Here's proof of how far we've come in science - in June 2017, researchers recorded up-close footage of a single DNA molecule replicating itself for the first time, and it's raised questions about how we assumed the process played out.
The real-time footage revealed that this fundamental part of life incorporates an unexpected amount of 'randomness', and it could force a major rethink into how genetic replication occurs without mutations.
"It's a real paradigm shift, and undermines a great deal of what's in the textbooks," said one of the team, Stephen Kowalczykowski from the University of California, Davis.
"It's a different way of thinking about replication that raises new questions."
The DNA double helix consists of two intertwining strands of genetic material made up of four different bases - guanine, thymine, cytosine, and adenine (G, T, C and A).
Replication occurs when an enzyme called helicase unwinds and unzips the double helix into two single strands.A second enzyme called primase attaches a 'primer' to each of these unravelled strands, and a third enzyme called DNA polymerase attaches at this primer, and adds additional bases to form a whole new double helix.
You can watch that process in the 2017 footage below:
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