As translated into musical notation REFERENCE: The all pervasive principle of repetitious recurrence governs not only coding sequence construction but also human endeavor in musical composition (1986) Susumi Ohno and Midori Ohno. Immunogenetics 24:71-78 ABSTRACT: Organisms which have evolved on this earth are governed by multitudes of periodicities; tomorrow is another today, and the next year is going to be much like this year. Accordingly, the principle of repetitious recurrence pervades every aspect of life on this earth. Thus, individual genes in the genome have been duplicated and triplicated often to the point of redundancy, and each coding sequence consists…
The Science Creative Quarterly
From January, 2007
HOW THE SWISS INVENTED CIVILIZATION
An unexpected archaeological find has led experts to a startling conclusion: Stonehenge, the ancient circle of stones in southern England, may have been built by the Swiss. This radical theory first took shape in 2003 when the grave of a Bronze Age archer was discovered about three miles from Stonehenge. Archaeologists concluded that the archer was Swiss from the attitude of the body, which indicated that the man died in the act of yodeling. Since then, evidence supporting the “Swiss theory” has been mounting. The most vocal proponent is Mr. William Tell of Berne, Switzerland (born Skip Mandelbaum of Piscataway,…
THE SHAKING PALSY: A REVIEW OF PARKINSON’S DISEASE
A brief history What do Muhammad Ali, Michael J. Fox, Pierre Trudeau and Mao Tse Tung all have in common? They are, or have been, public faces of a debilitating disorder known as Parkinson’s disease (or “PD”). PD affects millions of people worldwide and is present in about 1% of the total global population, with an increase in prevalence (2-3%) in those above 50-70 years of age. It equally affects people from different ethnicities and socio-economic status, but it is more common in men than in women (Samii 2004) The first scientist to formally describe the disease was the British…
TELOMERASE
Poem Oh, telomerase, You crafty soul, Whose life-giving phrase Like us, gets old Lets polymerase, With longlasting hold Yank out from our fate Our mortal coil Syllable Count 5 Oh, telomerase, 4 You crafty soul, 5 Whose life-giving phrase 4 Like us, gets old 5 Lets polymerase, 5 With longlasting hold 5 Yank out from our fate 4 Our mortal coil —- 37 First letter of each line, it’s order in the alphabet and mathematical commentary on the role of the telomerase enzyme itself O Y W L L W Y O = 15(10)25(-2)23(-11)12(0)12(11)23(2)25(-10)15 10(-12)-2(-9)-11(11)0(11)11(-9)2(-12)-10 -12(3)-9(20)11(0)11(-20)-9(-3)-12 3(17)20(-20)0(-20)-20(17)-3 17(-37)-20(0)-20(37)17 -37(37)0(37)37 37(0)37
IT’S A LUCKY THING FOR EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY THAT THE FOLLOWING PASSAGES AREN’T IN THE BIBLE
Jesus then entered the farm, and saw creatures of every shape and size, and so said to his followers, “Hey, my Dad made that creature, and that creature, and also that creature… Actually, now that I think about it, he made them all.” And at the early dawn of the seventh day, just before He rested, God did a lot of pretty complicated things at super duper God speed. This was so that people would think the whole Creation thing probably took a lot longer than seven days. The heavens opened and the angels proclaimed, “Fear any literate man, capable…
ROADSIDE
The guardrail arches its length against the road, a Jurassic spine. Clover has grown thick about its vertebrae where a rotting coon no longer warms the stones it hides, gives its eyes back to the earth.
PATHOGEN VIRULENCE: THE EVOLUTION OF SICKNESS
Pathogens are disease-causing microorganisms whose negative effect on their host’s fitness can vary not only between host species, genotypes, and individuals but even between ecological circumstances and subpopulations (Dybdahl and Storfer, 2003). This reduction of host fitness, a highly sensitive characteristic dependent on numerous variables, is known as pathogenic virulence, and remains a topic of heated interest in health science and evolutionary biology today. What factors dictate the extent of damage a pathogen will inflict on its host? Because the long-term persistence of a pathogenic species is inextricably entwined with host survival, the answer to this question is complicated, and…
OF COURSE PROTEINS TALK TO EACH OTHER
My first serious molecular biology course in college was entitled “DNA and Chromatin Structure” and there were only four students enrolled. While we were expected to take our best stabs at entertaining graduate level ideas, the class size made things inherently informal. One of our most common mistakes was the casual anthropomorphizing of molecular machinery. “But the protein wouldn’t want to interact with the binding site because…” or “RNA polymerase acts like a drunken sailor during the process of transcription—halting, pausing, falling off…” We knew that these complex molecules weren’t capable of harboring a yen for anything at all, but…
PUZZLE FANTASTICA #2: NUMBERS-MIRROR-INSTRUMENTS
We begin the new year with a puzzle to tempt you. The first PF was not solved, and was thereafter both lauded and criticized for its design (see below). This time, we are a little more deliberate, more designed, more clever – which we fear will also make it more simply. In any event, here are three clues to confuse you. More clues coming, unless of course, someone actually solves it first… (Click here for a larger version of the schematic clue) IF YOU THINK YOU KNOW THE ANSWER, PLEASE COMMENT HERE. * * * As for setting the Puzzle…