• Question: What is deoxyribonucleic acid ?

    Asked by Maria Plaza to Chloe, Irene, Pierre, NULL, Uday on 10 Nov 2015. This question was also asked by mylastlife.
    • Photo: Irene Regan

      Irene Regan answered on 10 Nov 2015:

      Very good Q,
      Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA is a molecule,
      it contains the instructions an organism needs to develop, live and reproduce. These instructions are found inside every cell, and are passed down from parents to their children.

    • Photo: NULL

      NULL answered on 11 Nov 2015:

      DeoxyriboNucleic Acid is shortened to DNA.

      It is a big long molecule, made up of thousands of atoms. You have DNA in each of the cells in your body, and it acts like a library. When you cell needs something, it usually looks up the DNA molceule to see how to make it.

      It’s a special molecule, because it looks like a ladder (a very, very long ladder), which twists around as you go up it. It’s special because it can unzip! Each side of the ladder can come apart like the zip on your coat, and then the cell can build up the missing sides, and you end up with two ladders, exactly the same.

      That’s really important when cells divide into two, because each of the “daughter” cells will end up with a DNA molecule.

    • Photo: Pierre Casaubielh

      Pierre Casaubielh answered on 11 Nov 2015:

      That’s a very long name, isn’t it?, for something that everything living has.
      DeoxyriboNucleic Acid is the chemical name of a molecule, we often shorten it and call it DNA.
      The DNA characterises everyone of us and it can be found in the cells in all plants, animals, people.
      If we just look at people, this molecule contains details of hair and skin colour, blood type. We all different… thanks to the DNA.

      However it can happen that two people share the same DNA, so they will look the “same”, and we call them twins (do you know any? There are some in my family)

    • Photo: Chloe Huseyin

      Chloe Huseyin answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      I think the others have already explained what DNA is really well.

      DNA is really important in biology as scientists can use DNA to figure out all kinds of things. DNA is important in forensics, genetics, molecular biology and medicine.

      We can use DNA to tell if two people are related, what kind of a bacteria we have found and to diagnose genetic diseases and lots of other things too 🙂

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