News tagged with dna strand
The next computer: your genes
(PhysOrg.com) -- "Human beings are more or less like a computer," Jian-Jun Shu tells PhysOrg.com. "We do computing work, and our DNA can be used in computing operations." Shu is a professor at the School of Mec ...
May 16, 2011 |
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Scientists Build Nanostructures out of Single DNA Strands
(PhysOrg.com) -- With its unique double-helical structure, DNA has the ability to be used as a programmable building material to construct designer nanoscale architectures. Complex DNA architectures could ...
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Sep 08, 2009 |
5 / 5 (4) |
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Scientists create first 3-D map of human genome
(PhysOrg.com) -- For the first time, scientists have developed a method for generating accurate three-dimensional models of the entire DNA strand of a cell, known as a genome.
Jan 04, 2012 |
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Physicists say nanoparticle assembly is like building with LEGOs
New processes that allow nanoparticles to assemble themselves into designer materials could solve some of today's technology challenges, Alex Travesset of Iowa State University and the Ames Laboratory reports ...
Oct 13, 2011 |
5 / 5 (6) |
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A $1000 genome could be reached by 2013
(PhysOrg.com) -- A new report published in the journal Nature describes the new machine created by Jonathan Rothberg of Ion Torrent Systems which uses semiconductors to decode DNA and takes them one step c ...
Jul 21, 2011 |
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Researchers create the first artificial neural network out of DNA
Artificial intelligence has been the inspiration for countless books and movies, as well as the aspiration of countless scientists and engineers. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) ...
Jul 20, 2011 |
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Overturning 250 years of scientific theory: Age, repeated injury do not affect newt regeneration
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have been wrong for 250 years about a fundamental aspect of tissue regeneration, according to a University of Dayton biologist who says his recent discovery is good news for humans.
Jul 12, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (14) |
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Origami: Not just for paper anymore
While the primary job of DNA in cells is to carry genetic information from one generation to the next, some scientists also see the highly stable and programmable molecule as an ideal building material for ...
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Apr 27, 2011 |
4.6 / 5 (5) |
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Scientists crash test DNA's replication machinery
(PhysOrg.com) -- Important molecular machines routinely crash into one another while plying their trades on DNA. New research shows that the enzymes that copy DNA before cell division, called replisomes, are the kings of ...
Feb 10, 2010 |
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Chemists Discover How Cells Create Stability During Critical DNA-to-RNA Information Transfers
(PhysOrg.com) -- A pair of University of Massachusetts Amherst chemists believe they have for the first time explained how the main players in transcription -- RNA polymerase, RNA (red in illustration) and ...
Dec 29, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (12) |
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Antarctic lake home to diverse community of viruses
(PhysOrg.com) -- A study of the genetic structure of viruses in an Antarctic lake has revealed an astonishing genetic richness in the large number of viral families discovered.
Nov 11, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (17) |
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Metal sheets with DNA framework may enable nanocircuits
(PhysOrg.com) -- Using DNA not as a genetic material but as a structural support, Cornell researchers have created thin sheets of gold nanoparticles held together by strands of DNA. The work could prove useful ...
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
May 20, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
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Progress Toward Artificial Tissue?
(PhysOrg.com) -- For modern implants and the growth of artificial tissue and organs, it is important to generate materials with characteristics that closely emulate nature.
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
May 15, 2009 |
5 / 5 (6) |
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Researchers create novel nanotechnique to sequence human genome
Since the human genome was sequenced six years ago, the cost of producing a high-quality genome sequence has dropped precipitously. More recently, the National Institutes of Health called for cutting the cost ...
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Apr 15, 2009 |
5 / 5 (3) |
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DNA 'tricked' to act as nano-building blocks
(PhysOrg.com) -- McGill researchers have succeeded in finding a new way to manufacture nanotubes, one of the important building blocks of the nanotechnology of the future. Their building material? Biological DNA.
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Apr 13, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (8) |
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DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. DNA is often compared to a set of blueprints or a recipe, or a code, since it contains the instructions needed to construct other components of cells, such as proteins and RNA molecules. The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in regulating the use of this genetic information.
Chemically, DNA consists of two long polymers of simple units called nucleotides, with backbones made of sugars and phosphate groups joined by ester bonds. These two strands run in opposite directions to each other and are therefore anti-parallel. Attached to each sugar is one of four types of molecules called bases. It is the sequence of these four bases along the backbone that encodes information. This information is read using the genetic code, which specifies the sequence of the amino acids within proteins. The code is read by copying stretches of DNA into the related nucleic acid RNA, in a process called transcription.
Within cells, DNA is organized into X-shaped structures called chromosomes. These chromosomes are duplicated before cells divide, in a process called DNA replication. Eukaryotic organisms (animals, plants, fungi, and protists) store most of their DNA inside the cell nucleus and some of their DNA in the mitochondria (animals and plants) and chloroplasts (plants only). Prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) however, store their DNA in the cell's cytoplasm. Within the chromosomes, chromatin proteins such as histones compact and organize DNA. These compact structures guide the interactions between DNA and other proteins, helping control which parts of the DNA are transcribed.
For more information about DNA, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
