This computer animation was dramatic. I’d never seen anything like it. It is a lively model demonstrating how DNA is copied and how DNA is transcribed into RNA, among other things. These critical activities certainly need to zip along, given the total unraveled length of the DNA in each human cell: six feet.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PKjF7OumYo[/youtube]
This animation was created by The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medicine at Melbourne, Australia.
More to be had here.
It's a beautiful illustration of our current understanding of some of the molecular mechanisms surrounding DNA. I'd known of the six feet number for a while. But it is never completely unfolded.
What I find more amazing is that we contain individual cells that actually do stretch three feet long: Spinal nerve axons (neurons). Giraffes and whales have much longer ones. After all, some of these cells start in the skull and end in the tail.
And these are actually the scaffolding for the Myelin cells that actually carry the nerve signals, allowing animals to grow so large.
A very very nice animation. They didn't explain what A, C, T, G and U meant though (yes, I know what they mean, but I still thought merely using these abbreviations was weird).