Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.
DNA project
As a junior in high school, I was assigned a mandatory science project for the annual fair. The previous years, I’d sloughed off with the bare minimum.
This year, I started with a question: If the DNA molecule could be any shape it wanted, then why is it a double helix? I decided to find out why a molecule would take that shape.
I studied biology and a little quantum chemistry on my own, then started building a sample DNA molecule out of pieces of colored styrofoam and toothpicks. “Let’s see,” I said to myself, assembling individual atoms into their respective preferred patterns, “hydrogen likes to bond with one electron; oxygen with two; nitrogen with five; carbon loves six.” Watson and Crick and others had already provided me with the chemical composition of the four amino acids that combine to make DNA. I built a model atom by atom.
The project to assemble a collection of the amino acids took months. Then my effort fell apart. Bleh! I could get two long strings of amino acids, but not a stable DNA molecule. So I had to read up on my chemistry some more.
“Oh! In some circumstances, hydrogen will share its electron with another hydrogen atom to form a weak double bond!” Quantum-wise, when the hydrogen’s electron is on its furthest point away from the proton in its orbit, the other hydrogen atom’s electron, attracted to that exposed proton, can briefly enter the orbit to form the double bond. “Imagine that! Sharing electrons in a weak bond allows two great strings of amino acids to cling together in a double helix!”
My conclusion: “When these chemicals are put together, they can form no other shape! DNA must be a double helix!” My science project won an award.
Later, I realized a more profound conclusion: “Given the nature of a long, long connection of amino acids in weak double bonds, a functioning organism’s DNA cannot form by accident. Nil probability. No billions of years in a warm puddle can increase the probability that organic life will form. That DNA exists in so many organized forms of life means only one thing: There is an intelligent Creator.”
Rosemary Althoff, Author 