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A person’s DNA contains a lot of information about them. Therefore, there is enough information in your body to fill fifty novels.
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A single human being’s DNA contains as much information as fifty novels
December 4, 2019
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Emily Spillar, Co-Editor-In-Chief
Emily Spillar is a 17 year old senior at Colonia High School. Spillar is a varsity cheerleader for the school cheer team. In addition, she loves to dance, and dances for Dancin’ in the Spotlight in Rahway, NJ. Next, she is apart of the PTV news anchoring at Colonia High School, and is a homeroom representative for Student Council. She also is a safety ambassador. Spillar has 2 younger siblings, Elizabeth and Connor. When not in school, she loves to spend time with friends, and loves to write all kinds of genres. In the future, she hopes to attend school to major in Journalism.
Henry K.O. Norman • Feb 25, 2021 at 7:35 am
DNA does NOT contain any “information,” only binary coded digital DATA (in the form of ≈ 3.2 Gbp (billion base pairs) made up of nucleobases T, C, A, and G. To print these, we would need two printed symbols per base, as DNA is coded in binary (T = 00, C = 01, A = 10, and G = 11).
To appreciate how preposterous the Emily’s claim is, I’ll be generous (no pun intended), and use the four symbols (T, C, A, G) to represent binary 00, 01, 10, and 11, to make 500 000 symbol strings (… 110100101001010010101101 …). With 3.2 billion total symbols, the math is easy: 3 200 000 000 symbols / 500 000 symbols ≈ 6 400 volumes (or “novels”).
If we use binary digits rather than nucleobase symbols, we need to double that to ≈ 12 800 volumes (novels). That’s ≈ 12 800 volumes, from the DNA of only one cell nucleus!
And Emily specifically claims that the “novel size” of ONE human being’s DNA, and since the total number of human somatic cells (i.e., with one or more nuclei) is in the TRILLIONS (that’s billions×1 000), each housing ≈ 12 800 “novel equivalents” … Do the math!
A sad testament to the U.S. education system!
Quora question that made me aware of Emily’s claim: https://www.quora.com/Does-a-single-human-beings-DNA-contain-as-much-information-as-fifty-novels
Related web site: http://www.viervant.nl/the-size-of-the-genome/