zlacker

>>qqqqqu+(OP)
I would like to understand how cellular biology processes actually work. Like, how do all the right modules and proteins line up in the right orientation every time? Every time I watch animations, it seems like the proteins and such just magically appear when needed and disappear when not needed [0]. Sometimes it's an ultra-complex looking protein and it just magically flys over to the DNA, attaches to the correct spot, does it's thing, detaches, and flies away. Yeah right! As if the protein is being flown by a pilot. How does it really work?

[0] https://youtu.be/5VefaI0LrgE

>>umvi+go
I studied bioinformatics and found the standard textbook, Albert's "Molecular Biology of the Cell"[0] to be one of the most captivating books I've read. It's like those extremely detailed owners' manuals for early computers, except for cells.

The amount of complexity is just absolutely insane. My favourite example: DNA is read in triplets. So, for example, "CAG" adds one Glutamine to the protein it's building[1].

There are bacteria that have optimised their DNA in such a way that you can start at a one-letter offset, and it encodes a second, completely different, but still functional protein.

I found the single cell to be the most interesting subject. But of course it's a wild ride from top to bottom. The distance from brain to leg is too long, for example, to accurately control motion from "central command". That's why you have rhythm generators in your spine that are modulated from up high (and also by feedback).

Every human sensory organ activates logarithmically: Your eye works with sunlight (half a billion photons/sec) but can detect a single photon. If you manage to build a light sensor with those specs, you'll get a Nobel Prize and probably half of Apple...

[0]: https://amzn.to/2zzDt8P

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_codon_table

>>IAmEve+tN
"The distance from brain to leg is too long, for example, to accurately control motion from "central command"

As a dancer, I have been fascinated by that fact. It means that dancers do not dance to the beat as they hear it - it takes too much time for the sound to be transformed by the ear/brain into an electrical pulse that reaches your leg. Instead, all dancers have a mental model of the music they dance to that is learnt by practice/repetition.

Dancing is just syncronizing that mental model to the actual rhythm that is heard. When I explained that to a bellydancer friend she finally understood the switch that she had made from being a beginning dancer to an experienced dancer who 'dances in their head'

>>AareyB+xT
You can clap your hands to a calibrated delay from the previous beat that you heard (predicting the next beat before you hear it). This is analogous to the principle of a phase-locked loop, which gradually adjusts an internal oscillator until it matches an external frequency. That internal oscillator can emit a beat just before the real one, offset just enough to cancel all the delays in the processing path.

This only works if the beat you're hearing is sufficiently stable.