#lipid biochemistry

[talesfromtheenchantedforest]

lipids: a review

saturated lipids. straight. rigid. obviously problematic. they have their place, of course, like drywall. basic bitches, the salt of the earth, a necessary evil

polyunsaturated lipids. a marked improvement. cis double bonds, and therefore kinky. extremely kinky. provide fluidity to their local microenvironments, essential for transition into the more fun hexagonal and cubic membrane phases

sphingolipids (and plasmologen honorable mention). now we’re talking. a trans double bond, which I think we can all agree is fun. tight packing, aggregation into self-ordered domains when the saturated and cis lipids all around them get to be too much, extensive hydrogen bonding to provide close T4T ride-or-die intermolecular interactions

Sphingadienine. a trans double bond AND a cis double bond. the chosen one. an enigma, an iconoclast. 20% of plasma sphingolipids, no fucking idea what it does, enzyme that makes it discovered in 2020, kinky and trans and unknowable

anyway they just gave me a phd in this shit so you can trust me I’m a doctor

[humancelltournament]

Human Cell Tournament Round 1

Propaganda!

The lipid bilayer (or phospholipid bilayer) is a thin polar membrane made of two layers of lipid molecules. These membranes are flat sheets that form a continuous barrier around all cells. The cell membranes of almost all organisms and many viruses are made of a lipid bilayer, as are the nuclear membrane surrounding the cell nucleus, and membranes of the membrane-bound organelles in the cell. The lipid bilayer is the barrier that keeps ions, proteins and other molecules where they are needed and prevents them from diffusing into areas where they should not be. Lipid bilayers are ideally suited to this role, even though they are only a few nanometers in width, because they are impermeable to most water-soluble (hydrophilic) molecules. Bilayers are particularly impermeable to ions, which allows cells to regulate salt concentrations and pH by transporting ions across their membranes using proteins called ion pumps

Serotonin or 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) is a monoamine neurotransmitter. Its biological function is complex, touching on diverse functions including mood, cognition, reward, learning, memory, and numerous physiological processes such as vomiting and vasoconstriction. Besides mammals, serotonin is found in all bilateral animals including worms and insects, as well as in fungi and in plants. Serotonin's presence in insect venoms and plant spines serves to cause pain, which is a side-effect of serotonin injection. Serotonin is produced by pathogenic amoebae, causing diarrhea in the human gut.

[hidden-but]

phosphoethanolamine lipids have the stupidest abbreviations to look up online.

....

this is what i was looking for:

DOPE

POPE

PAPE

[er-cryptid]

Phospholipids

-- a type of lipid

-- lipids are a type of macromolecule

-- made of: -> fatty acids -> glycerol -> phosphate -> R group

-- functions as foundation for membranes

-- example: cell plasma membrane

.

Patreon

[learningbreeze]

[parkhanyoonjae]

Laboratoire 7/n 🥼

Laboratory

11 November 2023

An experiment on Test on Lipids, a challenge in my part because I have to recall some laboratory techniques in which I forgot for the past 4 years. Thankfully, my ading assisted in on how to use some of the apparatus because it's been 4 years since the last time I performed techniques in the laboratory. 👨‍🔬🥽🥼🧪

📸 Debbie

[symbiosisonlinepublishing]

𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐁𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐲: Biochemistry is closely related to molecular biology, as it examines the molecular structures and functions of biological macromolecules, such as DNA, RNA, proteins, and lipids.

𝐄𝐧𝐳𝐲𝐦𝐞𝐬: Enzymes are proteins that act as catalysts in biochemical reactions. They accelerate chemical reactions in cells, allowing them to occur at a rate compatible with life.

Visit @ https://symbiosisonlinepublishing.com/biochemistry/

[science-lover33]

Exploring the Marvels of Biological Macromolecules: The Molecular Machinery of Life (Part 1)

In the captivating realm of biochemistry, biological macromolecules stand as the cornerstone of life itself. These intricately structured molecules, each with its unique role, orchestrate the complex symphony of biological processes. Let's dive deep into the world of macromolecules and unravel their astounding intricacies.

Carbohydrates, a group of organic compounds, are fundamental biomolecules in biochemistry. These compounds, composed of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O) atoms, play multifaceted roles in various biological processes, acting as both an essential energy source and critical structural elements.

