Facts Blog

CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bacteriophages that had previously infected the prokaryote. They are used to detect and destroy DNA from similar bacteriophages during subsequent infections.

Ada Lovelace, born in 1815, was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron. Despite her mother's attempts to steer her away from poetry towards mathematics, she combined both by bringing 'poetical science' to her work on Babbage's Analytical Engine. She realized that the engine could manipulate symbols according to rules, and that a number might represent entities other than quantity.