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Fiber Optics

The sun is shining; it's a brilliant day. The springboard flexes powerfully under your feet as you launch into a graceful arc through the air and into the crystal clear water below. Arms extended, you let the momentum of your dive take you back toward the surface. As you near the surface, the interface between the water and the air, you notice ...

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FiberOptics
Physics

Coming In Strong On Your AM Dial

The AM radio dial would be nothing but chaos and noise without a very basic rule - turn down the power at night. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) controls and regulates the airwaves in the ... Continue reading

AMRadioWaves
Geology

Geology Played Key Role in the End of the Civil War

Depending on your perspective, Mississippi geology was either an aiding ally or formidable foe as Union troops tried to take control of the Mighty Mississippi. It was May, 141 years ago, and Major ... Continue reading

GeologyCivilWar
Astronomy

A Giant X-Ray Machine

The first clear detection of X-rays from the giant, gaseous planet Saturn has been made with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Chandra's image shows that the X-rays are concentrated near Saturn's ... Continue reading

AGiantXRayMachine
Medicine

Protozoa That Cause Disease

Diseases caused by protozoan parasites are among the leading causes of death and disease in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Developing countries within these areas contain ... Continue reading

ProtozoaThatCauseDisease

The Dogma of Life

MolecularBiologyDogmas are authoritative tenets common in religion and philosophy. But in molecular biology? Molecular biology has a central dogma, proposed by Francis Crick in 1953, that says that genetic information flows from DNA to RNA to proteins.

The journey from raw genetic information to life begins inside the cell's nucleus. There, instructions for life are coded in the language of DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA language is written with just four 'letters' (bases): A (for adenine), T (thymine), C (cytosine), and G (guanine). The 'D' in DNA comes from one of DNA's components, the sugar deoxyribose. The sugar in RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is ribose, which has one more oxygen atom than deoxyribose. RNA uses the same letters as DNA, but instead of T it uses a U (for uracyl). Whereas DNA is double stranded (it is composed of two backbones bonded by pairs of letters, A pairs with T and C pairs with G), RNA is single stranded.

RNA polymerases synthesize one type of RNA, messenger RNA (mRNA), which is a copy of the DNA sequence in the nucleus. Then, mRNA carries the genetic information from the nucleus to the protein-making machine of the cell, the ribosome. The ribosome reads the sequence of letters in the mRNA - every 3 bases code for an amino acid - to form proteins. Proteins are long chains of amino acids that make up muscles and hair, sense light, and regulate vital functions in the human body. One could say then that life is what it is, thanks to a dogma.