Who Wants To Sound Smart?

             CELINE'S TUTORIAL ON SOUNDING SMART: 

Oh no! All your friends are sounding smart and you don't know how! Well, you've come to the right place! All you have to do, is say big words! Like this for example: deoxyribonucleic acid. Can you say that? Yay! Now you can smart with all you're friends! Just remember, it's deoxyribonucleic acid! 




     
         Now that you know a big word, don't you wanna know what it means? No? Well you'r gonna learn anyways! Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is the thing tells you how you are. You remember how there are 46 chromosomes in your body? Well, there are about 50-100 genes in each chromosomes. And those genes are made up of DNA. The DNA contains little molecules that hold traits that you have. Like what color hair you have, how tall you are, your eye color, etc. 




      Although the structure of DNA looks complicated, it's actually not. It's made of four base pairs called nucleotides. Imagine a set of blocks with only four shapes, or an alphabet with only four letters. DNA is basically a long strand of these blocks or letters. Each nucleotide has a bound of sugar of which one side is attached to a phosphate group and the other side of it is attached to a nitrogenous group. The four letters of blocks we were talking about earlier are called adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). 


 

        The shape of DNA is pretty cool. It has two strands that hold the nucleotides in place. They twist together to form a double helix. Each nucleotide matches up with another one. Adenine with thymine and guanine with cytosine. These are called base pairs. They only go with each other. Because if you see a mismatch like adenine with cytosine, then you're going to have some kind of deformity or mutation. 


 

        Now since we know the structure, let's talk about how they replicate. First, the enzymes in the DNA makes the helix split up. Then, little protein enzymes cover the side of the DNA to keep it separate. A new strand is starting to form and it makes new nucleotides. After the DNA makes sure the base pairs match, they twist together and from a new DNA molecule! 


 

       This whole time, I've been talking how DNA is so extremely important. But actually, only 2% of DNA is really important. The other 98% is junk DNA. They aren't exactly useless, but that part of DNA isn't as important as the other parts. Scientists don't really know what that 2% does. It's just.. there! 





       So we all know DNA, but do we know RNA? RNA stand for ribonucleic acid. They both are really important but DNA just gets all the credit. Well first off, RNA has only one strand in its helix unlike DNA which has two strands. The DNA basically makes a list of all the genes and stuff the body needs and gives it to the RNA to take to different cells. Unlike DNA, RNA can leave the cell and travel around while DNA can never leave. Poor DNA, it's forever grounded!




       A lot of people love learning about DNA. They even got rewarded for their research! These people were Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, James Watson, and Francis Crick. They got Nobel Peace Prizes! Yay for them!! 





        Here are some cool links! Click here to learn about those scientists I mentioned.  Click here to learn about the structure of DNA.  Click here to learn about DNA and RNA.
Well that's all for this blog! Hope you guys learned a bunch of cool words that can make you sound smart! Bye! Science Fun:)