Aestus Ajith

During Joseph Merrick's short life, he was a subject of both mockery and scientific befuddlement. Known as the "Elephant Man," Merrick's abnormal physical development led to work as a traveling curiosity and pokes and prods by puzzled doctors. Even after his death in 1890, Merrick's unusual legacy lived on: his life became the topic of several books, an award-winning play, and a David Lynch movie. And now, more than a century after Merrick's death, scientists think that analyzing his remains might finally pin down what genetic ailment the Elephant Man actually suffered from. As  BBC News  reports , a team at King's College London plans to carefully extract DNA from Merrick's skeleton in order to sequence his genome. From there, they hope to figure out which genetic mutations triggered Merrick's extreme development — a finding that might, in turn, help researchers unlock additional medical mysteries.

There are two ways to go about testing this, neither of which are practical. One requires the energy of dozens of Large Hadron Colliders. The other could yield a cauldron-full of flaming plutonium. Both, however, would probably create carbon monoxide and a pile of rust and salts rather than a cool Frankenstein element. If you toss single atoms of each element into a box, they won't form a super-molecule containing one of everything, explains Mark Tuckerman, a theoretical chemist at New York University. Atoms consist of a nucleus of neutrons and protons with a set number of electrons zooming around them. Molecules form when atoms' electron orbitals overlap and effectively hold the atoms together. What you get when you mix all your atoms, Tuckerman says, will be influenced by what's close to what. Oxygen, for example, is very reactive, and if it is closest to hydrogen, it will make hydroxide. If it is nearest to carbon, it will make carbon monoxide. "That random ...