Berg, P.: Dealing with Genes: The Language of Heredity, University Science Books, Mill Valley, CA, 1992. A book by a leader in the field; Paul Berg won the 1980 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the development of recombinant DNA.

Doolittle, W.F.: "The Origin and Function of Intervening Sequences in DNA—A Review," American Naturalist, vol. 130, December 1987, pages 915–28. A thoughtful and comprehensive review of the many ideas about why introns exist and what they do.

Dorit, R., L. Schoenbach, and W. Gilbert: "How Big Is the Universe of Exons?" Science, vol. 250, December 1990, pages 1377–82. A controversial attempt to estimate the number of exons needed to construct all known proteins. A very important first step in addressing this key evolutionary question.

Nierhaus, K.: "The Three-Site Elongation Model for the Ribosome Elongation Cycle," Biochemistry, vol. 29, May 1990, pages 4997–5007. An exciting suggestion that the ribosome contains an E (exit) site as well as A and P sites.

Nowak, R.: "Mining Treasures from ‘Junk DNA’," Science, vol. 263, February 4, 1994, pages 608–10. If "junk DNA" really is junk, why do we have so much of it?

Ross, J.: "The Turnover of Messenger RNA," Scientific American, April 1989, pages 48–55. The level of many proteins in the body is determined by how fast the messenger RNA encoding them is broken down, rather than by how speedily new transcripts are churned out.

Steitz, J.: "Snurps," Scientific American, June 1988, pages 56–63. Small nuclear ribonuclear proteins (snurps) help remove introns from mRNA transcripts and are an active subject of research.

Todorov, I.: "How Cells Maintain Stability," Scientific American, December 1990, pages 66–75. An account of how cells shut down their protein-making factories in times of stress and start them back up afterward.