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Comment by theophrastus | Hacker News Reader

If you don't want to turn-off a finicky set of science geeks please flip the stock image at the top of your web-page. It screams that you don't know the normal handedness of DNA [1], (and calls to suspicion what other basic structural genetic facts you-all might be unaware of)

[1] http://users.fred.net/tds/leftdna/

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thanks for catching that. we swapped out the stock image for a shot of the author's lab. perhaps not as pretty, but certainly not as misleading :)

this is not the first time i have been bitten by stock photography. i'm concluding that it's worth the effort to shoot originals whenever possible.

Graphically well done. I don't know about "misleading", but that certainly appears more authentic. As to any "shoot originals" of DNA strands we have to satisfy ourselves with crystallographic or NMR models, (nuclei and electrons being somewhat shy beasts as far as photography is concerned). One only has to depict it helixing to the right as it recedes from the viewer to be free of annoying quibbles (from me [wink])

yeah, i'm not planning to "shoot originals" of DNA any time soon. just article headers at the macro-molecular scale :)

after your comment i carefully examined every detail of the picture (not just the handedness) and, as a chemist, was annoyed by enough details (especially the hydrogen bonds) to nix the whole thing.

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