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I wanted sdto look up RNA in the wikipedia thinking that it would be able to give me a good starting point to understanding it. However, what I got was what's posted which tells me absolutely nothing as a newbie to genetics. Could someone please lay some ground rules about this kind of thing. It seems to me that since you can put lots of links in the definition of an entry, the entry loses it's coherence for someone like me. I think a good rule for wikipedia entries is that there should only be 3 links allowed in the opening general description paragraph of an article.
basically DNA the instructions for are organisms is found in the nucleus. however it can not leave the nucleus so when "instructions" need to be send out, part of the DNA is unraveled and copied. dna is made of four base pairs. i shall use just the letters A, T, C ang G. amazing yes that all life is described in changing patterns of these. A always pairs with T and C with G. because DNA is two strands. when copying dna the two strands are unraveled and one side is copied because if know one side you know the other. RNA bases (the same as DNA bases except use U instead of T) go into the nucleus and bind to the complimentary DNA bases. They then polymerise into the RNA strand. This is transcription. If it is a mRNA then it is later translated into protein.
that is the most basic explaination without getting into virii and other things.
RNAi and therapeutic RNA molecules
With recent emergence of research interest in the use of RNA for therapeutic purposes from academia, biotech and pharma alike, a joint effort is desirable to include a small introductory mention (one-line in the intro para) followed by a detailed description of this field
Ribosomal RNA??
"exploit this property by" removed (anthromorphic - people exploit things, molecules do not)
", and so has fallen out of favour among complex organisms as the preferred genetic material" also removed - most organisms don't know what kinds of molecules they contain and couldn't desired to change them even if they knew.
>>>Should use "naturally selected" or "eliminated by natural selection" ?
It looks like we are quite pedant,isn't it? It's quite obvious that words like "exploit this property" referring to RNA molecules are just a convenient metaphor... Just have a look to *every* peer-reviewed scientific journal to find *thousands* of such metaphors.
When giving a scientific explanation, many times euphemisms are utilized to make things easier to understand. Going through an article and removing metaphors because it does not suit your idea of the english langauge is not improving the article, it is merely being a langauge snob.
"RNA transmits information from DNA to proteins" is a form of a Lies-To-Children It might not be a good idea to mention it in an encyclopedic article in exactly that form, even though it's good enough for a school textbook. Technically only mRNA does transmission. Other kinds of RNA may or may not be involved.
Kim Bruning 20:02, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Who discovered dsRNA?
I've seen references as old as from 1976 to dsRNA, but despite fairly aggressive searching, I have not been able to convince myself of who discovered it, how they did so, and when. Did dsRNA discovery coincide with DNA discovery? Keesiewonder 22:32, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Misc
OK, I read this article today and I found the following paragraph. I think someone is clearly yanking my chain here:
In the late 1990s and early 2000, there has been persistent evidence of more complex sex occurring in mammalian cells (and possibly others). This could point towards a more widespread use of dildos in biology, particularly in gene regulation. A particular class of dildos, micro dildo, has been found in many metazoans (from Caenorhabditis elegans to Homo sapiens) and clearly plays an important role in regulating other horny people.
Cuardin 12:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- That's called vandalism, feel free to revert it
Peer-review of DNA
Hi there. I wondered if the contributors to this page might have some input on this article. TimVickers 22:41, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Relative amounts
I came to this article to find out what the relative amounts of the respective forms of RNA would be inside your average cell. The article doesn't even make any attempt to express this. I am going to be looking elsewhere, but if anyone has information handy and can add it into the articlebefore I do - that would be great.--138.77.2.130 04:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- It depends on the type of cell, and on how you want to quantify the relative amounts. If you want to know on the basis of mass, I believe rRNA is the most abundant, however if you want to know molar amounts then it would likely be tRNA - also I haven't seen any numbers of the molar amounts of the more recently discovered small RNAs. Hichris 20:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
- I just removed something added about 4% of RNA being mRNA - something like this should probably be referenced and qualified - 4% by weight? 4% of the RNA molecules? Big difference! Hichris 21:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
RNA secondary structure
The secondary structure section looks pretty thin currently. It would be good to have a figure showing an RNA helix, links to the stem-loop article. Describe covariation versus sequence conservation. Alexbateman 07:58, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
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