If you slice open your skin, you don’t slowly drain like a punctured garden hose. Your body instantly swaps its flowing liquid for a solid, reinforced wall. Behind a hard, crusty surface shield, microscopic cleanup crews clear out bacteria while builders lay down fresh collagen from the bottom up, turning a leaking disaster into a fortress in seconds.
You are, quite literally, a machine made of proteins. This is the story of how tiny folded chains keep you alive.
Here’s something you probably didn’t learn in biology class: your DNA is being damaged right now. Not occasionally, not under extreme circumstances, but constantly. Across basically every cell in your body, thousands of times a day. Your DNA being damaged is more common and more “voluntary” than blinking or breathing. And yet here you are. Fully intact. Which is actually the interesting part. The Problem With Being Alive Your DNA has a lot of enemies, and the most surprising ones…