"cell central, get me amanuensis on the line!"

Comforting to know that the process we use to transmit culture exists at the heart of every living being.

In a Scientific First, Einstein Scientists Discover the Dynamics of Transcription in Living Mammalian Cells

Transcription — the transfer of DNA’s genetic information through the synthesis of complementary molecules of messenger RNA — forms the basis of all cellular activities. Yet little is known about the dynamics of the process — how efficient it is or how long it takes. Now, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have measured the stages of transcription in real time. Their unexpected and surprising findings have fundamentally changed the way transcription is understood.

[...] To visualize the transcription process, the researchers used living mammalian cells, each of which contained 200 copies of an artificial gene that they had inserted into one of the cell’s chromosomes. Then, by attaching fluorescent tags to RNA polymerase II, they were able to closely monitor all three phases of the transcription process: binding of the enzyme molecules to DNA, initiation (when the enzyme links the first few RNA nucleotides together) and elongation (construction of the rest of the RNA molecule). [...]