Quotes About DNA

Superhero stories are kind of in my DNA from childhood on, so I think I'm genetically drawn to playing in the genre when the opportunity presents itself.

You can buy turmeric from any supermarket - or get it raw from Asian shops and grate a quarter of an inch of the root into your food. There's evidence to suggest raw turmeric may have greater anti-inflammatory effects, while cooked turmeric offers better DNA protection.

DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

For more than three thousand million years, DNA has been the only replicator worth talking about in the world. But it does not necessarily hold these monopoly rights for all time. Whenever conditions arise in which a new kind of replicator can make copies of itself, the new replicators will tend to take over, and start a new kind of evolution of their own.

It is raining DNA outside.

Just by chance, you could happen to give all your mother's versions to your child, and none of your father's. In this case, your father would have given no DNA to his grandchild. Of course such a scenario is highly unlikely, but as we go down to more distant descendants, total non-contribution of DNA becomes more possible.

Just as a linguist penetrates the past to Proto-Indo-European, triangulating from modern languages and from already reconstructed dead languages, we can do the same with modern organisms, comparing either their external characteristics or their protein or DNA sequences.

There is no universally agreed definition of a gene.

The life of any one physical DNA molecule is quite short—perhaps a matter of months, certainly not more than one lifetime. But a DNA molecule could theoretically live on in the form of copies of itself for a hundred million years.

An active replicator is any replicator whose nature has some influence over its probability of being copied. For example a DNA molecule, via protein synthesis, exerts phenotypic effects which influence whether it is copied: this is what natural selection is all about.

Most of the DNA molecules in our bodies are dead-end replicators. They may be the ancestors of a few dozen generations of mitotic replication, but they will definitely not be long-term ancestors.

A DNA molecule in the germ-line of an individual who happens to die young, or who otherwise fails to reproduce, should not be called a dead-end replicator. Such germ-lines are, as it turns out, terminal. They fail in what may metaphorically be called their aspiration to immortality. Differential failure of this kind is what we mean by natural selection.

The word replicator is purposely defined in a general way, so that it does not even have to refer to DNA.

Scientists who use such language, whether at the level of the individual or the gene, know very well that it is only a figure of speech. Genes are just DNA molecules. You'd have to be barking mad to think that 'selfish' genes really have deliberate intentions to survive!

You may have heard that DNA is a 'blueprint' for a body, but that's deeply wrong. Houses and cars have blueprints. Babies don't. The difference is entirely separate from the fact that cars and houses are designed whereas babies aren't. Here's the deeper difference. In a blueprint there's a one-to-one 'mapping' between each bit of the house (or car) and each bit of the blueprint.

Returning, for clarification, to DNA as our archetypal replicator, its consequences on the world are of two important types. Firstly, it makes copies of itself, making use of the cellular apparatus of replicases, etc. Secondly, it has effects on the outside world, which influence the chances of its copies' surviving.

Humans have always wondered about the meaning of life... life has no higher purpose than to perpetuate the survival of DNA... life has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.

Obviously it was happenstance, but it did change my opinion of human nature. I now saw war as a constant, akin to wildfires. They break out unless you work actively to prevent them. It's an atavistic thing, buried deep in our DNA.

The bombs disrupted molecular structures. The cocktails included the distribution of nanotechnology to help to speed up the recovery of the earth—nanotechnology that promotes the self-assembly of molecules. The nanotechnology, speeded up by DNA, which is an informational material but also excellent at the self-assembly of cells, made our fusing stronger. And the nanotechnology that hit the humans trapped in rubble or scorched land helped them to regenerate.

I kind of grew up with hip hop and of course being from Detroit I'm a Motown man. Music is in our blood. When you're from Detroit, music is in your DNA.

In effect, our bodies and brains are a device or vessel 'birthed' by our Divine Spark out of DNA to act as information gathering equipment, as well as earthly transportation vehicles and as energy harvesting and processing devises. Additionally, the Divine Spark is capable of "morphing" our bodies into a star or light-gate for entrance to Sion and to be able to function there.

Predisposition is not predestination. We humans are much, much more than our DNA.

Richard Dawkins' assessment of human worth may be depressing, but why, given atheism, is he mistaken when he says, "There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference.… We are machines for propagating DNA.… It is every living object's sole reason for being"?

tyranny is a central theme of American history, that racial exploitation and racial conflict have been part of the DNA of American culture.