An attempt to unravel DNA secrets

Two Co Kildare students have developed a way to unravel the most complicated of knots without even touching them. They believe their "knot-mapping" technique could be useful in understanding the complex shape of proteins, and even the human genetic code.

"We decided to find a new way to project knots," explained Joseph Byrne, a 13-year-old second-year student from Patrician Secondary School, Newbridge, Co Kildare. He and classmate Ronan McGovern (13), found a new way to make maps of a knot so that the convolutions could be displayed on a sheet of paper.

"We can map a knot in three dimensions, despite being flat, so you can put it on paper," explained Ronan. "It is really amazingly complicated."

Both newcomers to the exhibition, they got involved in knots because Ronan likes sailing, said Joseph. They got a book on knots and began studying the subject before deciding to develop a way to map the twists and turns inside a knot.

The book showed them how to put a knot inside a plastic sphere and then trace the shape onto paper on the sphere's surface.

They refined this idea, first placing a bead at the centre of the sphere to locate the knot surface in three dimensions, and then switching from a sphere to an octahedron. "We decided the octahedron was the most practical shape," said Joseph.

Even the most complicated knot shape could be dissected in this way, they said. They demonstrated with a knotted length of wire more than two metres long compressed into their small octahedron shape, built from the lids of two sweet boxes.

"It isn't the length of the strand, it is the crossings," explained Ronan. They unravelled the "Mary Knot" from the Book of Kells, a shape found at the top of a staff on Mary's chair in the book. "We actually think it is a forked tongue," said Ronan.

The technique would be useful in the analysis of knots, a relatively new area of scientific study. They also believe it could help unravel the stunningly complicated foldings inside a protein or DNA, the human genetic code.

Neither expected to return to the RDS next year because of the Junior Cert, but they would like to bring their project forward for the year after.