DNA For Dummies
It would be remiss of me to not state that I know absolutely nothing about DNA, except that the abbreviation points to a collection of words that no one can pronounce: it means something like "deoxygenated ribo-rabid-nucleaic acid trip", or something like that. I first heard about DNA in 1964 in a High School biology class and promptly went comotose. I couldn't tell the difference between mitochondria and hypochondria or RNA from the NRA. I was told DNA was the "key" to life. Before that, I always thought nut sacks in guys were the secondary condition for being the "key to life," only being trumped by a thing called a "womb." I didn't know much about wombs back then. They were scary things when I was a boy, but for some strange reason, I wanted to find out all I could about them. But then again, I was a dumb dub and didn't know nothin'. I was told that my nut sack and its obedient servant who hung over it (sorta) was not to be used for anything until I consulted the latest Watchtower magazine and followed the directions and sanctions it provided. Mostly, the advice provided not the least bit of fun for a place that should have been a haven for fun. Sigh.
That being said, I profer my own version about how that whole DNA thing started the mess that we all ended up with. Heck, the genius scientists can make up stuff about stuff, so why can't I?
Somewhere back in time, say, about a zillion years ago, a life form emerged from the primal slime and say, for discussion, this slimy life form had a simple genome DNA that consisted of just the code "1". Come on, this was a simple piece of slime that came from slime. It was utterly stupid, so it's entire DNA consisted of a genome called "1."
Now say that this slimy thing existed for another zillion years replicating itself, and so the planet had a whole bunch of its basic clones with the DNA consisting of just the code "1." They were all the same, and life for them became boring. Sex must have been boring, too. I mean, this slime thing was reproducing with itself! Now, imagine that some other slimy organism evolved which just happened to have a different DNA which consisted of the DNA code of "2" and the two met each other.
Slime 1: I'm a 1.
Slime 2: I'm a 2.
Slime 1: Wanna mess around?
Slime 2: What kind of slime do you think I am?
Slime 1: What better things do you have to do, Slime?
Slime 2: Ok. Let's mess around.
So they mess around, and guess what? They produce a NEW slime with a DNA of 1.5!. After a zillion years diversity is born!
So a 1.5 comes into this world and it and its descendents mess around with the 1's and the 2's and more 1.5's are born and some new 1.33's are born and some .667's are born. (Don't criticize my math here). Then their descendents come into this world and the diversity continues.
Meanwhile, in another slime pond, another slimy organism develops a DNA of "3." This particular organism doesn't have the stuff that the 1's and the 2's and their various mixed descendents have. No! This particular organism has a come up with a (insert a new innovation here).
And so it goes. Slime creatures change and other slime creatures who also change in a different way contribute to the soup. And the permutations are endless.
Until "women" eventually emerged. Then everything turned to shit. Not really. That's what some guys say. Women say men turned it all to shit and men say women turned it all to shit. It's still all a bunch of shit. At least the 1's and the 2's were willing to take a dare and if it wasn't for them, we'd all still be clones of 1's, instead of blaming the other sex for all of our problems. Sigh.
But it was well-meaning when it all started out. And it had endless possibilities, too. Too bad we haven't advanced nearly to our potential.
We humans now have a genome that has at least a gazillion DNA thingies and we are not much smarter than the 1's and the 2's who started the whole process. There must be intelligent life out in the Universe, because there isn't much of it here on planet earth.
Farkel, tongue firmly in cheek