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The
Left Handed DNA
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- Tom Schneider
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version = 2.01 of leftyear1989.txt 2009 Sep 29
(Thanks to Linda Angeloff Sapienza, LASplumas@aol.com, for pointing this one out!)Hi there! Yes, I am a Newsweek reader. I am also an artist responsible for perhaps one of the first left-handed boo-boos.
My husband and his old advisor (Doolittle and Sapienza) wrote a piece on "Selfish DNA" that was accepted by Nature. Their paper and another by Crick and Orgel became the magazine's cover topic. Lucky me! I got to draw for Nature!
No one noticed that my design was left-handed until the journal was in press. I will admit that the scientists thought it was pretty funny (well, what could they do at that point?).
In the US the background color was an ugly light orange, but the British version was a vivid red.
I'm starting to feel like a real part of history here...uh, infamous too.
...
Thanks for a great site!
For the love of enzymes: the odyssey of a biochemist Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1989.In the section on "Astonishing Machines of Replication" on page 227, figure 7-14 there is a figleaf covering the point of DNA replication, all of the strands coming out of it are left handed.
version = 2.01 of leftyear1995.txt 2009 Sep 29
@article{WatsonCrick1953, author = "J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick", title = "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid", journal = "Nature", volume = "171", pages = "737-738", year = "1953"}
Bioinformatics & Genome Research: Proceedings of the Third International Florida State Conference Center, Tallahassee, Florida, 1-4 June 1994. World Scientific, Singapore. 981-02-2401-X publication date: Sept 1995On the cover there is a computer chip with both left and right handed DNA emerging from it.
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version = 2.00 of leftyear1997.txt 2009 Sep 29
version = 2.00 of leftyear1998.txt 2009 Sep 29
The New Creationism: Biology Under Attack
By Barbara Ehrenreich and Janet McIntosh
When social psychologist Phoebe Ellsworth took the podium at a recent
interdisciplinary seminar on emotions, she was already feeling rattled.
Colleagues who'd presented earlier had warned her that the crowd was
tough and had little patience for the reduction of human experience to
numbers or bold generalizations about emotions across cultures. Ellsworth
had a plan: She would pre-empt criticism by playing the critic, offering a
social history of psychological approaches to the topic. But no sooner had
the word "experiment" passed her lips than the hands shot up. Audience
members pointed out that the experimental method is the brainchild of
white Victorian males. Ellsworth agreed that white Victorian males had
done their share of damage in the world but noted that, nonetheless, their
efforts had led to the discovery of DNA. This short-lived dialogue
between paradigms ground to a halt with the retort: "You believe in DNA?"
http://www.thenation.com:80/issue/970609/0609ehre.htm
The Nation Digital Edition http://www.thenation.com
Copyright (c) 1997, The Nation Company, L.P. All rights reserved.
Electronic redistribution for nonprofit purposes is permitted, provided this
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is prohibited. For further information regarding reprinting and syndication,
please call The Nation at (212) 242-8400, ext. 226 or send e-mail to
Max Block at mblock@thenation.com.
version = 2.00 of leftyear1999.txt 2009 Sep 29
Our Story So Far: The story line, if you have not had time to follow the previous 150 or so entries (!) is my slow realization that earth is being invaded by left handed DNA people ... |
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"TaKaRa offers an extensive and proven line of Molecular Biology Products" "Today's Research for Tomorrow's Revolution".
A full page ad with the upper half page occupied by colored displays of left-handed DNA. (Even more: The four bases are represented, presumably, by the colors green, red, yellow, and blue. Green is shown bonding with red; but red is also shown bonding with yellow; and yellow is also shown bonding with blue; and blue is also shown bonding with green. Looks like a revolution indeed!)."
Iain D. Russell, Adam S. Grancell, and Peter K. Sorger,
J. Cell Biol.,
Volume 145, Number 5, June 1,
933-950,
(1999)
"The Unstable F-box
Protein p58-Ctf13 Forms
the Structural Core of the
CBF3 Kinetochore
Complex",
figure 10C,
reports that the centromere binding complex in
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
(yeast) is left handed.
This case was acknowledged by Peter Sorger and a corrected figure
will be printed.
