"Supercoiled" Natural Recordings by Native Speakers
Supercoiled refers to a state of being twisted or coiled to an extreme degree, often in a spiral or helical shape. In chemistry and biology, supercoiling is a type of DNA structure where the double helix of DNA is twisted upon itself in a coil, beyond its natural level of coiling. This can occur due to the terminal bases of the DNA molecule being linked in an illegal fashion or due to being restrained in a confined space, or due to other specific situations such as fixation and gradual relaxation in a cell that cannot completely unwound.
In physics, supercoiling can also refer to the phenomenon whereby an elastic curve buckles or inverts, often occurring in long, thin structures like rods, DNA superhelices, or polymers.