Question about dna lenght

Hi,
If you unwind a strain of dna it would be thousands of miles long right?
So, to create something this complex, it would have to start small, and then, thrue evolution, get longer and more complex, like a program rewriting itself and adding bits of code thrue chance.

So, is it still growing? It just seems to be stuck at 23 chromosones.

Might be a silly question but i've never had much biology classes.

3.85 × 10^8 m

Good question. Never thought of that in class.

Length of DNA
Here to the Moon

hypertextbook.com...

wow-really.blogspot.com...
You have about 10 trillion cells in your body, so if you stretched the DNA in all the cells out, end to end, they'd stretch over 744 million miles. The moon is only about 250,000 miles away, so all your DNA would stretch to the moon and back alomst 1500 times. The sun is 93,000,000 miles away, so your DNA would reach there and back about 4 times!

Originally posted by Morrel
If you unwind a strain of dna it would be thousands of miles long right?

No.
DNA strands can be any length you like.
You appear to be speaking of the DNA in human chromosomes, but thats only one special case situation in one species.

Originally posted by Morrel
So, is it still growing? It just seems to be stuck at 23 chromosones.

Again, thats only the case for one particular species.
There's nothing particularly special about this number, or it being the largest.
Take a look here at a list of various species and the number of chromosomes they have.

Random examples...
African Wild Dog 78
Turkey 82
Wolf 78

reply to post by Manhater

Length of DNA
Here to the Moon

I think you need to read your source more carefully, and again.

The length is about 3 meters.

Originally posted by Morrel
So, to create something this complex, it would have to start small, and then, thrue evolution, get longer and more complex, like a program rewriting itself and adding bits of code thrue chance.

Yes, and it is also possible to get duplication or deletion events, where large chunks is added/removed, so it is not just 'one base at a time'. Just look at Adders-tongue, which has been through quite a few duplication events of its genome, and is now sitting at around 1200 chromosomes.

So, is it still growing? It just seems to be stuck at 23 chromosones.

There are plenty of examples of human diseases where you have more or less than 23 chromosomes.

Might be a silly question but i've never had much biology classes.

Seeking knowledge with an open mind is a good thing.

The reason we have 23 chromosomes though is that we have two that have been somehow fused together - we originally had 24 (same as the apes).
I do not believe that this has happened in any other species and is a cause for much debate amongst the boffins as to whether this has happened naturally or whether we received some assistance from ET's.

The average length of the DNA in a single human nucleus is about 1 meter.

A single DNA base is 0.34 nm in length. Assuming you have 3.0 x 10^9 bases per nucleus, we get:

3.0 x 10^9 bases x 0.34 nm/1 base x 1 m/1.0 x 10^9 nm = 1.02 m

Originally posted by OzTiger
I do not believe that this has happened in any other species

A few seconds with a google search showed that what you believe, and especially the stuff about aliens, to be simply not true.

The Phenotypic Effects of Chromosome Variation

Many many many many many examples are given of chromosome fusion, as well as the different ways this can happen.
And it is worth noting that the page I linked to is NOT an "evolutionist", but he still shoots you down in flames anyway.