Drive by science

[ceptimus]

Because of its huge size, the average density of Betelgeuse is only twelve milligrams per cubic metre: air at sea level is a hundred thousand times denser. And that's just considering the average density of the star - most of its mass is located at the relatively tiny core we can never see, so the thing we're looking at is even more tenuous - it's basically a huge, red hot vacuum.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

it's basically a huge, red hot vacuum.

There got to be some kind of "your momma" joke there.

Or ... hey, I can think of a huge, orange vacuum.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Zoo Animals Ask Humans How They Like Being Isolated In Tiny Habitats With Minimal Exercise – The Out And Abouter

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

imagine thinking humans are the only intelligent species when this exists pic.twitter.com/G57WMXAy9M

— hoekage (@iatemuggles) April 15, 2020

[lisarea]

I have to be a butt about that:

A Frog Riding a Beetle: Is This a Real Wildlife Photo or a Bunch of BS?

I couldn't agree more strongly with the overriding message, though. Other animals are intelligent and it's ridiculous to think they're not. But their intelligence can't be measured just by the actions that mimic human behaviors. They're smarter than we are in many ways, and they're often better at understanding us than we are at understanding them.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

I want to belieeeeeeeve!

i was inspired pic.twitter.com/Hj0ykctSKy

— text "USPS" to 50409 (@wolfspidernest) April 15, 2020

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I have to be a butt about that:

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

I want to belieeeeeeeve!

[beyelzu]

The MAPK Pathway – How Growth Factors Influence...

Seriously good watch. The cellular machinery animations are just wonderful. I watched some of their videos on facebook and then searched on youtube for this one. I haven't watched the whole video. I did watch a few minutes of the signalling pathway.

[JoeP]

+

Seems pretty straightforward

[beyelzu]

Yeah, that’s my DunningKruger kicking in, I forget everyone hasn’t had years of microbio education and cell biology in particular.

Cell bio was one of the hardest classes that I took at UGA.

We had to be able to name all of the proteins and understand how and why they worked together. That shit was intense.

I don’t remember all of it now, but when I watch the signaling pathway it just all comes back to me and the video just shows you things like confirmation changes, recruitment of associated proteins, phosphorylation, etc

[SR71]

Oh yeah, of course, phosphorylation, can't forget that.

[JoeP]

I didn't realise there was so much paperwork before cells could divide.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by SR71

Oh yeah, of course, phosphorylation, can't forget that.

One of the cool things about studying cell biology is that it really hammers home how conservative a process evolution is, in many respects. I sometimes half-seriously wonder if there are any major cellular processes that don't involve phosphorylation/dephosphorylation.

[SR71]

I looked at the subject a bit and still have only the foggiest notion of what happens at all, let alone how it would be involved in evolution. Seems one would need solid backgrounds in organic chemistry, genetics and microbiology to begin to comprehend the process?

Sometimes I am surprised at what I can learn on my own, given the right materials. Clearly, phosphorylation is not one of those things.

It's always a marvel at how darned smart people can be, the things they can work out. It's something we should all take a measure of pride in.

[beyelzu]

So we covered the process of signalling in cell biology. When you take cell bio at the University of Georgia, you have the gen chem and ochem already under your belt and probably biochemistry.

We learned the process from the hormone signal binding the receptor to initially all the way through til a protein gets made or say mistosis occurs. and all the steps of the attendant processes and all the proteins and each of their functions.

The crazy molecular machinery that moves about fat bubbles filled with stuff is mindblowing.


It was pretty intense, but alot of fun.

Kinesin protein walking on microtubule - YouTube

[beyelzu]

Making Decisions Without a Brain - YouTube

ES shared this with me. It’s really cool.

Life is about decisions, we make those with a brain, but organisms without brains still respond to the environment.

Many of the things that the eukaryotic multicellular life do are also done in a limited way by prokaryotes.

Our oldest sense is probably taste or smell. Chemotaxis is when an organism swims towards food or away from chemical irritants. It doesn’t have a brain but bacteria can swim towards food.

Like a Babbage analytic machine made of amino and nucleic acids, the cell makes decisions and can cycle through strategies.

For chemotaxis, flagella can be switched from spinning in one direction where the organism travels forward, to the other resulting in a random tumble. The alternating between the two is not random.

[JoeP]

APOD: 2020 May 8 - Long Tailed Comet SWAN

[Crumb]

for my new wallpaper.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

One of the cool things about studying cell biology is that it really hammers home how conservative a process evolution is, in many respects. I sometimes half-seriously wonder if there are any major cellular processes that don't involve phosphorylation/dephosphorylation.

Originally Posted by SR71

I looked at the subject a bit and still have only the foggiest notion of what happens at all, let alone how it would be involved in evolution. Seems one would need solid backgrounds in organic chemistry, genetics and microbiology to begin to comprehend the process?

I don't think you need to understand anything about phosphorylation specifically to get what TLR means here, though. (At least I hope not, because I certainly don't.) I think the idea is that because we see phosphorylation in every major cellular process, that means that once "we" (living things) found something that worked, we kept it around. Evolution is conservative in that way.

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

I don't think you need to understand anything about phosphorylation specifically to get what TLR means here, though. (At least I hope not, because I certainly don't.) I think the idea is that because we see phosphorylation in every major cellular process, that means that once "we" (living things) found something that worked, we kept it around. Evolution is conservative in that way.

One of my favorite examples is that the hormone used to trigger metamorphosis in frogs is called prolactin because it's importance in our signature mammalian achievement

Prolactin - Wikipedia

Prolactin (PRL), also known as luteotropic hormone or luteotropin, is a protein best known for its role in enabling mammals (and birds), usually females, to produce milk. It is influential in over 300 separate processes in various vertebrates, including humans.[1] Prolactin is secreted from the pituitary gland in response to eating, mating, estrogen treatment, ovulation and nursing. It is secreted heavily in pulses in between these events. Prolactin plays an essential role in metabolism, regulation of the immune system and pancreatic development.

evolution doesn't make new shit if it can avoid doing so. It is hard to make new shit and even harder to make new shit that works. Instead it rigs what it has.

We are 3 and half billion years of cludgy biological technical debt, it is amazing that we function at all.

[BrotherMan]

All that this means for me is that I'll never get awesome lightning shooty powers for any part of my body now matter how many chemicals I drink or the number of times I touch a bare wire or get strucked by lightning. THANKS, EVILOUTION. GOT, I HATE YOU SO MUCH.

[fragment]

Originally Posted by beyelzu

We are 3 and half billion years of cludgy biological technical debt, it is amazing that we function at all.

Don't get me started on photorespiration.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by fragment

Don't get me started on photorespiration.

* JoeP gets fragment started on photorespiration

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Cartoon for @TorontoStar #coronavirus #COVID19 #MurderHornets pic.twitter.com/glLMiViVRy

— Michael de Adder (@deAdder) May 11, 2020