Article] Scientists Take DNA's Temperature

"Robert Karl Stonjek" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Scientists Take DNA's Temperature

The temperature most often associated with human life is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, that of a
healthy person. Now scientists have succeeded in taking a different measurement, one they've
dubbed the "heat of life:" the energies involved in DNA replication and synthesis.

[snip]

Quoted message said:

The thermal detection system, which is accurate to a millionth of a calorie, determined the amount
of heat given off when a base pair was inserted into the DNA strand.

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Comment: The latest science? Then why do they use a scale that was originally the measure of a
King's stride (yard) foot (foot) or manliness (inch)?? Why not use the centigrade scale (Celsius)
like the rest of the non-monarchical world (or do you Americans still check imperial measures
against, say, the latest president's dimensions?)

Kind Regards, Robert Karl Stonjek.

It is interesting that the number 98.6, which every American school child learns, is a direct
conversion from the Celsius estimate of 37 degrees that was set back in the 19th century by a German
researcher. I suspect that Americans probably relied on an Oxbridge trained Englishman to do the
arithmetic of the conversion - an American would have rounded to 99 degrees (and incidentally have
come closer to the truth).

Of course, Americans are familiar with some metric scales - notice that the heat measurement was in
calories. Perhaps Scientific American should have converted that to BTU... ;-)

[email hidden] (Jim Menegay) wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

"Robert Karl Stonjek" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Scientists Take DNA's Temperature

The temperature most often associated with human life is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, that of a
healthy person. Now scientists have succeeded in taking a different measurement, one they've
dubbed the "heat of life:" the energies involved in DNA replication and synthesis.

[snip]

Quoted message said:

The thermal detection system, which is accurate to a millionth of a calorie, determined the
amount of heat given off when a base pair was inserted into the DNA strand.

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Comment: The latest science? Then why do they use a scale that was originally the measure of a
King's stride (yard) foot (foot) or manliness (inch)?? Why not use the centigrade scale
(Celsius) like the rest of the non-monarchical world (or do you Americans still check imperial
measures against, say, the latest president's dimensions?)

Kind Regards, Robert Karl Stonjek.

It is interesting that the number 98.6, which every American school child learns, is a direct
conversion from the Celsius estimate of 37 degrees that was set back in the 19th century by a
German researcher. I suspect that Americans probably relied on an Oxbridge trained Englishman to
do the arithmetic of the conversion - an American would have rounded to 99 degrees (and
incidentally have come closer to the truth).

No, it would have been closer by truncating to 98 °F.

Quoted message said:

Of course, Americans are familiar with some metric scales - notice that the heat measurement was
in calories. Perhaps Scientific American should have converted that to BTU... ;-)

Scientific American should indeed have converted it. Calories are not part of the modern metric
system. They are not part of the International System of Units (SI), and they are not part of the
"metric system" as defined in U.S. law. The proper units are joules.

Note also that they didn't use the metric prefixes, saying "millionth of a calorie" instead, and
they didn't identify which calorie is being used--I'd say it should be the large calorie most often
used in the medical field, but it might be the small calorie which was common in physics and
chemistry, only 0.001 large calorie. Is the resolution of this equipment 4 mJ or is it 4 µJ?

--
Gene Nygaard ourworld.compuserve.comt jeff.htmOpen ↗ But if it be thought
that, either now, or at any future time, the citizens of the United States may be induced to
undertake a thorough reformation of their whole system of measures, weights and coins, reducing
every branch to the same decimal ratio already established in their coins, and thus bringing the
calculation of the principal affairs of life within the arithmetic of every man who can multiply
and divide plain numbers, greater changes will be necessary. U.S. Secretary of State Thomas
Jefferson, 1790