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![]() Reproduced from The Journal of Cell Biology, 1999, 145, 933-950 by copyright permission of the Rockefeller University Press |
"There is a DNA helix in the upper, outer corner of every one of the catalog's 28 pages. Except for the cover (page 1) which shows [two] right- handed DNAs, all the odd pages show left-handed DNA. The even pages show right-handed DNA. In addition, sprinkled throughout are little men in lab coats that partially cover skeletal [DNA] structures which are right- handed wherever the little man is holding a pointer in his left hand, and left-handed wherever the little man is holding a pointer in his right hand."I note also that the button on the man's lab coat switches sides depending on which hand holds the pointer. If I recall correctly, men's clothing (and the lab coats we have in the lab here) have the button on the right side when unclosed. This corresponds to the right handed DNA pictures. So we might infer that the original artist drew the image the "right" way, and it was flipped for publication. (Thanks to Jack Tessman, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Tufts University, Medford MA 02155, jack@silcon.com for pointing this one out!)
Science, August 6, 1999 [volume 285], p. 954, advertising membership in AAAS and subscription to Science, "Relied upon by 159,536 subscribers worldwide", shows one "spiral" (of what is presumably DNA) crossing UNDER the second "spiral" and then crossing back - again UNDER the second "spiral". But the representation improves as the little man scales to new heights.(Thanks to Jack Tessman, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Tufts University, Medford MA 02155, jack@silcon.com for pointing this one out!)
version = 1.46 of leftyear2000.txt 2013 Oct 12
Our Story So Far: The story line, if you have not had time to follow the previous 235 or so entries (!) is my slow realization that earth is being invaded by left handed DNA people ... |
NOTE [2013 oct 12]: the inner cover page shows the image on the newer paperback version |
"The striking symmetry of the X-ray crystallograph of DNA prepared by Rosalind Franklin was one of the last clues that led Watson and Crick to deduce the double-helical structure of DNA." |
Your literal translation is of course correct but the actual meaning is not "measure of man". The phrase "nach Mass" means "as you choose to have or design something". Perhaps a more appropriate way to translate the phrase would be "Artificial contructrion of Man".
"At last I have succeeded in changing our left-handed logo (see website). ... [They will have] a revised logo when we ran out of our current batch of letterhead paper. It was a very large batch. But hooray! - at last we have joined the ranks of the helically correct. "
I was intrigued by your 'Left Handed DNA Hall of Fame' and amused to see that the Wellcome Trust features by proxy: we are a co-funder of the Researchers in Residence initiative that features at number 72. However, things have moved on and the scheme is no longer run by the ASE and is now run by the Sheffield Hallam Department of Science Education, it also has a new logo. While I have no problem with you continuing to display the old logo along with the description, I'd appreciate it if you could put a note that the organisation running the scheme has changed and include a link to the new scheme (http://www.researchersinresidence.org), just in case one of our students is reading your page and is interested in getting involved.
Steve
Dr Steven Wooding - Partnerships Project Manager
The Wellcome Trust - http://www.wellcome.ac.uk
210 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7611 8850
Fax: +44 (0)20 7611 8269
version = 2.00 of leftyear2001.txt 2011 Aug 03
Our Story So Far: The story line, if you have not had time to follow the previous 331 or so entries (!) is my slow realization that earth is being invaded by left handed DNA people ... |
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© American Scientist |
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© TIBS 2001 |
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©
This artwork is copyrighted to Rubber Stamps of America |
"if this is truly the image which is on the stamp, then when the stamp is dipped in ink and stamped on a page it will reverse, making the DNA right handed."What an interesting point!!! The stamp itself would be correct! I corrected the link and then located it under "Things". The DNA is indeed shown as left handed in "Things". Then I checked out the "Messages" category and found that the messages can be read. This means that they are displaying what the stamp will print, not what's on the stamp itself. The stamp itself must be correct, but the images printed from it are reversed to be left handed ...
