Nautilus

Can a Card Game Stealthily Teach People Genetics?

Genius Games

High school biology class. You’re sitting in the back of the room. A ladder-like strip is drawn sideways across the whiteboard. There’s a strange blob seemingly tearing up the ladder from within and a comb-shaped strand sticking out beneath the blob. While looking at your phone and flicking from one social media channel to the next, you intermittently wonder: Is the ladder supposed to be attacking the comb? Looks like an alien or something. Maybe it’s eating the comb. Actually, you’re kind of hungry. Wonder how long till lunch…

Maybe this standard lesson on DNA transcription made perfect sense at the time and has stuck with you ever since. Maybe you understood it come college

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