Monosaccharides: The Building Blocks

At the most basic level, carbohydrates are composed of monosaccharides, which are simple sugars. Glucose, fructose, and galactose are examples of monosaccharides. They serve as the fundamental building blocks from which more complex carbohydrates are constructed.

Polysaccharides: Storage and Structure

Carbohydrates manifest as polysaccharides, intricate macromolecules created by linking numerous monosaccharide units. Glycogen, found in animals, and starch, prevalent in plants, are storage forms of glucose. In contrast, cellulose, another glucose-based polysaccharide, forms the structural component of plant cell walls.

Energy Production: Glucose Metabolism

Carbohydrates' primary function within biological systems is to provide energy. Glucose, a hexose sugar, undergoes catabolic processes such as glycolysis and cellular respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the cellular energy currency. The controlled release of energy from carbohydrates fuels vital cellular functions.

Regulation of Blood Glucose: Hormonal Control

Maintaining blood glucose levels within a narrow range is crucial for homeostasis. Hormones like insulin and glucagon intricately regulate glucose levels, ensuring cells have a steady supply of this essential fuel source.

Structural Carbohydrates: Cellulose and Chitin

Carbohydrates also contribute to the structural integrity of cells and organisms. Cellulose, a linear polymer of glucose, forms the rigid cell walls of plants. Similarly, chitin, composed of N-acetylglucosamine units, provides structural support in the exoskeletons of arthropods and the cell walls of fungi.

Glycoproteins and Glycolipids: Molecular Signaling

Carbohydrates are often attached to proteins (glycoproteins) and lipids (glycolipids) on cell surfaces. These complex molecules participate in cell recognition and molecular signaling, which is crucial for various cellular processes, including immune responses and cell adhesion.

[alfalfaaarya]

Day 1-5 of 30 day productivity challenge

These 5 days have been eventful.

I prepared for Biochem test on Tuesday 12 September which had the following chapters :

Minerals

Biochemistry of Cancer

Extracellular Matrix

Studied for Biochem viva adn histology viva on Wednesday 13 September.

For Biochem, syllabus was :

Lipid metabolism

Vitamins

Carbohydrate metabolism

I only studied a part of Lipid metabolism and water soluble vitamins

For histology viva , I studied:

Urinary system

Endocrine system

Oral tissues

[kaijuposting]

Pacific Rim kaiju biology - what do we know about it?

So I figured I'd do a writeup on stuff on how the biology of kaiju has been depicted in the Pacific Rim franchise. Once again, Pacific Rim continuity is messy, and its creators weren't always on the same page with things, so you will see some conflicting information.

As we most of us know, the first Pacific Rim film established that kaiju are alien beings with glowing blue blood full of ammonia and other toxins, and it established that they're all assembled from cloned biomass in what's essentially a giant monster factory. One of them, somehow, is pregnant. It established that they're controlled by mysterious alien beings via hivemind, and it also showed one of them (Scunner) communicating with other kaiju via vocalization, implying that the kaiju aren't completely reliant on the hivemind.

Aside from that, however, it's pretty vague. So what else is there?

The book Man, Machines, & Monsters gives us two quotes on kaiju, one from Guillermo del Toro and one from Travis Beacham. Beacham was quoted as saying, "They're a Darwinian army. They're grown in some alternate universe and pitted against one another, and the strongest mutations survive." This vision of kaiju originates from earlier versions of the story (you can find it in the draft script).

According to the book, Del Toro decreed three broad groups for Kaiju: crustaceans, lizards, and insects. Nothing furry. No tentacles, nothing red. Since they're newly manufactured weapons, no damage or deformities, and since Kaiju are bred to destroy, del Toro told the designers, "every element of design should be used as a weapon. If we create a Kaiju wtih three or four tails, I want to see it use them. If the Kaiju has a mouth on the end of the tail, then I'm going to use it to fight the robot with both ends."

By 2013, Beacham was blogging about kaiju as they actually appeared in the film, essentially describing them as 3D printed. According to Beacham, Otachi was created pregnant.

He also basically said that kaiju had completely alien biochemistry, that they would taste like "hakarl and cleaning chemicals," and that they'd have very little in them that you could actually metabolize. He also said that what Newt referred to as DNA wasn't actually DNA as we know it, and that it would be extremely difficult for us to cloned them because "their molecular configuration is just so radically different from anything we know of." Beacham also communicated that he didn't think our concept of sexes and genders would apply to alien biology, so it wouldn't necessarily be safe to assume that Otachi's pregnancy plus all of the kaiju being clones made them all female in any sense. (And yes, he distinguished between sex and gender.)

