h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What a really useful and easy to understand article. I just have one little question and forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong, which I probably am. In the first paragraph under the heading "Transcription, you say 'A' is 'adenosine'. I thought it was 'adenine' and that adenosine was something else.

A DNA strand is many 'nucleotide' molecules joined together in a chain.

Adenosine is a nucleotide. As is Uracil, Thymidine etc.

A nucleotide is made up of three sub-bits, A base (Adenine in Adenosine), a sugar (2'-deoxyribose in DNA, ribose in RNA) and a phosphate group.

Without the phosphate group it is called a Nucleoside.

Hope that explains what you asked

To the Author. Nice article, well explained . Two spelling mistakes I noticed though.
1. 'aminoacyl tRNA syntheses' should be either aminoacyl tRNA synthases or synthetases.
2. In footnote 5 I believe the word is methionine not methianine.

I would guess a sub-ed might not spot these if they were not a scientist.

Thank you very much for your clear explanation. Much appreciated!

A very clearly written and easy to understand piece. Really enjoyed reading it.

For the record, uracil is actually a base, and uridine is the nucleoside.

True enough, sorry about that.

Adenosine is technically a nucleoside too.