Thursday, 23 June 2011

$100 worth of science fail

So the Canadian government has decided to give our bills a makeover. Gone are the days of money made out of cotton! A new era of synthetic polymer bank notes has arrived. They look pretty cool, which is good. Supposedly, these notes are harder to counterfeit, which is even better. And the $100 bill is a celebration of science, which is even more awesome. The reverse side of the bill shows a bottle of insulin, a lady working at a microscope, and a strand of DNA, as shown below.

 Wait a second. Something looks wrong here. Let's take a closer look...


 That helix is left-handed! DNA is a right-handed helix, not a left-handed helix. I applaud the Government for making the bill science-centric, but really, how hard would it have been to get the art accurate? The left-handed helix mistake is incredibly common, but that's really no excuse.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought I was the only one that noticed this! Very observant. You must be a biochemist hahaha.

C.W.G.K said...

Biochemistry and molecular biology is my forté :)

Anonymous said...

Not the first time for Canada !

In 1996 they issued a stamp celebrating HIGH TECHNOLOGY INVENTIONS - 45¢ Stamps - Biotechnology - yellow flower and left-handed DNA Helix

Look at the lower right stamp ....

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Canada-1595-1596-1597-1598-Technology-Industries-1996-Set-4-Mint-NH-/00/s/MTMyM1gxNjAw/$(KGrHqRHJCoE9!OfDVrRBPVlh1(rs!~~60_35.JPG

C.W.G.K said...

Hah, that is amusing! Thanks for bringing that to my attention!