Remove Books Remove Cell Biology Remove DNA
article thumbnail

What Limits a Genome’s Size?

Codon

And what they found, remarkably, is the world’s largest genome ; each fern cell contains 160.45 billion bases of DNA which, if unfurled, would extend for more than 100 meters—taller than the Statue of Liberty. billion bases of DNA, the human genome measures just 2 meters in length when stretched end-to-end.

DNA 59
article thumbnail

Fast Biology

Codon

I first encountered Von Baer’s thought experiment in Richard Fisher’s book, The Long View. Collecting the Numbers We can easily measure some things in biology yet struggle to measure others. Escherichia coli have about 5 million base pairs of DNA in their genome, and divide every 20 minutes.

RNA 98
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Codon Digest: Vaccine Printer Go Brrrrr!

Codon

2/ Live Long and Prosper, Lil’ Yeasty Boys Yeast cells usually live for about one week. Yeast die for two reasons: Either their nucleolus (where the DNA is kept) degrades and dies, or their mitochondria whimpers out and they stop making energy. kilobases” of DNA into a plant genome. (My Nature Cell Biology.

Vaccine 52
article thumbnail

Codon Digest: Vaccine Printer Go Brrrrr!

Codon

2/ Live Long and Prosper, Lil’ Yeasty Boys Yeast cells usually live for about one week. Yeast die for two reasons: Either their nucleolus (where the DNA is kept) degrades and dies, or their mitochondria whimpers out and they stop making energy. kilobases” of DNA into a plant genome. (My Nature Cell Biology.

Vaccine 52
article thumbnail

Biology is a Burrito

Codon

1 One rarely pauses to ponder how so much DNA — let alone sugar, proteins, and everything else — can fit inside such a small vessel. Biochemistry textbooks depict cells as spacious places, where molecules float in secluded harmony. Without mathematics, I learned, biology is naked; we can only comprehend it at arm's length.

RNA 52
article thumbnail

Levers for Biological Progress

Codon

For example, cloning DNA molecules and inserting them into cells — a process required for basically all experiments in molecular biology — takes up to a week of work. But looking ahead to the second bottleneck, what does it mean to say that biology is “complex”? Even the humble E.

DNA 107
article thumbnail

The Codon Guide to Synthetic Biology

Codon

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (2009). Link The second decade of synthetic biology: 2010–2020 , by Meng F. & Link Synthetic biology in mammalian cells: next generation research tools and therapeutics , by Lienert F. Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology (2014). . & Weiss R.

DNA 91