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About DNA Encyclopedia

Dogs start out as puppies and kittens turn into cats. Children tend to grow up and resemble their parents and other family members. Passing down traits from parent to child, generation after generation, is called heredity. Whether you have black or blonde hair, brown or blue eyes, athletic or musical ability or both, all of these traits are determined, to some degree, by heredity. The question is, how do these traits get passed down?

In past centuries, it was customary to explain inheritance by saying, "it's all in the blood." People believed that children received blood from their parents and that a union of bloods led to the blending they saw in one's characteristics. Such expressions as "blood relations," "blood will tell," and "bloodlines" reflect this belief.

However, by the end of the 1800s, the blood basis of heredity was challenged and eventually discarded. In its place, scientists developed an interest in nucleic acid molecules organized into functional units called genes. Scientists guessed that genes control heredity by specifying the production of proteins. But even the gene basis of heredity was hard to believe because the amount of nucleic acid in the cell seemed insignificant.

The gene basis for heredity has been strengthened in the past fifty years, and it has become one of the foundation principles of biology. In the pages ahead, we will explore the development of the gene theory and note how interest grew in DNA as the substance of the gene. Long before scientists could apply the fruits of DNA research to modern technology, they had to learn what DNA was all about. "What purpose," they asked, "did DNA serve in a living cell?"

DNA Encyclopedia tries to provide extensive information about this complex and awesome molecule.



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