Genetic Information

DNA, A Double Helix Hero Altering The Paradox Of Human Nature

Aditi Singh, AIS VKC Lucknow, X A

In a glamorous award ceremony, I step forward to take the ‘Lifetime achievement award in heredity and bravery’. But hold on, I am not retiring as the world isn’t done with me yet, my story is still loading. I have been here since the beginning of life and this enticing saga of my existence will persist till life itself exists. Talk about big personality in a microscopic package: I am DNA-Deoxyribonucleic Acid.
A million years ago, I was just a humble molecule. Initially, I didn’t have a lot of organisation, just floating around, making friends with RNA and some proteins. It was all fun and games until the 1950s came along, which is when James Watson and Francis Crick blew my cover by revealing what? Base pairs! Adenine and thymine, guanine and cytosine – the final set of partners who make sure that life never misses its cues. Our special double helix structure revolutionised the realm of science. From that day on, my life has been an endless saga of Extreme Makeover: Genetic Edition.
However, there’s more to my narrative than just the usual experimentation stuff. I’ve had my fair share of solving some of the most infamous crimes. Take, for example the case of the Green River Killer, wherein a man named Gary Ridgway committed nearly 48 brutal murders, unleashing a reign of terror in the early 1980s and thought he could get away with it (yeah right!). Back then, the investigators had zero, zilch, nada on this guy. Fast forward to the 2000s and voila! Advances in DNA profiling helped me link him to the murders and get him swimming in the prison. Ah! Easily one of my favourite ‘gotcha!’ moments. Who knew I could be extracted from a single hair follicle, saliva or even a cigarette butt. Yes, smokers, beware it’s a warning! Yet another one is that of the Golden State Killer, where Joseph DeAngelo terrorised California for decades, committing murders, multiple burglaries. My DNA profiling matched him to the crimes, and he’s now facing justice. Looks like his golden years won’t be so golden after all!
The Cato Road Murders were another case I cracked or helped crack to put it humbly.
Speaking of revelations, my work doesn’t stop at solving these crimes. I’ve even helped solve family mysteries. Benjamin Tarrant, for instance, who thought he could claim his right on Robert Tarrant’s estate. But in a dramatic twist my analysis showed that they were not related by blood, so the poor guy got nothing. I also revealed the true identity of Anna Anderson, another imposter who claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia.
As I stand here accepting this award, I can’t tell what new experiment is going to make its way into my life but one thing’s for sure that life’s a genetic comedy and I’m the ultimate scriptwriter, with my double helix in tow.

ADVT