9. How do we know the earth isn't uniform throughout?

Because the Earth is not a static, dead rock. It’s a vibrant, geologically active rock. There are volcanoes reshaping the surface, tectonic plates, glaciation, desertification, areas of subduction and other areas that are being pushed up, all because the surface of the planet is in constant motion, because all the stuff *under* the surface of the planet is also constantly in motion.

step 1: initiation

initiation is the beginning of transcription. it occurs when the enzyme rna polymerase binds to a region of a gene called the promoter. this signals the dna to unwind so the enzyme can ‘‘read’’ the bases in one of the dna strands. the enzyme is now ready to make a strand of mrna with a complementary sequence of bases.

step 2: elongation

elongation is the addition of nucleotides to the mrna strand. rna polymerase reads the unwound dna strand and builds the mrna molecule, using complementary base pairs. there is a brief time during this process when the newly formed rna is bound to the unwound dna. during this process, an adenine (a) in the dna binds to an uracil (u) in the rna.

step 3: termination

termination is the ending of transcription, and occurs when rna polymerase crosses a stop (termination) sequence in the gene. the mrna strand is complete, and it detaches from dna.