Team Gene: Nucleotide Trivia

Nucleotides are the basic units of nucleic acids. They are monomeric units – molecules that react together with other monomeric molecules to form polymer chains, in this case DNA or RNA.

Nucleotides are composed of 3 subunit molecules – a nucleobase, a 5 carbon sugar (ribose in RNA and deoxyribose in DNA), and a phosphate group.

There are four nucleobases in DNA – adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). In RNA uracil (U) replaces thymine as the final base. These bases store information and allow for the encoding of phenotype, or visible traits.

In DNA the bases always pair together while forming the double helix structure. Adenine binds with thymine, and cystosine and guanine bind together. The complementary bases are loosely linked together with hydrogen bonds. When DNA needs to unzip in order to duplicate, these bonds are easily broken so replication can begin.

Now it’s time to make like a string of nucleotides and start building your knowledge for our upcoming trivia challenge! In this round you’ll find plenty of genetic trivia, as well as the usual neuroscience and general knowledge fun facts.

Trivia How-To: The bot will start firing off questions at 11:00 AM EDT on 5/21 and continue until 11:00 AM EDT on 5/23, at which point things will finish with a power hour till noon. Submit your answers by typing them into the chat box. Optional: you may submit answers privately by messaging @inquizitor if you do not want other players to see your responses. To do this, type /pm inquizitor before your message.

Swag: The top scoring player wins the choice of a notebook or a mug, plus a sticker/magnet set! Second and third place will each also win a sticker/magnet set.

Bonus info is available in your in-game notifications. Good luck!