Word: rna
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...viruses are basically cubic or helical in structure. They also reveal that viruses may have an exquisitely complex symmetry around as many as five axes, and contain hundreds of submolecules, each of which may have a hollow hexagonal structure. Chemical tests show whether viruses have cores of ribonucleic acid (RNA) or deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and whether they have enzymes or fats in their coats...
...Huppert began with the generally accepted fact that a normal cell contains chemically coded information-in ribonucleic acid (RNA) or deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)-which determines how it reproduces itself. But, he suggested, ''a cell may acquire some wrong genetic information,' perhaps through the entry of a virus into the cell. The virus need not necessarily multiply within the cell; all that is necessary is for a piece of the virus' RNA or DNA to be substituted for part of the cell's normal nucleic acid...
Memory is thus the imprinting of a code on RNA molecules in millions of cells, like punch holes in a set of IBM cards. For example, an impulse caused by the ear's hearing "concert A" scurries from cell to cell until it finds those containing RNA molecules already keyed to respond to that note, and it is this chemical response that constitutes recognition of the note. The average human brain has ten billion neurons, so the number of possible permutations is astronomical. Further, said Dr. Hyden, this theory explains why neurologists have been unable to find precise centers...
Brainwasher on Tap. The next thing was to learn whether mental function can be chemically controlled. It can, said Dr. Hyden. Small doses of a new synthetic substance called tricyano-amino-propene ("triap") caused drastic changes in neuronal RNA and proteins in animals-and, according to preliminary studies...
...There is now evidence," said Hyden, "to prove that the RNA and enzyme changes are followed by an increased suggestibility in man. A defined change of functionally important substances in the brain could be used for conditioning a whole population." A police state government, he theorizes, could add such substances to tap water and brainwash the whole population at once...