Re: Does everything, even a table or a piece of wood, contain DNA?

One of the amazing things about life is its chemical unity. All living creatures (several million kinds) use the same chemicals, including the same DNA, to produce and maintain all the incredible diversity of life.

Since DNA is the "blueprint" for all life, including plants, animals, bacteria, etc., all living matter contains DNA. Many viruses even contain DNA! DNA is an unusually tough substance; it can sometimes be found, intact, in fossils!

(A magnolia leaf that dropped into a lake over 10 million years ago contained DNA that could be analyzed and compared to DNA from living magnolias. The fossil closely resembled the DNA of living magnolia trees. It was slightly different from any living kind of magnolia, showing scientists that it was an extinct species of magnolia.)

Even though wood is not alive anymore, it contains dry, shrunken cells, each of which has DNA, unless the DNA has been decomposed (broken into tiny chemical bits) by bacteria. Later in school, if you take biology classes, you will learn where DNA is located (the nucleus) and how a "message" made of RNA (ribonucleuic acid) is synthesized from a DNA template and used to make proteins (like the white of eggs, the keratin in your fingernails, or the muscle protein in a hamburger) needed for life.