Would a Two-Letter Code with Four Different Nucleotides Be Sufficient

question 5

Essay

Would a two-letter code with four different nucleotides be sufficient to encode the 20 amino acids found in cells? Why or why not? What does the three-letter code imply about the nature of the genetic code?

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Definitions:

Standardized Test Statistic

A statistic that has been transformed to have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one, used in hypothesis testing.

P-value

A statistical measure that helps scientists and researchers determine the significance of their results, representing the probability of observing the collected data, or something more extreme, if the null hypothesis were true.

Z-test Approximation

A statistical method that uses the Z-distribution to approximate the significance of observed differences, typically used when sample sizes are large and the standard deviation is known.

Wilcoxon Test Statistic

A non-parametric test statistic used to compare two paired samples to assess whether their population mean ranks differ.