Letters

DNA

"DNA" is an acronym for deoxyribonucleic acid, which is a nucleic acid and transmits the hereditary characteristics of all living things.

In addition to its specific scientific sense, "DNA" has also come to mean a strong cultural or societal characteristic, something so deep-seated as to be part of the "genetic make up" of a group or people.

• “Without even the level of farmers and merchants that used to give these areas their pulse, many counties are also losing their very reason to exist, falling behind the rest of the nation in nearly every category as they desperately try to reinvent themselves. And now a broad swath of the nation's midsection seems to have lost something else, as well: its optimism. Polls show a quiet crisis in confidence, the one thing that had seemed a part of rural American DNA. More than ever, people feel powerless to control their lives and pessimistic about the future, according to the annual University of Nebraska poll of rural attitudes.”—Timothy Egan, “Amid Dying Towns of Rural Plains, One Makes a Stand,” The New York Times, December 1, 2003
• “The withdrawal of ChevronTexaco will end the longest continuous commercial sponsorship in broadcast history. Until Texaco was acquired by Chevron in 2001 (in a $45.8 billion deal) Texaco's commitment to the broadcasts [of the Metropolitan Opera] seemed solid. In a 1999 interview, Peter I. Bijur, at the time the chairman and chief executive of Texaco, said that ‘sponsoring the Met has become part of our corporate DNA.’ That Texaco's name was associated with the radio broadcasts earned the company tremendous good will, said Mr. Bijur, adding: ‘You should see the letters we get.’ By the thousands, he said.”—Anthony Tommasini, “Far-Flung Opera Lovers Hope to Tune in Next Time,” The New York Times, December 12, 2003.
• “Hatred of authority figures and rule-makers might all be an amusing part of the national character, the collective DNA—a Falstaffian, trenchant, robust skepticism to be admired, if it hadn’t grown so destructive and so intimidating.”—A.A. Gill, “Tony Blair, Three-Time Loser,” The New York Times, June 24, 2007.

How It's Used

"Barrington's Account of a Very Remarkable Young Musician [Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart] is among the highlights of Trailblazing, a new online resource introduced today by the Royal Society at the start of a year of celebrations to mark the national academy of science's 350th anniversary.

"The collection tells the story of many of the seminal moments in the history of science through the archives of the Royal Society's journal. It includes Francis Crick and James Watson's discovery of the structure of DNA, Benjamin Franklin's investigations of lightning, Isaac Newton's discovery of the spectrum of light, and Stephen Hawking's early work on black holes. Each paper is accompanied by a commentary by a current Royal Society Fellow explaining the significance and context of the advance."

"Because of my previous run-in with [Giuliano] Mignini, I took a deep interest in the case [the murder of Meredith Kercher]; I read many of the original reports and perused the forensic and DNA laboratory results; I reviewed the videos showing the collection of evidence at the crime scene. Through [Mario] Spezi and other contacts in Italy, I learned important information about the case, some of which never appeared in the press. In my view, much of the press, British and American, has misunderstood the dynamics of this case."

"The U.S.-based Institute of Medicine advises that people over 50 get 2.4 micrograms of vitamin B12 each day in the form found in fortified foods and supplements. That's because aging reduces ability to digest B12 from food. Vitamin B12 helps maintain nerve function, keeps red blood cells healthy and is needed to make DNA. It may also guard against heart disease and maintain cognitive function."

"[Craig] Venter recalls [Marshall] Nirenberg as a reserved, softly spoken man, who was both supporter and mentor. But more importantly, he was one of the men who showed, through years of painstaking experiments, how the DNA code, written in four different chemicals, is used by our cells to spell out the amino acids that are the building blocks of proteins. For this work, which he began in 1959, he shared a Nobel Prize. 'He taught us how to interpret the letters of the code,' Venter told me this week. 'All of a sudden, we understood how to read it. I can't think of another single experiment that played such a critical part in explaining life on our planet.'"

"Being able to recognize faces is roughly 30% heritable, making it among the most specific cognitive processes linked to genetic variation, according to a study of 173 pairs of twins, age 7 to 19, in Current Biology. Besides testing for facial recognition, researchers also tested possibly related processes, such as object recognition. They also eliminated the possibility that recognizing faces correlates with general IQ level. In each experiment, identical twins, which share 100% of their DNA, scored closer to each other than did fraternal twins, which share half of their genetic material. Compared to other cognitive processes, heritable factors appeared to have a greater influence on performance among older children."

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