genome.
An alternative and more common o regard tructionmanual for ters and tructions for making proteins. tructions are ten are called codons, and tters are knoters of tic alp—consist of tides mentioned a page or two back:
adenine, tosine. Despite tance of ances are not made of anytic. Guanine, for instance, is tuff tabounds in, and gives its name to, guano.
taircase orted rope ladder: ts of tructure are made of a typeof sugar called deoxyribose, and teps) are formed by tosine and tters appear as youmove up or doitutes t .
Noicular brilliance of DNA lies in its manner of replication. is time toproduce a nerands part do, and eaco form a nenerside along astrand pairs up ide, eacrand serves as a template for tion of a necrand. If you possessed just one strand of your o tc tnerships:
if topmost rung on one strand topmost rung on tcrand must be cytosine. ork your ide pairings, and eventually you t nature does it really quickly—inonly a matter of seconds, .
Most of time our DNA replicates iful accuracy, but just occasionally—aboutone time in a million—a letter gets into tidepolymorpo biocs as a “Snip.” Generally tretcectable consequence for the body.
But occasionally t leave you predisposed to some disease,but equally t confer some sligage—more protective pigmentation, forinstance, or increased production of red blood cells for someone living at altitude. Over time,t modifications accumulate in botions, contributing totinctiveness of both.
tion is a fine one. too many errors andt function, but too fe sacrifices adaptability. A similar balance mustexist betability in an organism and innovation. An increase in red blood cells can ions to move and breat additional red cells also too many,and “it’s like pumping oil,” in temple University ant Cz.
t’s . to live at itude get increased breat pay for it s. By sucuralselection look after us. It also o explain let you become too different—not becoming a new spec