Word: coding
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...nuclei of reproductive cells are mere blobs of protoplasm, apparently much alike. But each of them contains a genetic "instruction code" that tells it how to develop into a particular sort of creature, ranging from a bacterium to a man. In the case of higher animals, the cell's instructions are carried by long, coiled-up molecules of DXA (deoxyribonucleic acid). In the instance of some viruses, which are the simplest of organisms, the code is found in RNA (ribonucleic acid), which is less complicated...
Like DNA, the RNA molecule has four different chemical groups-called bases -strung along it in sequences like the peaks and notches on a Yale kev. Biologists are convinced that the bases make up a genetic code of four letters-in roughly the same sense that the Morse code of telegraphy has three letters...
dash and space. The scientists' dearest wish is to break the code in order to find what sequence of bases leads to a given genetic result, such as red hair in humans. Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...
Akira Tsugita and Dr. Heinz Fraenkel-Conrat. both of the University of California at Berkeley, tell this week how they pinned a specific chemical change in a virus to a change in the code...
...core of coiled-up RNA surrounded by a cylindrical jacket made of protein molecules. Tsugita and Fraenkel-Conrat first stripped off the jacket by use of a protein-dissolving chemical. Then they treated the naked RNA with nitrous acid, which is known to affect the RNA's code-carrying bases. After the nitrous acid had. acted, the RNA was enabled to clothe itself in a new coat of protein. This made it a functioning virus again, and when it was injected into a tobacco plant, it multiplied in the plant's cells and caused a disease that...