How cells read and carry out instructions contained in genes

I'm increasingly amazed by the complexity of the cell. It's been said that man and woman is nature's greatest creation, but if you want to talk in terms of sheer complexity, I think the cell is the greatest invention to date by man or nature.

I liked this rubber-band visualization from the article:

"Taken together, the two studies answer the longstanding question of how the machine acquires the energy required to break its interactions with, and leave, the start site. The machine acquires this energy by unwinding DNA and pulling unwound DNA during initial transcription. As DNA is unwound, energy is stored in the system, in the same manner, Ebright notes, as winding the rubber band of a rubber-band-powered airplane stores energy. Eventually, there is sufficient energy stored in the system that the machine is able to break its interactions with the start site, to shoot forward and, at the same instant, to rewind the unwound DNA."