Wallace and Gromit do Molecular Biology!

A few months back I came across this wonderful animation in the second half of this video.   DNA replication, one of the fundamental mechanisms of life, is the molecular process by which a double stranded thread of DNA is untwisted and then copied to produce two identical double stranded threads.  Back in 1976-79, when I studied biochemistry at Leeds University, I learnt about DNA replication, but the details of the mechanism were only sketchily known back then (though I do remember the term 'Okazaki fragments'), and I hadn't kept up with the subject since, so this animation came as quite a revelation to me.   In particular I was struck by how parts of the proteins flip back and forth, and how one strand of DNA repeatedly forms a loop which is then realeased.  It reminds me of the knitting machine from the Wallace and Gromit film 'A Close Shave'.

Update on Sat 2007-03-17 by Tristram Brelstaff

This DNA replication mechanism is what Watson and Crick foresaw back in 1953 when they wrote:

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

There is a way of looking at things in which all the rest of our lives and our bodies are just ancillary mechanisms to help keep this DNA replication going.