does a banana have dna?

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Originally Posted by jhall1468

However, it was my impression that the consensus is viruses are NOT living matter, since they don't have the capacity to replicate themselves without a host cell.

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IF you read that in a textbook, I understand.....some writers like to draw these finite lines so that it makes it easier to teach cell theory.

But truthfully that's a debate that's never been completely resolved....nor maybe should it be.

One text I read a long time ago(cant remember which one) put it in what stuck me as a very elegant way. It said that "viruses are at the threshold between the living and non-living"

Remember the natural world is very strange. It doesn't always fit into the nice categories that our mind likes to draw up. Professional Nobel winning scientists have trouble coming up with a definition for life.

Look at slartibartfast example above......also consider can we grow and reproduce without the earth?

Life seems to be one of those things that if you look at something hard enough and rigorously enough, you can come up with a good idea whether its living or non-living.

Here's a interesting article that I use to show kids just how mysterious life is. http://biology.plosjournals.org/perl...l.pbio.0020302

Here's another article that You might find interesting, "The Seven Pillars of Life" SCIENCE VOL 295 22 MARCH 2002

Here's a quote from it,

"What is the definition of life? I remember a conference of the scientific elite that sought to answer that question. Is an enzyme alive? Is a virus alive? Is a cell alive? After many hours of launching promising balloons that defined life in a sentence, followed by equally conclusive punctures of these balloons, a solution seemed at hand: “The ability to reproduce—that is the essential characteristic of life,” said one statesman of science. Everyone nodded in agreement that the essential of a life was the ability to reproduce, until one small voice was heard. “Then one rabbit is dead. Two rabbits—a male and female—are alive but either one alone is dead.” At that point, we all became convinced that although everyone knows what life is there is no simple definition of life."

Me, personally-I consider viruses living. They have the capacity to reproduce and they can evolve adaptations by natural selection to take advantage of their host. Or put more simply--There's good reasons why you study viruses in biology class and not geology class.:P

To think viruses arent living to me, is rather anthropocentric and a little biasis against the invisible, nanoscale world around us.

Some very interesting stuff. Clearly there isn't quite the consensus I had assumed. After reading the articles you posted I found two others written by scientists that also consider viruses "living" and several others that play the middle ground and argue they aren't. So much for consensus ;).

By the way, love the reference to Gregor Mendel... particularly fitting for this forum :).

Back to the original question....does a banana have DNA?

A related question.....

How much DNA is in certain foods is no trival matter!......DNA is composed of purines.....Foods with High Purine content (such as mushrooms) should be avoided by those with Gout.

Purine are sythesized by our body and people with gout need to watch their uric acid levels.....(purines not used get scraped as uric acid.)

That is one of the very few things that I remember from my freshman year of biology.

who knows?

i voted yes as i had this come up in science class waaaaaay back in high school lol :D

They better have DNA or my genetically engineered bananas aren't going to fair so well. :eek:

Ok, so I don't have genetically engineered bananas, heck, at the moment I don't have any bananas....but now I want one...thanks Aleesha! :P
I guess this will have to do for now until I get to the store. :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

i just brought home some nice organic bananas... mmmmmmmmm

...and Mike forgot to get film today. :P
But then again, he didn't get bananas either. :(

bad mike... no cookies!