The secret history of DNA: Pus, fish sperm, life as we know it

Short Wave

NPR

Science, Life Sciences, News, Nature, Daily News, Astronomy

4.7 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

It's been 150 years since the first article was published about the molecule key to life as we know it — DNA. With help from researcher Pravrutha Raman, Short Wave producer Berly McCoy explains how DNA is stored in our cells and why the iconic double helix shape isn't what you'd see if you peeked inside your cells right now.

Read more about the discovery of DNA: https://bit.ly/3wNe7hn

Curious about all the other biology that defines us? Email the show at shortwave@npr.org — we're all ears ... and eyes and toes and ... a lot of things. Thanks, DNA!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:04.3	Hi Shortwaveers, Maria Gidoi here with producer Berli McCoy.
0:09.1	Hi Maria.
0:10.1	Alright, Berli, what do you have for the pod today?
0:13.3	I want to talk about the beautiful, extraordinary substance that is responsible for all of life
0:20.0	as we know it.
0:22.5	Nucleon.
0:23.5	Uh, say what?
0:25.6	You don't know about Nucleon?
0:27.5	Not so much.
0:29.1	It's got beauty, it's got mystique, and it's got a really long history.
0:33.8	Really?
0:34.8	Yeah, the first article about it was published back in 1871, which was 150 years ago this year.
0:42.5	It was found by a Swiss scientist named Friedrich Mischur in Germany.
0:46.4	And back then, we didn't know much about cells, so he was literally just trying to figure
0:50.8	out what was on the insides of cells.
0:53.4	What did he do?
0:54.4	How do you find this?
0:55.4	The only logical way, with Puss, he got from off of used surgical bandages.
1:00.6	Oh my god, Berli, that's pretty gross.
1:03.8	The things we do for science.
1:05.8	Indeed.
	...

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