50 YEARS SINCE CRACKING CODE: HERE ARE.. 50 secrets of DNA.

Byline: DAVID EDWARDS

F IFTY years ago two young scientists burst into their local pub and exclaimed: "We have found the secret of life."

Francis Crick and James Watson had spent two years unraveling the structure of DNA, the famous double-helix. The consequences of the Cambridge scientists' work have changed the way we live. Today, on the 50th anniversary of their discovery, we list 50 things you should know about DNA.

1FRIEDRICH Meischer, a German, found DNA in 1869.

2 PUT end to end, all the DNA in your body would reach to the sun and back 600 times.

3 THE discovery of DNA's structure is "the biological equivalent of landing on the moon".

4 A SINGLE molecule consists of two strands that wrap around each other to resemble a twisted ladder - the double helix.

5ARCHAEOLOGISTS can tell whether skeletons were related other by looking at their DNA.

6 JAMES Watson has no ethical or scientific objection to scientists trying to create clones.

7 DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid.

8 OXFORD'S Prof Richard Dawkins predicts that by 2200, we will be able to use DNA to predict when a person will die.

9 THE mapping of the molecule in 1953 coincided with Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbing Everest.

10THE Raelian cult claimed last year to have cloned two babies - but offered no evidence other than a blurred photo.

11 DNA inspired Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton's novel about cloned dinosaurs.

12A BLUE plaque was unveiled yesterday at The Eagle, the pub where Watson and Crick made their dramatic announcement.

13THE twin strands of DNA are linked by "base pairs" of four different sub-units called nucleotides, the order of which determines the genetic make-up. There are 100 trillion cells in the human body, each containing three billion base pairs.

14CAMBRIDGE researchers completed mapping the human genome - the genetic code - in 2000. One result could be "bad" genes being replaced to prevent the 4,000 illnesses they cause, including cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy.

15IN 1985, researchers at the University of Leicester made the first DNA fingerprint, which shows the sequence of DNA unique to each living thing.

16DNA can be extracted from dandruff.

17IN 1987 Florida teenagers Randall Scott Jones and Chris Reesh were the first people to be convicted using DNA fingerprinting. They were jailed for killing a young couple.

18FOR $99, a US firm can use your DNA to trace your ethnic make-up.

19THE birth of a rare Banteng calf in Iowa has led some to hope DNA could be the key to saving endangered species.

20ALTHOUGH Watson and Crick were close friends, their fellow researchers, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, from King's College, London, couldn't stand each other.

21THE DNA model gave birth to IVF technology and the birth of the world's first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, in Manchester in 1978.

22WATSON and Crick's discovery was turned into the 1987 film, The Race For The Double Helix, starring Jeff Goldblum and Tim Pigott-Smith.

23SAN Diego Zoo began to store DNA in 1976 and now has specimens from more than 3,200 mammals from 355 species.

24DOLLY the sheep was the first cloned animal. Created in 1996, she gave birth to four lambs before being put down last February, suffering from arthritis and lung disease.

25A US firm sells a do-it-yourself DNA testing kit to check if your partner is the parent of your child.

26ALMOST nine out of every 10 Britons are against human cloning.

27WRITTEN out, one person's genetic code would fill 400 phone directories.

28THE Human Cloning Foundation, backing the concept, was set up in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1998.

29HUMANS have roughly 30,000 genes, while the fruit fly has 13,602.

30OUR DNA is 98 per cent identical to chimpanzees'.

31THE human genome project was done on computers. Crick and Watson roughed out the shape of DNA on cut-out pieces of cardboard.

32IT would take a person typing 60 words a minute, eight hours a day, 50 years to type the human genome.

33DNA evidence revealed in 2001 that Albert DeSalvo - the "Boston Strangler" - was probably not behind the deaths of 11 women between 1962 and 1964. It was too late for DeSalvo, who was stabbed to death in jail in 1973.

34DNA evidence was used in 2002 to convict former Army chef Tony Jasinskyj of the killing of 14-year-old Marion Crofts in Hampshire in 1981.

35DNA tests have confirmed humankind's earliest ancestors came from Africa.

36NOW researchers are working to see if they can use DNA to create circuits for a new generation of molecule-sized computer chips which could be in use by 2007 to power a new generation of handheld computers.

37DNA fingerprinting proved Steve Bing is the father of Liz Hurley's son.

38THE structure of DNA might never have been found without a condom. Maurice Wilkins used one to seal a hydrogen-filled machine used to photograph the molecule in the early 1950s.

39IF unwound and tied together, the strands of DNA in one cell would stretch almost six feet.

40IF two people each started reciting their genetic code at a rate of one letter a second, it would take an average eight and a half minutes before they reached a difference.

41WATSON and Crick's work has made it possible to manufacture important human proteins, such as insulin.

42IN 2001 DNA helped free Earl Washington Jnr, of Virginia, who wrongly spent nine years on death row.

43A 91-year-old riddle over the identity of a baby who perished in the Titanic was solved last month after DNA from fragments of 13-month-old Eino Panula's teeth were matched to a Finnish family.

44SCIENTISTS at University College London are working to create Photofit faces from DNA cells left at crime scenes.

45SINCE 1994, the police have been allowed to take a DNA sample from anyone charged with a crime where it may prove relevant.

46THE Home Office's national DNA database, launched in 1995, contains samples from 1.8 million people.

47TRISHA Exposes... Britain's Biggest Love Rats was condemned by the Independent Television Commission last year after a woman was told the man she thought had fathered her child had not. The results of a DNA test were revealed on-air.

48SCIENTISTS at the University of Nebraska are working to crack the DNA code of cheese, which could lead to a fat-free version by next year.

49DR Oliver Ryder, of San Diego Zoo, believes if DNA can be extracted from the remains of extinct species, it could be possible to recreate them.

50SOME Christians claim the complexity of DNA is evidence that God exists - James Watson says the opposite is the case.

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CAPTION(S):

SAUR POINT: Dino; PIONEERS: Crick, left, Watson and the elusive DNA double helix; CLONE: Dolly; FATHER: Bing