The Dharma in DNA by Denver Dee;

Author:Denver, Dee;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA - OSO
Published: 2022-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

A young postdoctoral scholar working in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge, England, named James Watson acknowledged earlier than most that DNA was the most likely molecular source of genes. Eventually, the broader scientific community—including Linus Pauling—came to agree and the question of “what” gave way to “how” in terms of genetic function. The race was on, and Pauling was behind Watson and others who earlier realized the importance of DNA. Everyone was aware of the basic building blocks of DNA—sugars, phosphates, and nucleotides. It was unknown, however, how all of these pieces fit together to form a three-dimensional structure, and one that could simultaneously serve inheritance and coding functions. In a February 1953 article with Robert Corey,6 Pauling proposed a triple-helix hypothesis for the structure of DNA, one where the phosphates were neutrally packed into the center of the molecule and the bases were on the exterior. Pauling, as we all now know, was wrong. This scientific blunder dogged him in the years following the famous April 1953 Nature paper where the correct structure of DNA was reported by two scientific upstarts working in Cambridge, James Watson and Francis Cricke.7 After taking liberties with Rosalind Franklin’s amazing X-ray crystallography data, Watson and his partner Cricke revealed the details of DNA’s now famous double-helix structure with the phosphates and sugars on the outside and bases on the inside. The elucidation of DNA’s molecular structure had a domino effect. Subsequent experiments in the following decades—all dependent upon Watson and Cricke’s double-stranded model—revealed additional insights into the molecular mechanisms by which DNA functioned in biological heredity and coding for other biomolecules. For Pauling’s error, two key factors were identified by a variety of critics that included other scientists, news reporters, Ava Helen Pauling (his spouse), and even Linus Pauling himself: hurry and hubris.8

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The double helix became an iconic attribute intimately associated with DNA. Double-stranded mental images promptly arise in the minds of anyone hearing utterances of the word “DNA,” at least among those minds benefitting from the requisite education and cultural context. The double-stranded nature of DNA thus provides an ideal first challenge to the three specific Buddhist hypotheses. Is DNA’s double-strandedness a permanent, unchanging, intrinsic feature of the molecule? An answer of “yes” would falsify HS1 and HS2.

DNA, however, is not always double-stranded. Sometimes it is single-stranded. In fact, anyone handed a tube of double-stranded DNA in water as a solvent could easily make it single-stranded by dropping that tube into a pot of boiling water. Geneticists and biology students working in modern research and teaching labs today routinely heat solutions containing DNA for specific applications requiring the DNA to exist in a single-stranded state. One such application is the powerful polymerase chain reaction (PCR): a laboratory method that creates many millions to billions of copies of a specific target region of DNA. Performing PCR requires certain steps, including one called “denaturation,” whereby the scientist intentionally heats the DNA molecules to near boiling points (usually 96°C–98°C). At this temperature, the

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