In a 2012 interview, Guillermo del Toro said that kaiju were silicon-based lifeforms. Although this never comes up in the movie, it also appears in the novelization by Alex Irvine.

Irvine's novelization also claims that their silicon-based DNA allows them to have genetic memory, which in my opinion is a superfluous worldbuilding detail when the existence hivemind adequately explains where the kaiju are getting their instructions. The novelization also presents genetic memory as the reason Newt thinks drifting with a piece of kaiju brain is going to help him learn about the kaiju. Again, it's a strange detail to add in light of the fact that Newt was drifting with a chunk of brain. (Mutavore's brain, according to Beacham, BTW.) Furthermore, it also suggests that the whole subplot with Hannibal Chau and baby Otachi were completely unnecessary, since presumably Newt should've been able to drift with any chunk of kaiju flesh.

The novel also claims that kaiju brains have a "bath of silicate transmission medium." Supposedly, it "carried neuronic signals inside the brain, just like lipid plasmas did in human neurons." I'm guessing the logic here is that because silicon is used in computer circuits, they can also be used in actual brains. But how this is supposed to work when it's in a "bath" form and therefore seems to have no means of actually directing electrical impulses is beyond me. Newt in the novel also describes kaiju as "silicate-based organic automata," which suggests that the kaiju are nothing more than organic robots, which... uh... suggesting that a biological creature is fundamentally nothing more than a robot sure is uh... a choice. A few paragraphs later Newt also has the impression that the kaiju are afraid of the Precursors, which suggests that they're enslaved against their wills, but this novel is, unfortunately, too hateful to think about the implications of that. In the novel, Newt speculates that the dinosaurs were a "cruder" form of kaiju, which... if you know anything at all about dinosaurs is difficult to imagine as true. He also speculates that that the Precursors "did a carbon-to-silicon upgrade," which would allegedly give the kaiju strength to carry extra mass and give it better brain function that allows it to move around better, which is just... not how this works at all. Newt also thinks that being silicon-based allows the kaiju to "carry more information at a genetic level," which is... baseless, to say the least.

The novel is also really contradictory on the alleged benefits of silicon; early on it says:

The Jaeger Project created a way for two human beings to merge their brains into a single organic supercomputer more powerful than anything you could make out of silicon.

So yeah. It's... it's a mess where all the silicon stuff is concerned, to put it lightly.

Before I move on, I just want to mention that the concept of silicon-based life was a popular idea for a hot minute due to silicon's similarity to carbon. But in reality, silicon-based life is extremely unlikely for a number of reasons; EG, silicon doesn't lend itself to metabolic processes. Basically... the whole thing is quite literally dead in the water. Literally all of the novelization's assertions that silicon is some kind of superior material to carbon are nonsense.

While the novelization asserts that kaiju are cloned, it seems to have a somewhat different idea of how this plays out than the movie does, as at one point it claims they're "assembled in great vats," which doesn't really sound like the "printing" process shown in the film. It also seems to have some of its wires crossed with Beacham's earlier ideas, as it also describes them bursting out of sacs and crawling out of a spawning pool. (One must wonder how many internal inconsistencies were in the notes and other documents sent to Alex Irvine.)

The novelization also brings up the kaiju having alien senses; when Newt experiences a "kaiju flashback," he sees colors "fall out of order" and experiences "a chaos of odors and information absorbed through its skin."

Beacham's own statements on his blog also back up the idea that kaiju might have some pretty weird senses - in response to someone asking about Otachi's tongue, he responds that it's a sensory organ - but who can really say what "taste" even means to an alien?

The novel, film, and the 2012 interview with del Toro all describe the kaiju as "acidic" and also claim their biology is full of ammonia. This does create a bit of a problem; ammonia is a base, not an acid. While it's definitely true that ammonia is corrosive and caustic, it's most definitely not "acidic."

There is also Pacific Rim media that ignores the alien biochemistry stuff to a large degree. The Uprising prequel comic Pacific Rim: Aftermath has a plot involving cloned kaiju with some of Hannibal Chau's DNA edited in, because mad science is absolutely going to rule the day here. (In this comic, a baby kaiju can actually track Chau down to try and eat him because of their shared DNA! It's extremely silly, and extremely fun.)

