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Molecular Robot Mimics Life's Protein-Builder
ananyo writes "The ribosome, the molecular machine that translates our genetic code to build the body's proteins, is a mechanical marvel. Now, chemists have invented a nanomachine that can achieve a similar feat. The artificial system is not about to displace nature's ribosome, a complex of proteins and RNA. It is much simpler, and only about about one-tenth of the size — and, it is achingly slow, destroys the code it reads and can produce only very short chunks of protein, known as peptides. It does, however, show that some of the tactics of biology's molecular machines can be adopted to make useful chemicals. The device relies on a rotaxane — a large molecular ring threaded onto another molecule that acts as an axle (abstract). The axle is lined with three amino acids, and a chain of three more amino acids hangs from the outer edge of the ring. Heating the device prompts the ring to move along the axle, adding amino acids one-by-one to the chain attached to the ring."
Tiny molecular machine apes cellular production line
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Bringing the word 'apes' into any discussion about the development of life is sure to aggravate certain groups.
Think Larry Niven, not Frank Herbert
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
>Bringing the word 'apes' into any discussion about the development of life is sure to aggravate certain groups.
Good. Let them be mad. Let them rail against reality.
It's high time we stopped walking on eggs about this issue. There is this fallacy that each person's opinion about the universe is just as valid as another's. As if we have to be polite about them like we have to be polite about the pictures of their kids.
No. No we don't.
If you believe the universe was created in 4004 BC at 9am, you are a nut. There are no qualifiers to go with that. Not "you might be a nut" or "some people would disagree with you." No. You're a full-blown nutcase.
And yes, we are apes. Big naked apes. Deal with it.
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BMO
I disagree.
We are actually big clothed apes.
You could try some random page on Fox News. Such a page would make about the same amount of sense. You would miss HTML code that only a Geocities site could love, but you can't have everything.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It's high time we stopped walking on eggs about this issue. There is this fallacy that each person's opinion about the universe is just as valid as another's.
That is now the reason I, and at least some others I know, walk on eggshells with such issues. One reason is to not drag other stuff into that crapstorm, as it doesn't help much to turn every biology topic, or even many non-biology topics, into the same tired old argument that has little to do with the particular subject at hand. The people who get into such arguments, especially when unprompted or off-topic, are not the type that are going to change their mind any time soon or find an epiphany in an internet argument. If anything in my experience, they just dig in more.
The other, is to try to take the "high road" with such things, as there are plenty of people who will take any little thing they can to turn around and use against you in such arguments. Will being polite stop them? Nope, but it sometimes slows them down, or makes them resort to more extreme non sequitur arguments that are more obviously BS to less rabid people who stand a chance of seeing the other side. Unfortunately, there are a few people who respond positively to a "that is fucking stupid" response instead of something politer. But in my experience, far more people respond to that as a confirmation that they were right to begin with.
If you don't care about teaching such people, you can ignore the second one. But the first reason still probably applies, why frustrate people on both sides for no gain, and fill comments with crap to wade through to find on-topic stuff? (Unless in the mood for trolling...)
Not disagreeing, but I imagine people won't perceive these things as machines. It will be such a gradual adoption. Not many people think of glasses, hearing aids, hip implants, pace makers, etc. as being robot/machine like. Since people generally won't widely use anything until it is comfortable and offers more benefits than hindrances, these products will tend towards designs that are less noticeable. We probably will move towards being cyborgs, but no one will call it that, except for the rare introspective persons who says "Hey, you reallize that we are like cyborgs now.", and everyone will be like "Yeh, I guess so" and then go about their day. It'll be very much like the tricorders in StarTrek that you think "Wow will we ever have something like that?", but today now that we all have handheld computers, no one really makes a big deal about it accept for the occasional reflection someone does.
Robosome.
>If you don't care about teaching such people, you can ignore the second one.
I've tried to teach people. I've had a discussion on here that exemplified what happens.
I took someone at his word that he was serious about being a Young Earth Creationist, that he had a valid opinion, and that maybe I could convince him otherwise by appealing to his belief that God is All Powerful, and that, really, the literal biblical Creationism bullcrap is merely a limit by Man on what God can do, because "who the heck are you to say that God didn't use the Big Bang and Evolution to create Man?"
I could get him right up to the edge of knowledge, that the idea of biblical literal creationism is a human fable constructed by savages who didn't even know that the Earth revolves around the Sun. And if you're God, isn't it far more elegant to create something that operates on its own instead of having to meddle with it every second?
You get them right up to that point, and then they repeat something they were told when they were 5 years old.
Maybe it's time that people who buy into that were finally told that believing that stuff is like still believing in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.
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BMO
Then why create models of anything ever?
The scientific method works because the universe is consistent and not arbitrary. That you can create models and test them against reality. It's far better than Aristotle's gedankeneperiments on how things "should" work instead of investigating the reality.
For example, we know that light has a speed and that it's pretty consistent throughout the universe and that the physics concerning light tells us how far away things are. If a photon has been travelling 4.6 billion years to get to us, the universe is *at least* that old because it had to originate somewhere.
There is the Young Earth Creationist assumption that God created the entire universe including "old" photons in flight all at once, merely to fool Man (and that fossils are the same thing, to test one's faith). This is inelegant, and basically says that God is a capricious asshole.
And you say that both the scientific and religious opinions deserve equal weight because "hurr durr, we don't know anything"
Then why were we given brains to witness the universe? Because God set us all up to fail?
Such a being doesn't deserve worship. Satan is more respectable in that regard.
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BMO
While I "sort of" agree with you conclusions, I totally disagree with your certainty.
1) You can't prove the universe is logically consistent. That's an assumption. ...this list has gone on as long as I have patience, but it can be extended ad lib.
2) You can't prove that the universe wasn't created one nano-second ago, with all evidence in situ.
3) You can't prove that this isn't a computer simulation.
4)
Note that no valid estimate of the probability of any of the above is even possible. Where they are consistent is that it is plausible to act AS IF the universe were durable and logically consistent, and that the "facts" that you remember as having been learned are accurate. But this is exactly what a young earth creationist is doing. I may believe that his beliefs aren't useful, and that many of the "facts" that he learned are wrong, but there is no evidence. In fact, IIRC, Bayesian theory predicts that in such cases there is no possible evidence that will convert him to your point of view. You *might* be convinced of his point of view by a personal appearance from some god or other, but you'd be likely to talk yourself into beleiving that it had been a hallucination. I.e., it's also doubtful that any evidence would convert you to his point of view.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
People who take extreme positions like the world being 6000 years old deserve to be ridiculed. We laugh at the Flat Earth Society, why do we not laugh at these people who also have a warped world view that flies against reality, a reality that has been further against this "the world began in 4004 BC as calculated by a monk in the dark ages" since the Renaissance.
But to top this off, they have political power. The Flat Earth Society has no political power, because any FES candidate running for office would be questioned about his ability to work for his constituents by operating on some sort of actual logic. But we give a break to those who believe in the calculations of a medieval monk. (funny how the people who claim YEC claim to be biblical literalists, when there is nothing in the bible, actually, that spells out actual age of the Earth even when calculating the begats - the begats must use WAGs for ages and such).
There are opinions that recognize some sort of reality, and there are the ones who, when looked at briefly rationally, one must believe the people who hold such a belief are insane. At least the Democrats and Republicans, even the most extreme on either side have philosophies that are based at least somewhat on the observation of human behaviour. Creationists? The shoehorns for their worldviews are made of Adamantium.
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BMO
Just askin', 'cuz this looks like step one . . . hooray for progress!