters: A, T, G and C. Fold it back up, and it shrinks to trillionths...
...that we have only twice as many genes as a roundworm, about three times as many as a fruit fly, only six times as many as bakers' yeast. Some of those genes trace back to a time when we were fish; more than 200 come directly from bacteria. Our DNA provides a history book of where we come from and how we evolved. It is a family Bible that connects us all; every human being on the planet is 99.9% the same...
...BRCA1 gene can have a seven times greater chance of developing breast cancer. Scientists in Utah last week announced the discovery of a gene that seems to predispose carriers to depression. We are learning these things in part because of Watson, who, having revealed the simplicity of DNA's structure, wanted to explore the complexity of its function. He helped persuade Congress to fund the Human Genome Project, an attempt to decode the more than 3 billion letters of the complete human genome. Under competitive pressure from nimble private scientists, the goal was achieved ahead of schedule and under budget...
...many proteins there are or how they fold, which means among other things that a whole new kind of machine is needed to study them. The new computers are coming to life. IBM models its newest ones--computers that act like cells and fix themselves wherever they break--after DNA. The quantity of information is so vast, we have to invent new numbers to measure it: not just terabytes (a trillion bits of genetic data) but petabytes (equivalent to half the contents of all the academic libraries in America), exabytes, yottabytes and zettabytes. All the words ever uttered by everyone...
...ISSUE The Secret of Life Cracking the DNA code has changed how we live, heal and imagine the future...