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I should have loved biology

jsomers.net

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Re: I should have loved biology

#291

Post by alok-g »

nneonneo wrote: post #13

This article rings so true to me. My father is a microbiologist - and now, so is my fiancée. I'm very lucky that I get to learn about genetics through osmosis now, and boy, is it ever fascinating! I had a dining-table discussion with my dad the other day where the subject of DNA mismatch repair came up. It turns out that, in E. coli, a very simple & widely studied prokaryote, there's a mechanism called DNA mismatch r…

>> If an error is detected - a mismatch (e.g. a G paired with a T) - a trio of proteins (MutL, MutS, MutH) spring into action.

One additional thing should be covered in biology teaching -- Not just the process that magically "happens", but how it ends up happening. The said proteins have no free will to just spring into action. I recall being taught during high school about mitosis and meiosis, how this spindle apparatus forms, DNA strands split, etc. How do I connect what happens to the laws of Physics? I understand that I still cannot explain gravity, or why a ball falls to the floor, but biology teaching seems to leave a lot more out, and without saying so.

Re: I should have loved biology

#292

Post by alok-g »

anm89 wrote: post #257

The thing that drove this home for me were the biovisions animations which got me to go back and basically learn high school biology. Seeing the mechanical nature of gene transciption and chemical signaling blew my mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hk9jct2ozY&t=170 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQmTKxI4Wn4 On the other hand, I don't buy his thing about wishing his high school teacher had presented it different…

These are simply a Wow!! Mind blowing, as you said.

Re: I should have loved biology

#293

Post by alok-g »

olau wrote: post #168

Biology is awesome! I have an older sister who majored in biology long time ago. The some time later while visiting her I borrowed one of her university books (introduction to zoology or something like that). It was actually written in the style suggested here, and yes, it was just amazing to read about people having studied and eked out mysteries of life. For instance, why do you have a front side? I think I ended u…

Can you please look up the name/author of the book(s). "Introduction to Zoology" is too generic to be able to spot the one you are recommending. Thanks.

Re: I should have loved biology

#294

Post by hansvm »

Attained wrote: post #243
john_minsk wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to start a holy war, but what is the difference at the end of the day? Isn't one just faster?

GMOs are the somewhat intentional introduction of genes from another organism while breeding approaches often involve radiation to expedite random mutations which may have less obvious changes that are not safe.

To be fair, GMOs can just as easily be unsafe; the difference in that regard is that with GMOs there are fewer ways things might go wrong, and they're much more easily enumerated and examined.

Re: I should have loved biology

#295

Post by dekhn »

Attained wrote: post #243
john_minsk wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to start a holy war, but what is the difference at the end of the day? Isn't one just faster?

GMOs are the somewhat intentional introduction of genes from another organism while breeding approaches often involve radiation to expedite random mutations which may have less obvious changes that are not safe.

Nearly everybody in the first world is eating food which has been modified by radiation to expedite mutations for many decades (since the Green Revolution) and I don't think anybody has shown any convincing evidence that the products have been systemically unsafe.

Re: I should have loved biology

#296

Post by dekhn »

hansvm wrote: post #294
Attained wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GMOs are the somewhat intentional introduction of genes from another organism while breeding approaches often involve radiation to expedite random mutations which may have less obvious changes that are not safe.

To be fair, GMOs can just as easily be unsafe; the difference in that regard is that with GMOs there are fewer ways things might go wrong, and they're much more easily enumerated and examined.

The best example of an "unsafe GMO" would be this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8594427/ (brazil nut proteins were transferred to soybeans; the proteins happened to be ones that cause brazil nut allergy. If this had been rolled out in large scale, probably some fraction of consumers would die).

Re: I should have loved biology

#297

Post by dekhn »

tito wrote: post #256
joshuamcginnis wrote: post #41

After 15 years in tech and a life-changing psychedelic trip, I decided to self-learn genetic engineering and share it with the world[1][2] while I look for a meaningful biotech venture to found. What you can do today from your kitchen or home lab is remarkable. For instance, I taught myself PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and recently published my first genetic sequence at GenBank from fungi that I cultured, extracte…

Same pathway as the author! In high school, biology class meant memorizing modules of the human heart and pricking my finger to find out what my blood type was (I stayed home sick that day). "Loving biology" meant carrying around AP Bio books thicker than an unabridged Webster dictionary. No thanks. Then later in college, my friend said it would be fun if we both took the genetics class he needed to take for his pre-…

unfortunately, all the tools that exist today are still crappy and misused.

Re: I should have loved biology

#298

Post by Rastonbury »

This resonates with me, I like solving problems in chemistry and physics, like I like calculating stuff. Biology on the other hand was pure memorisation in high school. That's why I elected to do chemistry for my A-level and not biology despite doing always doing slightly better in biology before that. I just really disliked rote memorisation.

Re: I should have loved biology

#299

Post by kls »

ssivark wrote: post #289
kls wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is it is not "smart but lazy" it is a value proposition and some kids don't see the value, even if they are smart enough. The reality is many smart kids today know that even higher education, unless specifically focused is a waste of resources. The smart ones generally leave the uni for a business venture before they even complete postsecondary. Further grade inflation and the continuing of lowering stand…

Thanks for sharing that precious perspective. Good luck with/for your kids :-)

Thanks for the well wishes I think they will do fine, it's just a struggle with traditional education. I help them learn the way they learn, my oldest daughter ended up an Architect she never really struggled. My Youngest daughter is well on her way in Marine Biology, my oldest boy (14) has started to venture out into classic car restoration and fabrication of custom parts and my youngest son is still to young to have a path, but he really likes robotics and programming. I work with him a lot of projects that he is interested in. They will land on their feet, just wanted to add to the conversation that there are very bright people, not getting the education they could if we ventured to understand a better way.

I come from a family that is generally above average intelligence (not claiming that for myself, just making a basic observation about my family to make the following point). In the not too distant past, my family was fairly well know in Florida for being involved in organized crime. To the extent that they got the nickname the "Mullet Mafia" because they did most of their crime under the guise of legitimate fishing and maritime operations. Some of them were pure geniuses in the way they operated their criminal cartel and only one of them did hard time (the smart ones, are not the ones that get caught). This is where the smart kids can potentially wash out to, without guidance and that is my concern. This is why I see it as a value proposition. The smarter a person is, the higher the propensity to surf the gaps.

Re: I should have loved biology

#300

Post by pretendscholar »

an_opabinia wrote: post #8
m463 wrote: post #2

I read this and it it fills me with so much melancholy. I took biology 101 in college and what I thought would be really interesting turned out to be SO unexpectedly meaningless. Now years later all I recall is the memorization of phylums and kingdoms on one test and cell structures on another test and sitting in a large auditorium looking at the map and not the territory. The course was so much about WHAT and never…

> The course was so much about WHAT and never about WHY. Biology is pretty notorious for most stuff being arbitrary. There is no model. People who say there's a model, they're talking about something else - sometimes, a literal Platonic ideal of biology, that makes for an appealing pop science course, but not knowledge that like, helps you design experiments or better use drugs or whatever. From the article: > It was…

>Programming computers and being good at math does not prepare you at all for understanding this stuff! Watson and Crick were not math savants. They did not have natural gifts.

Out of all the hn chauvinism I've read over the years this post is a strong contender for the most absurdly delusional. Sorry, being able to program does not make you an ubermensch.

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