I placed some of the DNA on the ends of my fingers and rubbed them together. The stuff was sticky. It began to dissolve on my skin. 'It's melting -- like cotton candy.' 'Sure. That's the sugar in the DNA, ' Smith said. 'Would it taste sweet?' 'No. DNA is an acid, and it's got salts in it. Actually, I've never tasted it.' Later, I got some dried calf DNA. I placed a bit of the fluff on my tongue. It melted into a gluey ooze that stuck to the roof of my mouth in a blob. The blob felt slippery on my tongue, and the taste of pure DNA appeared. It had a soft taste, unsweet, rather bland, with a touch of acid and a hint of salt. Perhaps like the earth's primordial sea. It faded . Timothy Ferris
About This Quote

DNA is a molecule that exists in all living things, and is what determines the physical characteristics of humans and other animals. DNA was first discovered in 1868. It is composed of two long chains of nucleotides and is used as a genetic blueprint to create proteins that determine how an organism looks and functions. DNA contains segments of the genome, which are the instructions for building proteins.

The building blocks for DNA are adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). The word “sugar” actually refers to something called a sugar phosphate. A sugar phosphate is a combination of a sugar and a phosphate compound – it is a type of nucleotide.

There are many different types of sugars phosphates, but they all have the same basic structure – a sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogen atom attached to one end. The nitrogen atom gives the sugar phosphate the ability to bind with the DNA building block thymine, which consists of three bases – adenine, cytosine and guanine.

Source: The Best American Science Writing 2001

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