DNA repair is a constantly operating process in the cell essential to survival because it protects the genome from damage. In human cells, both normal metabolic activities and environmental factors (such as UV rays) can cause DNA damage, resulting in as much as 500,000 individual molecular lesions per cell per day. These lesions cause structural damage to the DNA molecule, and can dramatically alter the cell's way of reading the information encoded in its genes. Consequently, the DNA repair process must be constantly operating, to rapidly correct any damage in the DNA structure.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_repair

Today's selected anniversaries:

* 1821 - Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador proclaimed independence from Spain

* 1916 - Tanks, the "secret weapons" of the British Army during World War I, were first used in combat at the Battle of the Somme. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme_%281916%29)

* 1935 - Nazi Germany adopted the Nuremberg Laws, which deprived German Jews of citizenship, and a new national flag with the Swastika. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws)

* 1950 - Incheon Landing: United States forces landed at Incheon, Korea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_war#Inchon_Landing)

* 1952 - United Nations gave Eritrea to Ethiopia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eritrea)

* 1963 - A bomb exploded in the 16th Street Baptist Church, an African-American church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing several children. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing)

Wikiquote of the day:

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are." ~ Anaïs Nin (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ana%C3%AFs_Nin)