In Pacific Rim: The Black, some of the story's antagonists create various hybrid creatures, and even become hybrid creatures themselves. (Unfortunately, it's actually much less cool than it sounds, largely because Pacific Rim: The Black is mostly focused on being as edgy as possible while carrying on the political sentiments of Pacific Rim: Uprising.)

Pacific Rim: The Black also has kaiju living and breeding in Australia. While the first season mentions the Precursors, The Black seems to end up treating the kaiju themselves as the invading aliens. Ultimately, it's not really clear what's supposed to be happening here. (Or at least, it wasn't very clear to me. Maybe I missed something.)

While The Black shows that some kaiju creatures are capable of exercising free will, it also presents others as fully monstrous. For example, while the human/kaiju hybrid character of b0y (yeah, that's the name the poor kid gets saddled with for the whole show) is shown to have the capacity to make his own choices, one episode is extremely firm about the idea that the average kaiju can never be anything more than mindless monster, and that the idea that such a beast could feel anything like love is absurd. Somehow we have an Uprising jaeger/kaiju hybrid with free will (an interesting idea, to be sure!), but the human women mutated into kaiju hybrids against their wills are presented as unable to free themselves from the hivemind.

I think some of these apparent inconsistencies come down to The Black being more interested in being edgy and shocking than anything else, plus its trend toward aligning with conservative political views.

So that's about it; or at least all I know so far; I'm sure there's more out there I haven't come across yet. I might also be forgetting a few things about The Black because it's been awhile since I watched it, and quite frankly I found it such an unpleasant and distasteful show that I don't intend on watching it again anytime soon.

In any case, we can see that there's been a fair amount of variation in how the kaiju of Pacific Rim were conceptualized. Sometimes they've been imagined as so alien that we have almost nothing in common with them biochemically; sometimes they've been depicted as having DNA like our own. They've been described as otherworldly horrors, and they've been implied to be genetically modified dinosaurs. And I imagine that people will continue coming up with new ideas about the biology of the kaiju of Pacific Rim, whether in licensed media or in fan creations.

[meteortrails]

probably the stupidest thing in all of biochemistry is that flippases and floppases are proteins with distinct functions from each other. flippases flip lipids in while floppases flop out in case you were wondering (my exam is in 5 hours ahahahahahaha)

[vagabond-umlaut]

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

TOPICS TO COVER:

ANATOMY:

INTRODUCTION TO THORAX

WALLS OF THORAX

THORACIC CAVITY & PLEURAE

LUNGS

MEDIASTINUM

PERICARDIUM & HEART

TRACHEA, ESOPHAGUS & THORACIC DUCT

BIOCHEMISTRY:

METABOLISM OF AMINO ACIDS

METABOLISM OF LIPIDS

TIME OF COMMENCEMENT OF STUDYING: 9.20 AM

CURRENT TIME: 8.50 AM

[study-with-aura]

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

I started putting together my cross-training log yesterday, and I am very proud of it. Maybe I will feature it tomorrow when I post. It is October themed for this month. My parents go back to campus tomorrow. Since it is fall break, they have been working from home. I thought about taking another two days off, like a four day weekend, but I decided against it. It would put me behind from where I would like to be by the end of the semester, even if only by two days.

Also, I don't understand how Julien decided to major in biochemistry. Biology is hard! I should not say that it is hard, but it is complicated. He wants to go to medical school, so I suppose he needs it. Although, currently I am studying macromolecules, and that is quite interesting, but the intricate details throw my brain for a loop!

Tasks Completed:

Geometry - Proved triangle congruence + wrote proofs involving congruent triangles + honors work

Lit and Comp II - Reviewed Unit 7 vocabulary + read a summary of Book 4 of The Odyssey + read Book 4 of The Odyssey + answered questions + worked more on my short story

Spanish 2 - Reviewed vocabulary + watched presentation on the irregular forms of the imperfect + practice

Bible I - Read Exodus 21-22

World History - Wrote about some of the accomplishments of Sundiata and Mansa Musa + read an introduction to the Olmecs and Mayans + looked at maps + watched a presentation on pre-Columbian people + looked at pictures of artifacts

Biology with Lab - Read about lipids + took notes

Foundations - Read the definition of diligence + took a quiz on Read Theory + read about objects as primary sources + viewed the Hagia Sophia and analyzed it then read a historian’s analysis

Practice - 60-minute piano lesson

Khan Academy - Completed Unit 2: Lesson 14 of World History

Duolingo - Completed at least one lesson each in Spanish, French, and Chinese

Activities of the Day:

Ballet

Pointe

Journal/Mindfulness

-

What I’m Grateful for Today:

I am grateful that my parents are home with me again today.

