Geek Out: The Genetic Cookbook
Micronutrients:
See the letters “micro” at the front of a biology word from now on, and you’ll know it means small. For example, the devices that we use to look at really small things are called “microscopes” which comes from the Latin for “an instrument for looking at really small things”, sounds fancier in Latin doesn’t it?!!
(when used in units like microgram and micrometer, the micro means one millionth!)
Macronutrients:
when the prefix is macro, think big! A macrobacterium is therefore just a surprisingly large bacterium (bacterium = 1, more than one bacterium? Bacteria)
Move oxygen:
Hemoglobin is the red protein that gives red blood cells their color and their ability to transport oxygen. Sickle cell disease results when this protein isn’t made properly
Destroy germs:
Antibodies are super fussy proteins that stick to viruses and bacteria and help in their destruction. If you have antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus these antibodies will stick to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and cause it to be destroyed so that you don’t get COVID. However, because these antibodies are so picky, they won’t even stick to other viruses from the Corona family and if this virus changes a little (mutates) then they won’t be able to stick to the new virus either, yikes. Come and join me for an immune system-related post where we’ll talk more about this stuff.
Sperm and eggs:
For example: Follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone. These are needed in both sexes for ova (egg) production (females) and sperm production (males)
Chemical reactions:
Enzymes are proteins that regulate if not every single reaction in the body, almost all of them. One disorder you may have encountered, being lactose intolerant, results from the lack of a single enzyme. Humans are thought to have upwards of 1000 different enzymes, regulating the behavior of millions of reactions.
Gene is a recipe:
You may have heard people using expressions like “a gene codes for protein X”, that’s just science speak for “a gene is the recipe that tells the cell how to make protein X”
And for those of you going, but that’s not true, what about alternative splicing, firstly - why are you reading this, seems like you’re already pretty on top of this subject and secondly - one gene tells us how to make one protein is close enough for those people beginning their journey through this topic
6000 oral languages:
If I’d asked you how many languages are spoken across the world, would you have suggested hundreds, like I and many New Yorkers polled did? Doing my due diligence and checking to find the number was actually in the thousands, I came across this fascinating article.
One hundred sign languages:
It’s tricky to get a number for how many sign languages exist as they tend to evolve separately to oral languages and can sometimes be used by small groups of people. Nonetheless, I’m pretty comfortable saying over 100 exist and here’s an interesting overview of this topic
4:
if you want to know more about these 4 chemicals and the 3 letter words they produce (you’ve encountered words like triplet code, codons, mutations etc) and want to know a little more about this, let me know through the comments section or by email
Probably be fine:
Here we’re getting into interesting territory to do with carriers, “dominant” and “recessive” genes, diseases such as sickle cell and cystic fibrosis, let me know if any of these in particular interest you
