The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.
chromosomes
(KROH-muh-sohmz) The small bodies in the nucleus of a cell that carry the chemical “instructions” for reproduction of the cell. They consist of strands of DNA wrapped in a double helix around a core of proteins. Each species of plant or animal has a characteristic number of chromosomes. For human beings, for example, it is forty-six.
