DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the

hereditary material in humans and

almost all other organisms. Nearly every
cell in a person’s body has the same
DNA. Most DNA is located in the cell
nucleus (where it is called nuclear DNA),
but a small amount of DNA can also be
found in the mitochondria (where it is
called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA).
Mitochondria are structures within cells
that convert the energy from food into a
form that cells can use.

An important property of DNA is that it can replicate, or make copies of itself. Each strand of
DNA in the double helix can serve as a pattern for duplicating the sequence of bases. This is
critical when cells divide because each new cell needs to have an exact copy of the DNA present
in the old cell.
 The History of DNA Timeline

1800’s
1859 - Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species

On his return to England, Darwin proposed a theory of

evolution occurring by the process of natural selection,
which he then worked on over the following 20 years. The
Origin of Species was the culmination of these efforts and
argued that the living things best suited to their
environment are more likely to survive, reproduce and pass
on their characteristics to future generations. This led to a
species gradually changing over time. Whilst his study
contained some truth many areas such as the link between
animal and human evolution are being shown to be untrue
through new discoveries of ancient ancestors.

The book was extremely controversial, as it challenged the dominant view of the
period that many people literally took that God had created the world in seven days.
It also suggested that people were animals and might have evolved from apes this
part of his work has been shown to be inaccurate. To Ponder; One must simply
consider the fact that through thousands of years of evolution animals have the
highest respect for their body yet people do not respect their bodies. The cheetah
will go hungry rather than push itself beyond the point it can recover. If people had
evolved from animals over millions of years the innate respect for their body would
still be here today.
1866 - Gregor Mendel discovers the basic principles
of genetics
In 1866, an unknown Augustinian monk
was the first person to shed light on the
way in which characteristics are passed
down the generations. Today, he is
widely considered to be the father of
genetics. However, he enjoyed no such
notoriety during his lifetime, with his
discoveries largely passing the scientific
community by. In fact, he was so ahead of the game that
it took three decades for his paper to be taken seriously.
Between 1856 and 1863 Mendel conducted experiments
on pea plants, attempting to crossbreed "true" lines in
specific combinations. He identified seven
characteristics: plant height, pod shape and colour, seed
shape and colour, and flower position and colour.

1869 - Friedrich Miescher identifies "nuclein"

In 1869, Swiss physiological chemist Friedrich
Miescher first identified what he called "nuclein" in
the nuclei of human white blood cells, which we know
today as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA).