The Human Body

If you uncoiled the DNA packed inside a single human cell, how many meters long would it be?

Answer

2 meters

Two meters of DNA is folded into a nucleus far thinner than a human hair — a packing feat like stuffing 40 km of thread into a tennis ball. Multiply by your trillions of cells and your total DNA would stretch to the Sun and back dozens of times.

Source: National Human Genome Research Institute; Molecular Biology of the Cell

Enjoyed that? Off By Ten is a free daily game: five questions like this one, scored by how close you land. No account, no app.

Play today's puzzle →