DNA Trails

DNA Ties – Molecular: TIE OF THE MONTH CLUB…The ‘RNA Tie Club’ was started by George Gamow in 1954 as an informal group of scientists who were working to “solve the riddle of RNA structure, and to understand the way it builds proteins.” This is a modern day conversion of the old ‘RNA Tie Club’ – more centered on the structure of and functioning of DNA rather than RNA.’ DNAStore.com

‘Aristotle said the the ‘concept’ of a chicken is implicit in an egg, or that an acorn was literally ‘informed’ by the plan of an oak tree. When Aristotle’s dim perception of information theory, buried under generations of chemistry and physics, re-emerged amid the discoveries of modern genetics, Max Delbruck joked the Greek sage should be given a posthumous Nobel prize for the discovery of DNA.’ Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Fourth Estate, 2000

‘It is raining DNA outside. On the bank of the Oxford Canal at the bottom of my garden is a large willow tree, and it is pumping downy seeds into the air…The whole performance, cotton wool, catkins, tree and all, is in aid of one thing and one thing only, the spreading of DNA around the countryside…Not just any DNA, but DNA whose coded charcters spell out specific instructions for building willow trees that will shed a new generation of downy seeds. Those fluffy specks are, literally, spreading instructions for making themselves…It is raining instructions out there; it’s raining programs; it’s raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading, algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn’t be any plainer if it were raining floppy disks. It is plain and it is true, but it hasn’t long been understood.’ Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1986

DNA Trails

Sunlight sparkles my own galaxy -
bustling imprinted dust halo; orbiting,

oscillating skin, nail, hair and blood.
Snakely coiled in each shedding cell,

miles of shining instruction;
silver strings, dewed web -

for all of me – my future;
my means and materials,

personal evolved chemistry,
written, knowing everything -

each particle of this dust could re-build me,
like a life raft, escape pod, flying earth, sky;

sent back into space without a compass -
each shed molecule a miracle overlooked.

And I think of my lifetime trail of dust DNA,
abroad on untold journeys through the world -

every day called ordinary, moulting secrets
of my being; into streets, homes, mountains,

restaurants – seas, rivers, supermarkets, moors;
my very essence shed like wild dandelion seed,

affecting Earth, possibility, the march of things
in ways we cannot know, or guess, comprehend,

though could be known, gifted omniscience;
winds spreading my germ even among stars,

wandering the lifeless moons, volatile, hostile
planets; cold galaxies looking for a new home.

And what reading do we do; inhaling,
breathing other people’s DNA, deep

in historic twin nose, lung, ancient brain,
heart – deciphering in three nanoseconds

four billion years of a slightly amended
story. On this difference does our liking

hinge, smaller than the angel-crowded
heads of pins, invisible to naked eyes -

dislike, repulsion, hatred; or just some yuk,
unease, discomfort, hanging round a man -

as dark halo – printed DNA we read as spiritual
and physical cloud – even as prickling darkness,

threat – black and yellow mental stripes -
danger, like poisonous frog, wasp, snake.

Or silver script; the grown immortal lines,
good poetry of a fine person – golden bee

clouds humming round their head, in air;
their winged cells, physical seed, shines.

Speed-reading; instinct and art, practise -
unconsciously judging products of Earth

for friendship, pity, tenderness, interest,
laughter; occasionally, love, advantage,

chemical compatability – chromosomal
dance-partnering, genetic story-binding -

instantaneous synthesised flash illuminating,
praying our own dust be so favourably read.