In chapter one Matt Ridley explains how the discovery of the gene was not founded by physics, chemistry scientists but instead it was explained by biology. "Every chromosome has a long arm and a short arm separated by a pinch point known as a centromere" On chromosome, there is a repeating sequence of A's, C's, G's and T's making up a 120 letter paragraph. This paragraph is the most active gene in the human body and is copied into RNA. It resided with other proteins and RNA's. "Protein represents chemistry, living, breathing, metabolism and behavior aka phenotype". DNA represents information, replication, breeding, sex aka genotype" I find this statement very interesting because in the early 1940's no one actually understood the full functions or even meaning of the gene. It's an astonishment how much information biologists have gathered just with one simple discovery of the gene. Proteins and DNA can not live without one another. They are dependent on each other in order for them to function properly. In this chapter I also learned about the genome. The genome is "the unity of life and the chemistry of the very earliest life on the planet." This quote makes me think that the genome unites the three main studies of science which are Physics, Chemistry and of course Biology. The genome plays an important role in all three sciences and our everyday lives.
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