Number 3

A few months ago when I started this blog I wanted to write a bit about why certain things interest me, to establish the purpose of this place. It seems a good time, what with all this parliamentary palaver to post something I wrote last year about politics, that I wanted to get in the Uni magazine. They didn't respond, and then this year I went off the idea of publishing in it when it went out of print. It's wholly online now. I never thought it was very good anyway, to be honest. There were loads of typos. If I come up with something good I probably should try get it on there though, it'll look good on a CV. Oh god, that's a dreadful reason for doing things...

A little bit about little things that do stuff

What is protein? Well, most people think of meat, and maybe milk and cheese, or baked beans. Foods that are rich in protein, that we need to live. In fact the vast majority of people in the western world over consume protein, but we can talk about that another day. Anyways, really we should say, what are proteins? 
The whole of biology is concerned in some way or another with what proteins do. If a living thing is like a car, proteins are the engine, and the hydraulics, and the wheels and the headlights. They are the doers in the situation, the moving parts. I guess the DNA would be the driver, and everything else would be the frame... 
OK so it's hard to make analogies with something as complex as a living thing, but basically proteins are a remarkably diverse collection of molecular machines. And yet the elegant thing is that they are really fairly simple. They're composed of 22 possible basic ingredients (Amino acids), which are put together in chains, which then fold up around themselves. These are then sometimes garnished with a few extra bits, called aesthetic groups. And then they can all play together and with pretty much any other kind of molecule and make stuff happen. Let the whole thing go for a few billion years and abra-cadabra, you have life as we know it. 
OK evolution is a bit more complicated, and yeah DNA is what carries the instructions, but really, the double helix can bugger off out of the limelight. The science guys on TV seem to be very impressed about the whole code-of-life story, but I think that misses the point a bit; it's proteins that are the actual prose of life, DNA is more like the alphabet. I think it's more exciting that we're now figuring out what the words actually mean, rather than the fact that we managed to get what the letters sounded like. How's that for analogy? At least now I'm slightly more excited about the funny things life is made of.
So my first exam is just all about these tiny little buggers, how they do business with their co-conspiritors the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and how we study them. It's really important, fundamental stuff, and there's alot of it. So I need to get down to the details today, hardcore. But it's doable... it's the other exams I 'm more worried about.

This odd shape is the structure of my favourite protein of the moment, luciferase. It's what makes the light in a firefly. It's name is just a name for the devil plus -ase, which means a protein that makes a reaction happen. In this case, a pretty cool reaction, which I can talk about more when I go into pyrosequencing; using flashes of light to read a strip of DNA... 
Yeah, this revision thing'll get done, no problem...



Here is the best acronym I have ever found, which I came across during my brief time I actually did, sorta, revise. If you want to know what that unexpected protein was in that sample, you can just check if it's cRAP. Science is for people who like cool names.


P.S. This post counts as yesterday, because I haven't been to bed yet. So I'm not due a facial poke. This counts as revision, doesn't it? No?

Fruit flies like a banana.

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

This is a fruit fly. They're nice little things, and very important too. They're model organisms, scientists' bestest friends.

Anyway, about the time flying... I must have put in a bent shot somewhere, because my arrow's really off target. That counter keeps counting, but I don't seem to be learning what I need to be learning. 




If I were really interested, clearly, I would be soaking it up, like I''ve soaked up other miscellaneous interesting things I've read. But wierdly my interest is hard to muster when it must be mustered. I am more interested in mustard, right now, than my six exams. I guess because it scares me, revision, if I'm honest.

So all the next posts from now are me convincing myself about some topics being interesting. Hopefully learning about them at the same time.

If you're not me, this will give you an idea of what I've 'studied' this year.

All the things I need to learn are related to human health, but it seems to me not organised as a comprehensive look at that enormous topic. It's more like a hodge-podge look at a bit of chemistry and a few diseases. But that is how it has to be I guess, and when you're missing 40% of lectures it'll probably always seem a hodge podge.

 P.S. No-one called to berate me after last week's non posting of revision notes. I mean, my girlfriend tries, but berating goes against her kind nature

P.P.S. If there is not a revision posting everyday for the next two weeks from now, you can poke me in the cheek. Hard.

A comic I drew last night

Last night I had a nightmare about doing an exam I knew nothing about, and then I woke up at 1:30 today. I remember my alarm going off at 10, but I only remember pressing snooze once. I wish my lover was here to wake me up.
Later today I will have posted revision notes on here, and if I haven't you can ring me up and berate me hard.

It is difficult to be alive

I saw this phrase on a hoodie design a while ago and admired it suddenly. There are more articulate and poetic aphorisms, but this really is a simple summation that struck me. It's not that life is nasty or uncomfortable (for fortunate people like me, and most people, I imagine), but it's not usually very easy, even when it seems like it should be. All in all it's difficult, as well as wonderful or frustrating. But this is kind of reassuring; it's difficult for most people, so we can be magnanimous. I would like this hoodie also because the zippered hoodie is probably the best type of clothing ever made; body temperature can be controlled with ease...
The design is from the creator of this great comic of surreal melancholy; pictures for sad children.

 This is my very poor attempt at graphically interpreting the phrase. But I also wanted to show another thing; this program that I used for the writing is pretty cool.





In other news I attempt an explanation of some of my actual difficulties, for the entertainment of future me and the most dedicated of my friends and lovers. Under there...

Saturday Summary 1

I've decided to make saturdays my day of reckoning. Every week henceforth I shall make some record of my activities, successes, failings and short term plans. So it begins, in simple form.

What I have done:
Lived without tobacco for a third week running
Went to a market research session for free ice cream and £3 in vouchers. Bonus.
Exchanged my penny jar for scratchcards. Didn't win. Bummer.
Threw water balloons off a very high balcony. Glad that we didn't hit any people but did hit cars.
Went to the doctor. Filled in a form. Complimented on my blood pressure and pulse rate. Sadly no cure for my injured knee other than weeks of rest.
Went to the gym. Tried to exert myself on the crosstrainer, after three and a half minutes felt faint. Threw up soon after. Weights felt good, but muscles were sore for two days after.
Spent hours and hours reading the internet, finding loads of new comics to read
Uploaded a photo album to facebook.

What I haven't done:
Developed melanoma (that's what that pic I took is of, a skin section.)
My microbiology coursework, nor any revision or research.
Any amnesty organising

This week I will: 

• Do that microbiology coursework. Hand it in on Monday.
• Give a presentation on Friday about Krabbes disease.
• Organise an amnesty meeting and hopefully a new committee. 
• Go to all my lectures. 
• Go to the gym again but avoid cardiovascular overexertions.
• Make a song.

Let's see if this writing it down helps these things happen.

A comic I have maded

I have made a comic. I always wanted to make one, and the fan submission month on this excellent webcomic made me think I might be able to get an audience for it too, so I thought of this one below. Hope you like it.

I made it when I should of been doing my guinea pig hypersensitivity formal report. That report sucked, for reasons I can hardly fathom, but which I might explore here soon.
But also interesting stuff coming soon!