Quote of the Day:

You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming.

-Pablo Neruda

🎧daydream · nowt · Gabriel Guerrero

[etirabys]

I obeyed the inscrutable exhortations of my soul about it and wrote an enemies to lovers RPF (real prokaryote fiction)

–

Cursed current! It flung me in the path of a jet of hot water exiting an underwater vent. The proteins on the hot-facing side of my cell wall denatured and cracked, and my lipid cell wall loosened for a fraction of a second.

I started to erupt my insides out, but something bumped into me – plugged the flow – and my membrane snapped back around the contaminant. I went sploing, and felt very, very odd. The edges of my more rigid cell wall fluttered in the turbulence, kept in place by proteins stitching wall to membrane, as I oriented myself.

I rode an eddy into a column of cooler water. It was still in me. No – not it – he. This was definitely a living, stormy little personality inside my membrane, agitated by the warmth of my cytoplasm and the density of organic compounds right outside his cell wall. He tried to push out his metabolic waste products out into me, even as mine trickled into him. “What is this? This place is death!” cried out the bacterium.

“Why did you careen into me?” I said, belligerent with my own fear and confusion. “I was minding my own business.”

“You rushed me. I couldn’t do anything about it – you’re three times bigger than I am,” he snapped. “It was like being hit by a silicate grain. Which would have been fine, because a silicate chip wouldn’t engulf me.”

“Engulf you! As if I did it on purpose!”

We lapsed into a long, miffed silence. I became aware that he was dividing. Using material in my cytoplasm!

I could do nothing about it. I couldn’t have torn open my membrane again to eject him even if I wanted to. I drifted, mending, pumping out the waste products of that mending.

It had been a long time since he and I had anything in common. We had diverged over a billion years, when the seas were hotter and more acidic. Some especially distant archaea were other to me, but bacteria were deep other. Occasionally I had extended a bridge to exchange genes with such deep others when it seemed advantageous, but I’d never before seen so intimately and extendedly how different a bacterium was from me. His cell membrane used right-handed glycerol and was held together with ester bonds, where mine used left-handed glycerol and used ether bonds. He thrummed with alien biochemistry. One of his fundamental energy converting proteins was turned the wrong way on his membrane. Repelled, I decided not to linger on it.

But soon his differences encroached upon mine in the most violent and personal way possible. After he divided, one of the copies died. When the dead one’s membrane broke, his genome came spilling out and smashed into mine.

Having his DNA mix in with mine was bad enough, but we both carried a small number of genetic parasites – genes just active enough to insert themselves into our genomes, and splice their RNA transcripts out before they were read into proteins. Mine were reasonably adapted to me, and knew how where to insert themselves to not wreak havoc.

But his didn’t. They cut themselves into my genome randomly, and failed to seal it up back into a ring when they were done, breaking up my genes into straight, uneven pieces.

“Bfuh! Gnah!” I was truly cross now. “Can you not splitting do that?”

“What, die in a hostile environment?” the remaining bacterium said sarcastically. “Because there isn’t enough food? Well, archaeon! You have my deepest apologies!”

Infuriated, I started cloistering my genome in a protective wreath of lipid bags to mitigate the next invasion of genetic garbage. Which came, again and again. I myself divided repeatedly, hoping each time to find myself in a body with no copies of him. A few of such versions of me were indeed free, and drifted away – to an unclear fate. We were by now all burdened with a cluttered genome that would would need time to pare itself down.

All of us naturally lost genes. The ones who did (and survived the loss) divided faster, because we used less energy on transcribing them into proteins. We periodically gained new genes from small trade with neighbors who seemed healthy. But given the extent of the bloat, it was unclear we’d lose the extra sequences fast enough before our burgeoning energy needs drove all of us extinct.

