Definition

A three-nucleotide sequence in DNA or RNA that codes for a specific amino acid or tells the cellular machinery to stop translation. Think of it as the genetic alphabet's version of a three-letter word, except instead of spelling 'cat' or 'dog,' it spells 'make methionine' or 'stop making protein now.' There are 64 possible codons but only 20 amino acids, which means biology invented redundancy long before your IT department did.

Example Usage

The UAG codon is a stop codon, which is biology's way of saying 'that's all folks' to the ribosome that's been dutifully churning out your proteins.

Source: Molecular biology terminology

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