Life is one of those things we often take for granted. But that may be because it’s just part of our existence every day. It might seem simple to define life as well, but it can be quite complex. There are several things that scientists agree are essential to call something “alive”. In order for an…
Have you ever had difficulty describing where something is in relation to others? When scientists discuss where things are on a person or other animal, they also need words to compare. Two such words are DISTAL and PROXIMAL. Distal means that something is further from either the center of the body or a point of…
The most common product of a genetic instruction is the protein. Proteins are workhorses of the cell, helping reactions to occur and transporting things from one place to another. The building blocks of proteins are AMINO ACIDS. Amino acids are molecules that can link together like a chain. On one end is an NH2 (also…
Your codebook of DNA holds all the instructions needed to make your cells function. Each unit of instruction comes in the form of a GENE, a sequence of DNA that encodes for a trait. A given location (also called a locus) on a chromosome is home to a particular gene, which encodes for a particular…
With few exceptions, each of us has about 3 billion bases in our DNA on 46 chromosomes (and 2 sex chromosomes). If you stretched out that DNA, it would be 2m long! How can something so long it fit into cells which need a microscope to be seen? Your cells package the DNA, allowing it…
At the very core of making living things work is DNA, which stands for Deoxyribonucleic Acid. DNA is just a molecule, made up of different parts held together in a ladder-like structure. We call this structure a double helix. DNA holds the genetic material that tells our cells how to make all the things we need…
Would you believe it if I told you that you and I, the ground we walk on, the sun, and everything else is made of the same things? We are all composed of atoms. Atoms are the smallest thing that exists that gives a substance its chemical properties. Atoms are made of two main parts….