…although something interesting was happening: the obverse genetic sickness was being forced upon him. He was in reproductive competition against himself (in me! disgusting!). Versions of him that pared down their genome, as always, reproduced faster and outnumbered the others. Normally a creature that lost too many genes would just die, but… you see, I was making the proteins he would normally make, since his genes had gotten tangled up in mine. And being inside of me was so stable that many of the genes that adapted him for more heterogeneous environments dropped away harmlessly. He was getting… really sleek, and small, and hot – several entire Kelvins hotter than me at this point.

More and more, what he was doing was just making ATP – sucking up protons until his exotic ester-bonded membrane glowed with a potential as intense as lightning, and spitting them out through tiny protein motors embedded in his membrane to make energy.

Which I could use, too.

Which I, in fact, had to use. Not having ATP was dangerous, but having too much of it was dangerous too. I used it to make all those extra proteins coded by the DNA he was stuffing my genome with, of course. But I also got bigger. I knit the cloud of lipid bags around my genome into something sturdier, a complete seal between the inside where DNA was transcribed into RNA, and the outside where RNA was translated into proteins, so I had more time to splice out the garbage from the RNA before it was translated.

And it still wasn’t enough. He burned brighter and brighter as his needs pared down (while his energy production remained constant). I had to use it for something. Out of sheer self defense I made a cytoskeleton with all that spare energy. It let me make different shapes, on purpose, with myself.

“Huh,” he observed, seeing this. “You could engulf more stuff on purpose, if you wanted to. By… er… using yourself to pinch around them.”

“I have had enough experimentation with engulfment to suit me for four planetary lifetimes, thank you very much,” I said icily, but in the end I was too curious. I tried it. I found some small wiggling creature too ignorant of my new capabilities to know she should flee, and wrapped myself around her until her insides came spilling out into me for me to repurpose.

I was dazzled and a little frightened. What was that? She had just been minding her business and I had come along and destroyed her for my benefit. I had… I needed a new word for what had just happened… I had eaten someone. What had I become?

I floated, despising myself and despising him (although I admit a part of me admired him for how immediately he had seen the application of the new cell structure). I wished dearly that I’d eaten him instead, that I’d successfully punctured and destroyed him instead of harboring him –

(but if you had, you’d be lonely)

Lonely? The notion hit me like a bubble of turbulence. What was lonely? It was an inverted notion: solitude and independence, but bad, somehow. Ridiculous. He had done nothing good for my existence since he entered it, quite literally.

I could not help but notice most of us big, doubled-up creatures died. I was relieved when I met any cousin of myself. It was some sign that our existence might be viable. We were rocketing along some grotesque evolutionary path that seemed untrodden for a reason.

If I were to die there was no future for him either. And at this point I would die too if he did. Our fates were one.

“Listen,” he said, one of those times I smelled a cousin – another doubled-up creature with a colony of little no-longer-quite-bacteria – and started instinctively following her chemical trail. “I’m going to say something crazy, but hear me out.”

“Fine,” I said.

“We’re going to go extinct because our genome is too big. Even if we’re working well in some ways, we’re bound to have other things that are going wrong, just because we have so many genes.”

"Not crazy," I said. There was no longer rancor in my agreement. I could not blame him anymore for the genomic bloat. Will all the energy to go around I’d found myself adding structures of my own, all sorts of shamefully decadent specialized vesicles that I would never have considered in my old life. And the larger I’d grown the more space there was for him to proliferate in me, filling the interstices and giving me even more energy. There were hundreds of him in me now.

“When you meet that next cousin, line up your genome with hers – your entire genome – and trade copies. If it doesn't fit you might have to do a bit of a merge, which will be scary, but –”

“This isn’t,” I started suspiciously, and stopped.

“What?”

“This isn’t a ploy to come into contact with a new population you can trade genes with, is it?”

There was a truly hurt silence, during which ATP continued to flood out of his tiny, hot, electrically charged bodies to power my cellular processes. An involuntary reaction upon which I was now utterly dependent.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Is it so offensive of me to ask? You’re trapped in me, you have no opportunity to meet anyone of your own kind except for clones. It’s been many years of this barely-life for you. It would only be natural.”

“I don’t need to meet anyone new,” he snapped. “I’ve accepted that this is my lot now, and I have to do novel things to survive it. Have you?”

We did not speak for a while. When I caught up with the cousin, I dawdled before brushing up against her, gripped by fear of more existential change. But I didn’t want to be a coward and I knew I’d been a cad to my little guest.

