A1.2. Nucleic Acids
Subject: Biology | Author: Michel Onfray
About this Topic Book
What is the secret to life's incredible complexity and its remarkable continuity across billions of years? How does a single fertilized egg contain all the information needed to develop into a towering oak tree or a thinking, feeling human being? The answer lies within one extraordinary class of molecules: nucleic acids.
At the heart of the IB Biology theme of Unity and Diversity, nucleic acids—Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) and Ribonucleic Acid (RNA)—represent one of the most profound paradoxes in biology. They are the ultimate source of life's stunning diversity, encoding the unique traits of every organism from the smallest bacterium to the largest whale. Yet, their fundamental structure and the way they store information are remarkably, almost universally, the same across all domains of life. This shared molecular language is one of the most powerful pieces of evidence for a common ancestry, a single origin from which all life has evolved.
By understanding the structure and function of nucleic acids, we gain insight into the very essence of heredity, evolution, and life itself. We begin to read the universal code that connects us to every other living organism on the planet.