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A piece of double-stranded DNA has 100 base pairs. What is the length of the piece of DNA? How many complete turns can this double helix make?

User Alganet
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Final answer:

The length of the double-stranded DNA with 100 base pairs is 34 nm. The double helix can make 10 complete turns.

Step-by-step explanation:

The length of a double-stranded DNA is determined by the number of base pairs it contains. In this case, the DNA has 100 base pairs. Each base pair is separated by a distance of 0.34 nm, so to find the length of the DNA, we multiply the number of base pairs by this distance:

Length of DNA = Number of base pairs * Distance between base pairs = 100 * 0.34 nm = 34 nm

For the second part of the question, we need to calculate how many complete turns the double helix can make. We know that each turn of the helix measures 3.4 nm, so we divide the length of the DNA by this distance:

Number of turns = Length of DNA / Distance per turn = 34 nm / 3.4 nm = 10 turns

User Thvo
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