Genes VIII by Gene Lewin

Introduction
The hereditary nature of every living organism is defined by its genome, which consists of a long sequence of nucleic acid that provides the information needed to construct the organism. We use the term "information" because the genome does not itself perform any active role in building the organism; rather it is the sequence of the individual subunits (bases) of the nucleic acid that determines hereditary features. By a complex series of interactions, this sequence is used to produce all the proteins of the organism in the appropriate time and place. The proteins either form part of the structure of the organism, or have the capacity to build the structures or to perform the metabolic reactions necessary for life...