John Wojcik pays tribute to a black US activist who spent six decades at the forefront of struggles for voting rights, economic justice and peace – reshaping US politics and inspiring movements worldwide
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What makes a cat tick
Let's focus on how the genetic code provides the toolbox for the myriad possibilities in any person, or cat for that matter
LUCK OF THE DRAW: Two copies of the eumelanin inhibiting gene gives a completely orange cat
[GPS 56/Creative Commons]
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THE DNA of domestic cats is bundled up into 38 chromosomes. Each chromosome is a long, tightly packed string of DNA that contains many different genes. The concept of a “gene” as a discrete unit of heredity dates back to before the discovery of DNA.
In the 20th century, it was realised that some regions of DNA are operated on by molecular machines in the cell, turning their encoded sequence into RNA and then into proteins, short-lived molecules that are involved in almost all cellular processes.
These DNA regions are what we now call genes. There is some nuance in this: for example, some regions of a gene are not turned into protein themselves and instead play a role in how exactly this happens.
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