AMPHISBAENA 191 



and I shall assume that the existence of two complementary 

 strands, each having two ends, a head and a tail as it were, has 

 been proved. 



y: 

 Well, if it hasn't, it will be. 



o: 

 This DNA, as I understand it, has two functions: it has to make 

 itself — that is easy: unscrew, assemble, polymerize, recombine. 

 This has now become a so-called project for the so-called Science 

 Fairs of our so-called high-school boys. But it also has to make 

 the rest of the cell; and this is not so easy. For in this DNA 

 must be contained the quintessence of all this tremendous life of 

 our earth, the flagellum and the spirillum, but also the brain that 

 invented the St. Matthew Passion. "Dinanzi a me non fuor cose 

 create ..." 



y: 

 Don't talk Latin at me. 



o: 



Never mind. What I wanted to point out is that in our days 

 DNA plays the role of a self-replicating philosopher's stone. First 

 we have an extremely vicious circle: DNA makes DNA makes 

 DNA, etc.; a dreary, tragic desert, an Yves Tanguy landscape. 

 But simultaneously — and by what delegation of functions even 

 you could not tell me — the Dr. Jekyll side of DNA gets into the 

 act and makes A and B and C. I am always being told that all 

 biological information resides, in the last resort, in DNA. But 

 organisms contain many types of. specific molecules, quite apart 

 from the proteins and the nucleic acids: the mysterious conjugated 

 proteins, some of the lipids, cell wall substances, blood group 

 substances, specific polysaccharides. 



y: 



These polysaccharides contain no information. 



