Interesting facts about the Human Body

Interesting facts about deoxy-ribo-nucleic acid (DNA)

1. The first image of DNA was conducted using an x -ray imagery performed by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins in the 1950s. It was from this image that James Watson and Francis Crick managed to discover the 3D structure of DNA, which turned out to be a double helical structure bound together by four different bases, just imagine a twisted ladder.

2. DNA is bound together via complementary base pairing. These being adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). It is found that (G) bases always bind to (C) bases and (A) bases always bind to (T) bases. However, in RNA (A) is complementary to Uracil (U) instead of (T).

3. DNA is present in the nucleus of all of our cells. The length of DNA from one cell is thought to be around 2-3 meters long. There are also many claims that if you were to unravel the entire DNA from all of your cells and joined them together end to end that it would extend many miles into space.

4. The DNA is like a library full of instructions on how to build many structures. When these structures need to be built the DNA's double strands will be separated by small protein machinery and then replicated (copied). Once the required section has been copied the DNA strands will then be bound back together, and the new copied instructions will be passed on to other proteins outside the nucleus to begin building the structure.

5. Biopoiesis, also known as the study of the origins of life, when studied has shown that simple amino acids may have been the beginnings of life before the cell evolved. Triggered by external environmental factors 4 billion years ago on early earth may have formed together to make early proteins, which lead to the production of RNA (kind of like single stranded DNA) which may have allowed the proteins to produce more at a faster rate more often.

6. Our DNA is thought to contain around 8 percent of viral DNA. Like all living species when viruses invade cells they insert there DNA/RNA into our own DNA. This insertion causes the cell to make more viruses. Once the DNA replicates the viral DNA becomes permanent. Overtime these DNA stands have become hidden mostly being present among the junk DNA, the DNA that does not contain important genes.

7. Within the last decade scientist have discovered that humans of Eurasian origin have inherited anywhere from 1 to 4 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals. Since this discovery many hypothesis have spawned as to whether these genetic variants have had any major impact on certain human physical and behavioural characteristics.

8. There are found to be around 3.2 billion bases that make up our DNA in each cell. However,

97% of this DNA is thought to be 'junk DNA'. The term junk DNA is referred to DNA that has no apparent function at all. However, some scientists do believe that this junk DNA has hidden sequences that we are still yet to find. Recent research has shed light on the fact that most of the junk DNA is found in between exon s and may be required for protein regulation.

9. As you may be aware that 95% of our DNA is identical to chimpanzees, but what else are we closely related to? Well firstly each other, human are actually 99.5% genetically similar to each other. Secondly, we are 92% similar to mice and 44% to that of a fruit fly. Which would explain why they are the obvious choice for most genetic research?

10. At the end of each of our chromosomes are little capped proteins known as telomeres. The need for telomeres is to protect the end strands of the chromosomes, such as that on a shoelace to prevent fraying. Every time the entire DNA is replicated the telomeres become shorter. There has been a strong link between the shortening of the telomeres and aging. So, in a way the less your cell replicates the slower you will age, if only it was that easy!