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Copyright © 1996-2000 deCODE genetics, Inc. All rights reserved. |
![]() Copyright © 1999 Nancy Kress |
Sorry folks, I'm way behind!! I've been pushing out papers ... See the December 2001 cover of Nucleic Acids Research! I'll 2001 catch up eventually ... |
version = 2.75 of leftyear2002.txt 2009 Sep 29
Our Story So Far: The story line, if you have not had time to follow the previous 439 or so entries (!) is my slow realization that earth is being invaded by left handed DNA people ... |
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http://www.michaeldunning.com/ ![]() |
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© 2002 by the Biophysical Society |
A Quicktime movie on the CD accompanying the 4th edition of McGraw-Hills "Foundations in Microbiology " has a stunning left-handed spinning and twisting graphic. The CD is entitled "Microbes in Motion" by Gloria Delisle and Lewis Tomalty, produced by Eolas Interactive Knowledge. The mov file is Dnastructure.mov, and is 8.6 MB.There are two DNA models shown, both of which are left handed. At least they are consistent! The image is © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
OK, so I'm checking out http://www.kartoo.com [warning: this url can blow your browser! - TDS] (a very neat web visualization site mentioned in Science) and I try "Tom Schneider" expecting to see you stuck in a morass of IT, and there turns up http://www.tomschneiderdesigns.co.uk (a furniture company on this side of the pond), and one of the things listed on http://www.tomschneiderdesigns.co.uk/products.html is their "DNA Shelving", and of course its a left-handed spiral!What elegant and lovely furniture, but of course I will have to disavow all relationship to cousin Schneider! The actual images can be found directly in the directory http://www.tomschneiderdesigns.co.uk/tsimages/, in particular the image shown here.
Sorry folks, I'm still way behind!! There are perhaps 20 entries to 2001 left. I've been pushing out papers ... See the December 2001 cover of Nucleic Acids Research! I'll catch up eventually ... or maybe not ... |
version = 3.35 of leftyear2003.txt 2009 Sep 29
Our Story So Far: The story line, if you have not had time to follow the previous 439 or so entries (!) is my slow realization that earth is being invaded by left handed DNA people ... |
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Credits: University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy |
From genestudio@genestudio.com Fri Jan 31 20:00:11 2003
From: "The GeneStudio Team" <genestudio@genestudio.com>
To: "Tom Schneider" <toms@ncifcrf.gov>, <info@genestudio.com>
Cc: <lazo@pw.usda.gov>
Subject: Re: permission request
Dear Drs. Lazo & Schneider:
Thank you very much for noticing that our software was developed exclusively for use with left-handed DNA. The original reason for this far-sighted business decision was that three software packages for the use with right-handed DNA already controlled 100% of this market. Thanks to you, dear Gerard and dear Tom, we organized today a quick world-wide e-mail teleconference of our managerial staff and looked at these software packages again. We decided that they are absolutely antiquated, as they were designed in the pre-PCR and pre-Internet age. With the use of some (smoke and) mirrors we will quickly adapt our modern 21st century software to right-handed DNA as well hoping to gain a share of this novel (right-handed) market.
We hereby grant you a permission to use our beautiful (left-handed) logo on your website. We wanted to create a new (right-handed) logo and attach it to this letter; however, when our CEO went to purchase a mirror at the local Big K-Mart, he found that this huge shop changed into a shop that sells mice (mouses?) and other computer input devices for the left-handed. A nearby furniture shop had mirrors; regrettably - they were designed for Linux only. We ended with ordering a mirror from www.homede(s)pot.com and it should be delivered later next week.
For The GeneStudio Team
P.S. Just before clicking the Send button, an 18-wheeler delivered the mirror! Now we need to shred 1.0 million business cards and 10,000 packs of our letterhead paper.
Sorry folks, I'm still way behind!! There are perhaps 20 entries to 2001 left. I've been pushing out papers ... See the December 2001 cover of Nucleic Acids Research! I'll catch up eventually ... or maybe not ... |
version = 4.09 of leftyear2004.txt 2009 Sep 29
Our Story So Far: The story line, if you have not had time to follow the previous 552 or so entries (!) is my slow realization that earth is being invaded by left handed DNA people ... |
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Reprinted by permission from
Nature 427, 592 - 594 (2004) copyright 2004 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. and Peter Carmeliet. |
Tue, 24 Feb 2004 10:26:20Dear Tom,
You may use the image, as long as you point out that the use of a left-handed DNA is intentional and not accidental.
I am rather familiar with DNA structure, having worked on calculating circular dichroism spectra for DNA in A, B, and Z-conformation (Richterich P, Pohl FM, "Calculation of the CD of oligo (dG-dC): influence of basic optical parameters." Biopolymers. 1987 Feb;26(2):231-50).
