Unwound and laid end to end, the DNA in one human body would reach far beyond the sun.

What it means

Each cell holds around two meters of DNA packed into a nucleus a few millionths of a meter across, which is roughly like stuffing forty kilometers of thread into a tennis ball. Multiply by the tens of trillions of cells in a body and the total length runs to billions of kilometers. The packing problem is solved by winding the strand around protein spools and coiling the result.

The claim comes from National Human Genome Research Institute.

Nearby in the collection

The facts either side of this one.

• NIGMSmedium, 76 letters
• NHGRImedium, 74 letters
• NHGRIhard, 67 letters
• NHGRIeasy, 77 letters

About as hard as this one

Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.

• NIAMShard, 76 letters
• PLOS Biologymedium, 75 letters
• MedlinePlusmedium, 72 letters
• MedlinePlushard, 75 letters