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Biological Environment > Genes |
This site tells the story of the history of the universe. Click Earlier and Later to follow the story. Note: Many facts have been simplified to make them easier to understand. |
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Life needs to be able to make different proteins at different times. For example, if its food changes it will need to make different enzymes. So it must be able to turn messages on and off, so that the right proteins can be made in the right amounts at the right time.
Life does this by storing the information for each message in a different kind of nucleic acid molecule called a gene. A gene contains two molecules of nucleic acid which fit together very closely. The gene's information is hidden with its bases buried inside the gene. So genes are used to control the process of life. The bases from one nucleic acid can stick to the bases from another nucleic acid to make a ladder-like structure called a gene. In fact the structure has a spiral shape (not shown in our diagrams) so this structure is often called the double helix. Note that the nucleic acids can only stick completely if the right bases are contained in each nucleic acid. We will see shortly that this is very important. |
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Biological Environment > Genes |
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Basic Information |
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