Science Fundamentals: DNA

After my series on Scientific Literacy (please go check that out), I wanted to do a series on the fundamentals of science. Hopefully these quick explanations of science terms and processes are helpful, and are part of the groundwork for your scientific literacy. If there are topics that you would like me to cover, please let me know in the comments. I have a PhD in microbiology/biochemistry, but I am happy to do some digging into topics that I don’t deal with everyday.

This Science Fundamental is on DNA. It is probably a term that you are familiar with in common language, but how much do you know about the science behind those 3 letters?

What is DNA?

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) contains all of the instructions required for the growth, development, and reproduction of an organism.It is a polymer, a term you might be more familiar with in plastic. ‘Poly’ just means many, and ‘mer’ is a thing. So a polymer is something that is made of ‘many things’. DNA is two long chains of nucleic acids (the ‘mer’ in polymer for DNA). These two long chains wrap around each other forming the iconic double helix. If this doesn’t come to mind, think of a ladder that twists like a spiral staircase as it goes up. The backbone of the helix, or the sides of the ladder, is sturdy made of sugar to sugar links. It isn’t table sugar, but it’s apparently sweet and can be used in lemonade ( who…