It’s Friday Fun Facts: April 25

DNA

It’s Friday Fun Facts. National DNA Day (April 25) commemorates the discovery of DNA’s double helix in 1953. James Watson, Francis Crick, and colleagues published papers in the journal Nature on the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).  They made a startling discovery. The structure of DNA allows it to store information in the form of a four-character digital code. Strings of precisely sequenced chemicals called nucleotide bases store and transmit the assembly instructions — the information — for building the crucial protein molecules and machines the cell needs to survive.

  • DNA contains four basic building blocks or ‘bases’: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T).
  • The order, or sequence, of these bases form the instructions in the genome.
  • DNA is a two-stranded molecule.
  • Each human cell has around 6 feet of DNA
  • Want to try typing out the human genome? Better get cracking: typing at 60 words per minute for eight hours a day, it would take about 50 years to finish.
  • DNA testing in criminal cases began back in 1985, and was first used to convict a criminal, Florida rapist Tommie Lee Andrews, in 1987, followed by a Virginia serial killer in 1988.
  • DNA itself is a much better storage drive than any hard-drive you’ll find at a tech store. In 2012, Harvard researchers managed to store 700 terabytes of data on a single gram of DNA. By way of comparison, the Panama Papers totaled just 2.6 terabytes.

DNA
Where did the information in the cell come from?

The structure of the DNA double helix. The atoms in the structure are colour-coded by element and the detailed structures of two base pairs are shown in the bottom right.

Hillside’s DNA

Hillside Oil Heating & Cooling has been family-owned and operated for almost 70 years servicing New Castle County, DE, Cecil County, MD, and Southern Chester County, PA.  Three generations of family attitudes and values have allowed us to continue to successfully service our customers and communities. Everything about Hillside is locally owned and operated. We do not answer to any parent or mother corporation in some far-off land. Real human beings still work here and answer our phones. We have no touch-tone mazes to navigate in order to speak to a human being that can assist or answer questions. Customer service is the most important thing. We know what it is like to be a customer and how we like to be treated. We take pride in thinking like a customer when dealing with our customers.

Support of Hillside is support for a local, homegrown, family business in our area. Thank you from everyone at Hillside for your business.

Our Mission Statement: Keep you warm in the winter and cool in the summer while doing customer service right.