Fun with DNA!

A sunflower seed will become a sunflower and a lettuce seed will grow into lettuce. But have you ever wondered how the seed managed to make a sprout? And how does that sprout know how to turn into a plant?

Here's a little hint: What do you need to build with Lego?

To put all the blocks together correctly, you follow directions. The seed and the sprout are also following directions, although they are not written down on paper. The 'directions' for the plant are hidden inside the seed. They are made of something known as DNA molecules.

DNA molecules are like long sequences of words, but the words are not written in the letters you are used to. No, DNA molecules have their own separate letters, which we call "A", "T", "C" and "G". The letters are actually abbreviations for some very complex chemical compounds. The four letters are put together in long sequences of words and sentences that tell the seed how it should change from a sprout into a plant.

All organisms are made on the basis of the directions in their DNA molecules. If the 'recipe' for a human being had been written down on paper, it would fill 200 telephone directories, and it would take you many years to read the whole thing. Fortunately, nature has managed to store the recipe for humans in a far smarter way.

Although the thread carrying the information is more than two metres long, it is so thin and tightly packed that it can fit into every cell in your body. Fantastic, don?t you think?

To discover how the DNA language works, you can download an experiment to understand the recipe! (PDF)

What exactly is a molecule?

The whole world and everything in it are made up of teeny tiny invisible building blocks known as atoms. When two or more atoms get together, they form a molecule.

If you think of atoms as Lego blocks, the molecules are all the fun things you can make out of Lego blocks like cars, trains, boats, houses and people.

Translation: Linda Sivesind