November & December 2000 MYSTERY IMAGE The end of the true millennium brought us to this image. ... and what was it? We are merely the sum of our parts and those parts are built on the blueprints of life (DNA). This image is of fragments of DNA. Each colored fragment represents many DNA molecules of the same size. These fragments are moving because they are subjected to an electric field. The negatively charged DNA moves to the positive pole. The four colors represent the four bases of DNA: A, G, C, and T. These colors are a result of passing the DNA by a laser that will excite the dye and cause it to give off a color in a process called fluorescence. A camera then records the colors. The process starts by copying the DNA using a DNA polymerase enzyme that will add the colored dyes to each of the four bases. This whole process is called DNA sequencing where according to the color and size of the DNA fragment we can read the sequence of A,G,C, and T for DNA from any organism. Your DNA contains millions of these bases organized into collections called genes that determine what type of proteins you will make in your cells. In this way it is possible to determine your genetic code or another way to put it-"what makes you be you". Our thanks to Scott Bingham and the ASU DNA Laboratory for the image. We have listed some of the statistics from the guesses below. We had several people get close to the correct answer and one person that got the exact answer. You will also see that the creative juices were working for this image. We had a great number of wonderful answers.
Some of the creative single answers are listed below.
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