| About

Jumping Genes, also called transposons are chunks of DNA that move from one location to another.

Wikipedia says:

A transposable element (TE) is a DNA sequence that can change its relative position (self-transpose) within the genome of a single cell. The mechanism of transposition can be either “copy and paste” or “cut and paste”. 

Why are they totally weird and interesting? Because it shows just how dynamic that molecule called DNA is. How your DNA is constantly changing. Some of these have copy number of ~1 million when we have about 3 billion base pairs.

Speaking of DNA, seeing your own strand of DNA in a test tube is a strange experience. Humbling, making you feel insignificant, yet oddly making you think ‘curioser and curioser’.

About v 2.5

A little about

Hello ! I am Laavanya, a grad student at University of Pennsylvania and in a certain phase of uni [insert cauldron of emotions]. I’m from this amazing and chaotic city called Chennai in India.

This blog sprouted as a result of my summer internship at Singapore about all the quirky travel incidents in Singapore. Now that that’s done, hopefully, this blog will run for at least a couple of years with other adventures/travel related posts.

With grad school in a whole ‘nother part of the world, there’s bound to be some tales.
🙂