• Question: How long is all your DNA put togetherness?

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      Asked by Tommy/Bailey to Anais, katy, Lauren, Richard, Stuart on 10 Mar 2016.
      • Photo: Lauren Laing

        Lauren Laing answered on 10 Mar 2016:

        For humans, there is enough DNA in an average person’s body to stretch from the sun to Pluto and back. 17 times!

        But it depends on the species, as different species have different amounts of DNA in their cells.

        The largest genome of any organism is under debate, but some people say it is the 640,000,000,000 base pairs of the tiny amoeba!

        Remember, every day our technologies to study DNA gets better and better and we learn more and more about DNA, we discover new genes and we learn about the DNA in more species all the time. It is a hugely evolving field in science, and an exciting one to work in.

      • Photo: Anais Kahve

        Anais Kahve answered on 14 Mar 2016:

        I think Lauren has summed this up nicely!

      • Photo: Stuart Atkinson

        Stuart Atkinson answered on 15 Mar 2016:

        There have been loads of studies into how long the DNA in one cell would stretch. Although it seems hard to believe, it appears to be about 3m long! Of course, it’d be so fine you wouldn’t be able to see it. And if you multiply that by all the cells in the body you get about 20 trillion metres of DNA, which is way beyond the length of the solar system. Isn’t biology amazing?

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