I did this work in the laboratory of Prof. Fritz Pohl, who in the 1960s set out to search from left-handed DNA, and discovered the B -> Z transitions of GC-oligomers when going from low salt to high salt (J Mol Biol. 1972 Jun 28;67(3):375-96; Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1986 Jul;83(14):4983-7).
There are many who credit to Prof. Pohl the fact that the first crystal structure of DNA to be solved was left handed (see, for example, T J Thamann, R C Lord, A H Wang, and A Rich, "The high salt form of poly(dG-dC).poly(dG-dC) is left-handed Z-DNA: Raman spectra of crystals and solutions.", Nucleic Acids Res. 1981 October 24; 9 (20): 54435457). If I recall correctly, these crystallizations were actually carried out in low-salt and high-salt solutions; however, since the effective salt concentration in the crystals is very high, both solutions gave rise to left handed helices in the crystals.
I chose a left-handed DNA for our logo in reverence to Prof. Pohl, an outstanding and very original scientist who I worked with during my undergraduate and graduate studies (and who unfortunately died at a young age). I am always interested in how many people notice that the helix in the picture is left-handed - very few people seem to notice it, so congratulations to Dennis Maeder for noticing.
Best regards,
Peter
--
Peter Richterich, Ph.D.
CodonCode Corporation
58 Beech Street
Dedham, MA 02026
pr@codoncode.com
(781) 686-1131 phone
(781) 407-0807 fax
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(c) 1999 Robert A. Freitas Jr. http://www.rfreitas.com All Rights Reserved |
Hello, Tom. Thanks to you and Dennis Maeder for noticing that the DNA pictured on the front cover of my book, Nanomedicine, Vol. I (1999) http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI.htm, is intentionally left-handed rather than right-handed. Your implication that my book recommends employing left-handed DNA to build medical nanodevices, while amusing, is not quite right, since antibodies can recognize both B-DNA and Z-DNA. In fact, all of the nanorobotic devices I've proposed (e.g., respirocytes http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Respirocytes.html, microbivores http://www.rfreitas.com/Nano/Microbivores.htm, etc.) use mostly diamondoid materials in their construction, not DNA.
My technical books make the case that in future years, it will be possible to construct medical nanorobots -- micron-sized mechanical robots built from molecularly-precise nanoscale components. A most important function of these nanorobots will be conducting in vivo cellular repair operations, including operations on individual macromolecules if necessary and even base-by-base repair or manufacture of DNA.
The cover art for Volume I depicts tiny workers manually handling molecular components -- to emphasize that nanorobots will be capable of performing trajectory-constrained positional assembly, not just random-trajectory self-assembly as is customary in biology. The cover art also depicts the construction of Z-DNA rather than B-DNA -- to emphasize that nanorobots will not be restricted to manipulating conventional organic materials but can also build many useful "unnatural" molecular arrangements so long as those new arrangements are chemically stable. You'll also notice that my nanocaduceus logo image http://www.nanomedicine.com/Graphics/NanoMedRS.gif, featured prominently on the cover spine and inside my books and on my websites (and showing right-handed DNA!), depicts two similarly unnatural 7-fingered human hands -- to emphasize that the advent of nanorobotic medicine may allow us easily to modify our natural forms. Apparently these artistic subtleties have been lost on some readers.
Best wishes,
Robert A. Freitas Jr. http://www.rfreitas.com
Author, Nanomedicine http://www.nanomedicine.com
Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Manufacturing http://www.imm.org
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Just returned from the American Society for Microbiology annual meeting in New Orlea ns, where I encountered the exhibitor display pictured in the attached image. Gen-Probe makes various molecular genetic assays, primarily for the detection of infectious diseases.
When I called attention to the fact that their DNA "scupture" (which rotates in real life) has the wrong handedness, the nice salepeople staffing the booth seemed less than concerned. They said that the error had been pointed out to them a couple of years ago, but no one else seemed to notice!
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copyright the Raelian Movement |
version = 1.48 of leftyear2005.txt 2009 Sep 29
Our Story So Far: The story line, if you have not had time to follow the previous 608 or so entries (!) is my slow realization that earth is being invaded by left handed DNA people ... |