Page 42 - The Miracle in the Cell

THE MIRACLE IN THE CELL
perform such amazing tasks, could have formed as a result of a series
of coincidental joinings of single atoms. Just like someone who's been
hypnotized and imagines himself to be a door, a tree or a lizard when
suggested so.

The Language of DNA's Encyclopedia
The most important means of communication between individu-
als and generations is with words, which are represented by letters.
English is a language written with 26 letters, in other words a code of
26 symbols. These symbols form words, and words form sentences.
This code enables the communication and storage of information.
The language of the cell is similar: All of a human being's physi-
cal features have been codified and stored in the nucleus of the cell,
where the cell can refer to again by using this code. This code is the
language of the director molecule, the DNA, formed from four special
bases called nucleotides, each represented by one of the letters A, T, G,
and C. These bases, by coming together one after the other in a mean-
ingful manner, form the DNA molecule (Figures 2.2 and 2.3).
Information in the nucleus' data bank is stored in this way. In the
interests of simplicity when explaining the cell's information coding
system, we'll keep using these letters to represent the nucleic acid mol-
ecules making up DNA.
These letters form opposite pairs and form one rung of the lad-
der. These rungs are joined together to form genes. Every gene, which
is just one section of the DNA molecule, controls a particular feature
in the human body. Innumerable characteristics such as height, eye
color, and shape of nose, ears, and skull come about via commands
given by the relevant genes. We can compare these genes to the pages
of a book, which bears various writings made up from the four letters
A, T, C and G.
In the DNA of human beings are found about 200,000 genes, each
made up of between 1,000 and 186,000 nucleotides, which come

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