Biology Is In My DNA

Aha, boy, am I funny.

A part of our final score in science, we need to do a practical. And this practical, unlike last year, doesn't need to be an experiment. I took this opportunity, and the fact that I already had my clay out, to use my 'creative juices' and do a small project.

My aim is to create a replica of a strand of DNA out of clay.

The equipment I used was five different colours of clay *duh*, a shaping tool, and an oven.

The following is the best method I could muster:
1. First, separate the five different colours of clay into the amount you think you'll need. You'll need more of whatever colour you want for the strands (the edges - I will be calling them 'edge strands' to make sure no one gets confused) as they are longer than the nucleotide bases.
2. Next, roll out each colour into snakes the length you want them. This may vary depending on how big you want the final product to be. Roll two really long snakes for the edge strands and pretty short and thin snakes for the bases.
3. Take a single edge strand and place it in an s shape

<-- Like the orange in this but without the other things in it.
4. Take the other edge strange and place it in a flipped s shape. Adjust until it is in the shape of a DNA structure you like.
5. Take your smaller snakes and roll them together. Let's say you're using red, pink, blue, and yellow. This may sound weird but depending on what kind of clay you're using this is how you stick them together. If there's another way you can put two colours together, do that. These will be the bases. Only roll the blue with the yellow and the red with the pink. This is because of the structure of DNA, as base pairs always consist of adenine with thymine or cytosine with guanine. You'll need enough bases to fit onto your edge strands.
6. Place the bases along the back edge strands, cut them if needed, and stick them on, making sure there's not too much or too little space between them.
7. Once you are glad with the way it looks, bake in the oven and let set (or just follow the instructions required for the kind of clay you're using.)

Here are my results:

Let's have a quick discussion: What I have made is a 2D DNA double helix. While making it, I decided that the pink was the cytosine, the purple was the guanine, the blue was the adenine, and the green was the thymine. These are the basic DNA nucleotide bases. Under the 'complementary base-pairing rule' (A biology rule, discovered by Erwin Chargaff, that states which other base that each base is paired with) cytosine is with guanine, hence pink with purple, and adenine with thymine, hence green with blue. These bases link together the sides, or the strands, of DNA and make up 'nucleotides.' Nucleotides are altogether made up of a sugar, a phosphate, and a base. This means that the strands of the DNA are made up of the alternating sugars and phosphates. There are sections in DNA that control our features, those are called genes. These all put together, now as DNA, in the shape of a twisted ladder (double helix, a shape proposed in an academic paper co-written by James Watson and Francis Crick), create what we know as chromosomes. Humans have 46 chromosomes altogether, with 23 from their mother and 23 from their father. Chromosomes are located in the nucleus of each cell that makes us up as humans. The nucleus is thought to be the control centre of the cell as it contains the instructions on how a cell should function. It's safe to say cells are... complicated. If you want to complicate it any more, you could talk about DNA replication. This the process of DNA making a copy of itself during cell division. It's kinda hard to understand but what I get of it is that the DNA 'unzips' the opposite strands by detaching the base pairs, fragments of DNA attach to the end of the lagging strand (usually the bottom strand) while pieces of RNA (like DNA but without thymine) called 'primers' attach to the end of the leading strand (usually the 'top' strand) adding new complementary nucleotide bases to the strand. Once all complementary bases are together and more are added, an enzyme called DNA ligase 'seals up' the sequence. Following replication the new DNA automatically winds up into a double helix. So. Yeah/

A final evaluation:
As I was trying to create the model, I attempted to create a 3D model. This... didn't work. I first tried to wrap the clay around pipe cleaners, they didn't stick. I couldn't get my hands on any floral wire, which would be ideal for the model I was going for.
If I were to do this again, I would attempt a different method to try and make a 3D model, as that would be a lot more accurate. To do that, I would try to use a different pattern, a sturdier kind of clay, floral wire, and floral foam. In theory, that would help create the 3D model that I originally wanted.