Episode 18 - Part 1 - The Amazing Wonder! The Length of Genetic Material in Your Body
Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah, dear beloved. We mentioned that we will discuss examples from this perfect universe. Today, we will start with the genetic material in our bodies. The information you will hear is quite astonishing, so I will document the information for you in the best way possible.
Allah the Almighty says: "(And within the earth are signs for the certain [in faith]. And within yourselves. Then will you not see?)" [Adh-Dhariyat: 20, 21].
The Human Body: Cells and Their Numbers
Your body is composed of cells, with the cell being the smallest living unit. If we take a small point from your skin, it will appear under the microscope in this form. In your opinion, what is the number of cells in your body?
In reality, estimates have varied greatly. The best study that summarized the topic is this study from the journal "Annals of Human Biology" in 2013, which summarized estimates from 30 previous books and studies on the number of cells in the body. The result is that the number of cells in your body is approximately 37.2 trillion cells, meaning 37 million million cells.
In the sole of your little finger, there are hundreds of millions of cells. Each cell in the body is supplied with oxygen and food and gets rid of its waste, and each one is a world standing on its own. Today, we will talk specifically about their nuclei, a small part inside this small cell.
Inside the Cell: The Nucleus and Genetic Material
Let us enter inside the nucleus. This nucleus contains the genetic material, "DNA", which carries your genetic traits in the form of genes. A gene is responsible for eye color; a gene is responsible for insulin production, and so on...
This genetic material, composed of genes, is arranged in the form of chromosomes. This is one chromosome. Each one of us humans has 23 pairs of chromosomes. Each pair contains a chromosome inherited from the father and another from the mother. This is a real image of the chromosome under an electron microscope, like a ball of wool.
The genetic material "DNA" in the chromosome is a very thin and very, very long thread. To be accommodated by the small nucleus, it is arranged in a strange way; it is wound around proteins called histones "Histones", and the coil is wound around itself, and so on... it is very, very tightly packed.
The Amazing Length of Genetic Material (DNA)
The small nucleus of the cell, if we take the 23 pairs of chromosomes in it and unwind the compressed "DNA" in it and connect it to itself, its total length will be approximately 2 meters per nucleus. As in the "The Physics Factbook" encyclopedia, which compares the length of "DNA" in a single cell nucleus from several references. This is the length of the genetic material in a single nucleus in a single cell.
Okay, we said: how many cells do we have in the body? Approximately 37.2 trillion. Subtract from that the red blood cells and platelets because they do not have a nucleus. We are left with approximately 10 trillion cells that have a nucleus. Multiply 2 meters, the length of "DNA" in a single cell, by 10 trillion, the number of cells in your body, and the result will be a very, very huge number.
The result is 20 trillion meters, meaning 20 billion kilometers. 20 billion kilometers of genetic material in the cells of your body alone. This number is also stated in authoritative biochemistry books such as the book "Biochemistry For Dental Students" page 75, and as stated in the "The Physics Factbook" encyclopedia in its topic number 339.
Comparing the Length of DNA to Astronomical Distances
Do you know, brothers, what 20 billion kilometers mean?! The same encyclopedia approximates the picture for you and says that this length is enough for about 70 round trips from Earth to the sun. By the way, this number is relatively modest. There are global scientific websites that estimate the number of cells with a higher number, reaching a higher conclusion about the length of "DNA"; such as the website "Scitable" affiliated with "Nature Publishing Group", which estimated that each of us has genetic material "DNA" that reaches from here to the sun and back 300 times, even more!
Let us leave the numbers of this doubled website and stay with the lower estimates for the length of the genetic material with 20 billion kilometers. To make the meaning of this length clearer, imagine with me the Earth we live on with its plains, mountains, valleys, forests, seas, oceans, and deserts. This Earth is smaller than the sun by about a million times. The circumference of the sun is estimated at 4 million and 370 thousand kilometers, while the length of "DNA" in your body is 20 billion kilometers. That is, 20 thousand million kilometers. That is, it is enough to wrap around the sun many, many times; more than 4,500 times.
I know that these numbers are hard to believe, and I hesitated a lot in presenting them had I not found many references pointing in the same direction, even to higher numbers. And I did not find, despite extensive research, a single reference that mentions detailed calculations reaching a lower number. I will put in the first comments on the episode on my "Facebook" page a clip titled: (Details of the Length of Genetic Material) in which I will explain where these enormous numbers came from, with more scientific documentation - God willing.
The Dynamic Nature of Genetic Material
And the strangeness does not stop at this point, brothers, but this is the beginning of a story that complicates the tongue. The strangeness is when you know that this genetic material is not arranged in this form and the story is over, but parts of it are subjected throughout the day to reading operations.
For example: you got a cut... the healing of your wound requires many operations, including the production of collagen protein that will repair the wound. Special particles go and target the genes responsible for collagen specifically among these very long threads of genetic material. They read the genes, and collagen is produced from this reading. The genetic material is not rigid, dead threads arranged in a row, but active and interactive. The process of reading genes, we will talk about it in the next episode - God willing - and it is a topic that is no less strange than the length of the genetic material.
A Challenge to Deniers and Conclusion
Ask those who deny their Lord: Who created your body in this form?! He will answer you: It is nothing! The void, which created your body and made millions of millions of cells in it differentiate: cells for bones, others for flesh, others for nerves, fat cells, blood cells, and others... It is nothing, which created the hormones necessary for cell division and guided each of them to its appropriate place. It is nothing that did that! And did it all by chance!
It is nothing, which arranged the genetic material in your cells in this strange form. It is nothing, which created the genetic material and wrapped it around the histones and these in turn wrapped around each other and folded and coiled in an organized manner to unfold in an organized, perfect manner when needed. And nothing did all this by chance!
As for us, we say: "(This is the creation of Allah. So show me what those besides Him have created. Rather, the wrongdoers are in clear error.)" [Luqman: 11].
And peace be upon you.