Inside all our cells is a long chemical strand called DNA. This stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. That’s an awfully long word and that’s why we just say DNA. DNA is like a REALLY big cookbook with all the recipes in the world. The cookbook is great, but if it just sits on the shelf, nobody is going to make any food. What the cookbook needs is somebody to open it to the page for the recipe they want and start making food.
DNA is the cookbook and other chemical in our cells tell it what recipe we want. These chemicals “turn on” sections of the DNA and the DNA makes hair, skin, muscles, hearts, lungs and everything else we are made of. The thing about your DNA, is that there is an exact copy of it in every single cell in your body. And, unless you have a twin, nobody’s DNA is the same as yours. So, if you have the right chemicals, you can take any cell in your body and make anything with it. Pretty wild, huh?
The funny thing about DNA is that when you isolate it, it looks like snot. I should know, I got to do that in school. Very cool.
If you want to know more about DNA, Google the following:
Watson and Crick (they discovered DNA)
Genome mapping
DNA base pairs
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