One of the many great things about The Economist magazine is that they run "Briefing" articles that give brief readable introductions and analyses to important topics, ranging from racism to taxation to climate change. Last year they ran a series about new ideas in economics.
They are currently running a series, Biology Briefs. Each week, for six weeks, there is a two-page article on one key topic in modern biology. They are naturally divided by different scales: molecules, cells, organs, individual lives, species, and living planets.
The most important idea in molecular biology: DNA encodes information that is used to make specific proteins.
Replication: the protein DNA polymerase makes new DNA molecules with the same sequence of base pairs
Transcription: the protein RNA polymerase makes single strands of RNA that have the same genetic information.
Translation: the protein ribosome reads the information in the mRNA and uses it to make chains of amino acids (with specific sequences determined by the RNA sequence). These polymers then fold spontaneously into proteins with specific functions.
There is much that is amazing and awesome about this, including that people have been able to figure all this out. What I find most amazing/miraculous/awesome/cool is not the software but rather the hardware, i.e. the proteins that act as nanoscale biochemical factories, particularly the ribosome.
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