{"id":433993,"date":"2018-01-31T14:33:43","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T18:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2018\/01\/180131133343.htm"},"modified":"2018-01-31T14:33:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T18:33:43","slug":"a-mutational-timer-is-built-into-the-chemistry-of-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=433993","title":{"rendered":"A mutational timer is built into the chemistry of DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have discovered that DNA contains a kind of built-in timer that clocks the frequency with which mutations occur. They show that DNA bases can shape-shift for a thousandth of a second, transiently morphing into alternative states that allow the molecule&#8217;s replication machinery to incorporate the wrong base pairs into its double helix. Such mismatches, though rare, serve as the basis of genetic changes that drive evolution and diseases like cancer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have discovered that DNA contains a kind of built-in timer that clocks the frequency with which mutations occur. They show that DNA bases can shape-shift for a thousandth of a second, transiently morphing into alternative states that allow t&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=433993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433994,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433993\/revisions\/433994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=433993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=433993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=433993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}