I extruded a conjugation pilus out towards the cousin, and pushed genetic material through it. Except this time I wasn’t sending just a few genes, but a full copy of my genome.

She was astonished, and a little reluctant. She almost cut the connection several times before she made up her mind: she opened a second connection and pushed through a copy of her own.

“Fair’s fair,” I said, and took it.

Like me, this cousin had a collection of straight chromosomes, a legacy from the initial damage from the genetic parasites. It took a bit of work to capture every single strand and bring it into my nucleus.

The differences between us were nontrivial; we must have diverged a while ago. Now what? Express both sets of genes, halving the ATP expenditure per gene? I supposed so. Nothing particularly dramatic happened.

When it was time to divide, I copied both genomes. My little guest spoke. “Once you're done, divide up the genes into two piles.”

“In the original combinations?”

“No, of course not. Do it randomly.”

So I sorted the genes into two groups and an hour later I had a sister, not a clone, who took half of the mitochondrial population. We drifted together for a bit, sizing each other up. After a while it became clear she was the fitter. Even though this made me the loser, I was happy. We had made something better, rather than simply waiting and hoping.

“We must do this again,” I told her. “We must all start doing this now, carrying two copies and exchanging one of them. This way we'll stumble faster on good ways to be arranged. Perhaps we can all survive.”

Truthfully, neither of us were optimistic. There was nothing else like us in the whole ocean. If we were the only ones in a niche, and we hadn’t been in it for long, it was natural to assume it wasn’t a good one to be in. But we drifted apart, and the practice spread, because the next time I met a cousin-creature, she knew what it was all about and proffered a whole copy first.

But some hundred thousand years later, sex was more universal among us than had once ever seemed reasonable, and we were still alive. Not just alive, but gloriously and healthily alive. I was humbled enough by the results to say, earnestly, “You were right and I was wrong. Thank you.”

My little tenant hummed in pleased acknowledgment, lighting me up. There were now thousands of him dotted throughout me. His genome was nothing but a dozen proteins. Mine, on the other hand, had tens of thousands – and that felt fine. I brimmed with more decadent vesicles than ever, all serving a justifiable function. "I forgive you," he said simply.

I had once seen him as a parasite. Now I felt like an ungainly oafish thing feeding off him. We had proliferated beyond our wildest hopes; there had been so many of us doubled-up creatures now, for so long, that some of us could not meaningfully swap genome-halves. We were too different. This was unheard of – even bacteria and archaea, which had diverged almost at the beginning, could swap gene pieces.

“I’ve been wondering how I can ever make it up to you,” I said.

“You are home to me,” he said. “I am content with it.”

I took his word for it, but I remembered what he had done for me, and I kept thinking. A billion years later some distant bacterial cousin that had cracked using water (water!) for energy had been so long at work that the ocean could not hold more of its byproduct, oxygen. It was a potent, nasty little gas but we had over the years acclimated over and over, and not died of it. After so much not dying from it, I’d been turning around in my head the notion of using it, coming up with an idea of how it might be done. It was my turn to make a bold proposal.

“To breathe it? How do you mean?” he asked.

I showed him.

It took many years, but he was patient, and acceded to powering my experiments. Eventually I was a colony of myself, anchored to the sediment in nutrient-rich waters with calm currents. Information and fuel thrummed through connected copies of myself. Other lifeforms drifted by in the water and sometimes settled on us. Almost too tiny to register, even though some of them were thousands of times larger than my little tenant and I had been when we came together.

I was a frondthing now, towering colossally above the quartz-speckled dolomite mud of the seafloor. Large and studded with sensors all over my surface – not my cell surface but my metasurface, my skin – I could feel the ocean. Not as one vector carrying me from one place to another, but as a collection of multidimensional movement – fast or slow, cold or hot, silty or clear, turbulent or laminar, acidic or alkaline.

The billions of hot, charged sparks of him permeated my body as I extended the drifting sheets of myself to sift the water for hydrocarbons and sulfides to feast on. A meter tall; the biggest and most spectacular creature that had ever existed. Being alive, I thought contentedly, feeding him sugars and fatty acids, couldn’t get more magnificent than this.

