1. Besides standing for Deoxyribonucleic Acid, DNA can be an abbreviation for Does Not Apply, Did Not Attend or Data Not Available.
2. DNA contains the genetic instructions for the development and functioning of an organism; RNA has the instructions for fulfilling DNA’s blueprint.
3. Nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, were first isolated by Friedrich Miescher in 1867, but he did not suspect their role in heredity at the time.
4. You could fit 25,000 strands of DNA side by side into the width of a single human hair.
5. The DNA of anyone is 99.9 per cent identical to that of anyone else. It’s the other 0.1 percent that makes one person different from another.
6. Stephen Hawking’s DNA is saved in digital form on a large memory device called the Immortality Drive on the International Space Station.
7. It also has the DNA of discredited cyclist Lance Armstrong and a Playboy model among others.
8. We share 70 per cent of our DNA with a slug.
9. The first animal to have its DNA completely sequenced was a nematode worm in 1998.
10. All life-forms have DNA, but the only animal with ‘dna’ in its name is the echidna.