The many characteristic features of each living species, its complex
architecture, its particular behavior patterns, the ingenious
modifications of structure and function that enable it to compete and
survive—all these must pass, figuratively speaking, through the eye of
an ultramicroscopic needle before they are brought together as a new,
individual organism. The thread that passes through the eye of this
needle is a strand of the filamentous molecule, deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA). Let us now outline the research that led to these conclusions.