Apparently mitochondrial endosymbiosis (when a cell of lineage Archaea engulfed a cell of lineage Bacteria, and they together became the ancestor of all eukaryotic life) probably happened only once

I think by some axes this is the most epic, romantic thing that has ever happened. I kind of want to redesign my wedding ring

[minadevivarma]

MP-SET Life Science Syllabus 

MP-SET for Life Science, specifically is for those candidates who desire to become Assistant Professors in life sciences. The syllabus comprises of core areas of biological sciences with a stress on the theoretical knowledge and practical understanding. 

Molecules and Their Interactions: This domain of study includes biochemistry, cell biology, and molecular biology. Topics in this area include the structure and function of biomolecules: proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids; enzyme kinetics; principles of metabolism; and cell communication. 

Cellular Structure: These include the structural and functional organization of cells, the cell cycle, cell signaling, and cellular types of interactions. Some other related topics include organelles, membranes, and processes of molecular transport pertinent to cell function. 

Fundamental Processes: It contains mechanisms of DNA replication, transcription, translation, and mechanisms for gene regulation. Further genetic material, mutation, genetic disorders, and processing of RNA are some additional contents included in this area. 

Plant and Animal Physiology: The syllabus will comprise of the following topics for plant growth, photosynthesis, respiration, plant hormones, animal physiology : circulatory, respiratory excretory and nervous system with a discussion on how all these organ systems function for maintaining homeostasis in an organism. 

Ecology and Evolution: The candidate shall study the following as part of the syllabus: structure of the ecosystem, population dynamics and biodiversity, conservation biology and evolutionary concepts: natural selection, adaptation, and speciation. 

Applied Biology: This includes biotechnology, microbiology, and bioinformatics. The important topics from the syllabus are genetic engineering, industrial microbiology, and data analysis in biology. 

Genetics and Genomics: Topics in Mendelian inheritance, genetic mapping, genome organization, and epigenetics will help you understand heredity and molecular genetics. 

Proper preparation of these sections is the way to qualification to become MP-SET in Life Science, as one gains essential knowledge in the subject area of biology and teaching experience at higher educational levels. 

[oscarbioproducts]

FAQs on Biochemistry Machine

1. What is a Biochemistry Machine?

A Biochemistry Machine, also known as a biochemistry analyzer, is a laboratory instrument used to measure various biochemical parameters in biological samples, such as blood or urine. It helps in diagnosing diseases and monitoring health conditions.

2. What are the key features of the Biochemistry Machine?

Key features include: - Built-in incubator for temperature control - Seven filters with wavelengths ranging from 340 to 620 nm - Measuring range of 0–3.00 O.D - Storage capacity for over 200 programs and 3000 test results - Touch screen display for user-friendly operation - Built-in thermal printer for immediate result printing - RS-232 serial port for data connectivity

3. How does the Biochemistry Machine work?

The machine works by using light absorption principles. It measures the amount of light absorbed by the sample at specific wavelengths, allowing for the determination of various biochemical substances present in the sample.

4. What types of tests can be performed with a Biochemistry Machine?

The Biochemistry Machine can perform a wide range of tests, including liver function tests, kidney function tests, lipid profiles, glucose levels, and electrolyte analysis, among others.

5. What is the significance of wavelength accuracy in a Biochemistry Machine?

Wavelength accuracy (typically ±2 nm) is crucial for ensuring precise measurements. Accurate wavelengths allow for reliable detection of specific biochemical substances, which is essential for accurate diagnosis and monitoring.

6. How many incubation positions does the Biochemistry Machine have?

The Biochemistry Machine features 20 incubation positions, allowing multiple samples to be processed simultaneously under controlled conditions.

7. What is the storage capacity for test programs and results?

The machine can store more than 200 test programs and up to 3000 test results, facilitating efficient data management and retrieval.

8. Is the Biochemistry Machine easy to operate?

Yes, the machine is designed with a touchscreen display that simplifies navigation and operation. This user-friendly interface makes it accessible for laboratory technicians with varying levels of experience.

9. What are the dimensions and weight of the Biochemistry Machine?

The dimensions are approximately 34 cm x 38 cm x 18 cm, and it weighs around 8 kg, making it compact enough for laboratory settings without sacrificing functionality.

10. Where can I purchase a Biochemistry Machine?

Biochemistry Machines can be purchased through medical equipment suppliers, laboratory equipment distributors, and online platforms like Oscar Bio’s website. Always ensure you buy from reputable sources to guarantee quality and reliability.