Dear Larry, I suppose this depends on your definitions. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleotide says that nucleotides are found in both DNA and RNA in the opening sentence. Also look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA where it says the following: "Most DNA molecules are double-stranded helices, consisting of two long biopolymers made of simpler units called nucleotides—each nucleotide is composed of a nucleobase (guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine), recorded using the letters G, A, T, and C, as well as a backbone made of alternating sugars (deoxyribose) and phosphate groups (related to phosphoric acid), with the nucleobases (G, A, T, C) attached to the sugars." I don't think that Matt Cook's definition of DNA as being made up of "deoxynucleotides" is mainstream. While the nucleotides in DNA are indeed "deoxynucleotides" most scientists don't include the "deoxy" part when describing the components of DNA. Sincerely, Tim Janzen -----Original Message----- From: autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Larry Vick Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2013 11:07 AM To: autosomal-dna@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Family finder matches what to make of them Terminology is interesting.  In Tales from the Genome (the course 23andMe is sponsoring), Matt COOK (one of the instructors) said that nucleotides are really components of RNA while deoxynucleotides are components of DNA.  I found that interesting since we use the terminology single nucleotide polymorphism to describe changes in DNA alleles. Hopefully, I didn't add more terminology problems in my description. Regards, Larry

I agree. The term, "deoxynucleotides," is not incorrect, but it's unnecessarily complex, and definitely not mainstream. But the bigger problem is that to confine the term "nucleotides" to apply only to RNA narrows the accepted definition of nucleotides, thus creating two meanings for the term. Such ambiguity is highly undesirable in technical terminology - not to mention that nucleotides do not occur only in DNA and RNA. Various nucleotides are components of numerous other biologically important molecules. Diana > -----Original Message----- > From: autosomal-dna-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:autosomal-dna- > bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Tim Janzen > Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2013 4:08 PM > To: 'Larry Vick'; autosomal-dna@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [AUTOSOMAL-DNA] Family finder matches what to make of them > > Dear Larry, > I suppose this depends on your definitions. Wikipedia > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleotide says that nucleotides are found in > both DNA and RNA in the opening sentence. Also look at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA where it says the following: "Most DNA > molecules are double-stranded helices, consisting of two long biopolymers > made of simpler units called nucleotides-each nucleotide is composed of a > nucleobase (guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine), recorded using the > letters G, A, T, and C, as well as a backbone made of alternating sugars > (deoxyribose) and phosphate groups (related to phosphoric acid), with the > nucleobases (G, A, T, C) attached to the sugars." I don't think that Matt > Cook's definition of DNA as being made up of "deoxynucleotides" is > mainstream. While the nucleotides in DNA are indeed "deoxynucleotides" most > scientists don't include the "deoxy" part when describing the components of > DNA. > Sincerely, > Tim Janzen