151–160 of 202 posts
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what’s the purpose of an amoeba? or a mosquito? or a duck? or a chimpanzee?
Would you not say they each have more purpose than a virus?
What always fascinates me is that biologists talk about how these large molecules bind and self-assemble, and how enzymes control the reactions and so forth, but what are the odds? It's almost like putting the parts in the mixer, and getting your little machine in the output. I have very hard time imagining it, especially in the cell which has thousands different molecules going on inside it, how everything gets in t…
What always fascinates me is that biologists talk about how these large molecules bind and self-assemble, and how enzymes control the reactions and so forth, but what are the odds? It's almost like putting the parts in the mixer, and getting your little machine in the output. I have very hard time imagining it, especially in the cell which has thousands different molecules going on inside it, how everything gets in t…
Is there a a good read on how RNA and DNA work for a Computer Scientist? And more generally how biology, genetics, epigenetics, virus, etc work? Many vulgarization sources say that DNA is like the source code of life. But they mostly skim across the issue and go to conclusions like "this gene or set of genes are responsible for that outcome". But coming from a CS background that sounds a bit like non-sense. I feel li…
Part I of Molecular Biology of the Cell is the best read in my opinion, regardless whether you have a CS background.
What always fascinates me is that biologists talk about how these large molecules bind and self-assemble, and how enzymes control the reactions and so forth, but what are the odds? It's almost like putting the parts in the mixer, and getting your little machine in the output. I have very hard time imagining it, especially in the cell which has thousands different molecules going on inside it, how everything gets in t…
Firstly, evolution over billions of years makes it possible. But in more direct answer to your question about how these things self assemble - at this level atomic forces are like little magnets (I mean, literally they are the electromagnetic force) and those cause the atoms to arrange themselves in particular ways. There are lots of videos online showing this, eg. one I picked at random: https://www.youtube.com/watc…
I hope nobody complains "but he shakes the flask" -- because that is exactly what the temperature is -- how fast the particles "jiggle" as Richard Feynman would that describe:
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Is this based on basic research or demographic analysis? Has the research ruled out the possibility that people who are being treated for high blood pressure are more likely to be older and in poorer shape? Because that's a pretty strong confounding effect unless the research in question is a randomized controlled trial. I've also heard conflicting reports about Ibuprofen. I don't think anyone knows for sure.
My initial thought on Ibuprofen is just correlation not causation. How many people who get a fever will try Ibuprofen to try to lower the fever? Probably quite a few. When these people die its easy to say "well they all had Ibuprofen". That doesn't mean it had any effect. On the flip side, NSAIDs do reduce inflammation and inflammation is part of the body's response to various stressors; I could see that lowering our…
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The cliff notes version of it is that DNA encodes the information on how to build proteins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_dogma_of_molecular_bio... Proteins are built out of a chain of aminoacids. There are 20 different kinds of aminoacid, and the particular sequence of aminoacids determines the shape of the protein, and therefore its biological function. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid To build a pr…
Why do cells replicate virus rns so much, why don't we replicate out own rna out of control by the same mechanism?
The Virus reproduces using a fork bomb but for us it's deadly.