Just ran into the fiddlyness of crosstab this week attempting to extend an existing query that used it. I ended up converting the query to use filters instead, which was a failure on my part to get through that fiddlyness -- but I'm consoling myself by saying it's a little more explicit this way for the next person. :)
The gem of this article is: "Messages that are difficult to process are less compelling."
The best thing we can do when communicating is make it easy -- in both message and medium (with apologies to McLuhan) -- for the folks we want to consume it to consume it.
Along those lines, I had a college professor who had just published a paper (now 25 years old?) talking about why "the 20 amino acids." He was equal parts bombastic and brilliant, and for some reason this paper of his stuck with me all these years.
Now, I'm not an expert or even an advanced layperson in this area, so I won't attempt to speak to the validity of the idea. I merely found the argument interesting at the time.
Did anyone advanced in this research line? It looks like a nice mathematical idea, but it is forced too much to fit into the genetic code.
First they propose a genetic code that is totally unrelated to the current one. It can be perfectly the table of a totally different lifeform. The transition they propose looks too difficult, almost impossible.
Probably we had a transition from RNA to DNA a loooong time ago, but they have a 1 to 1 translation, and the intermediate steps look useful. But no one is sure anyway.
They propose a change where almost all the table changes and almost all the internal structure of the table change.
It is very strange that they have 20 amino acids and no stop code. A proposal with 19 amino acids and a stop code looks more sensible. We know that it is possible to add new amino acids to the table (with enough time). I think the main problem is that using 19 amino acids and a stop code breaks the magical part of predicting the number 20 with pencil and paper.
To make the table work, you need the correct transfer-RNA. To get all the symmetries in their model you need to be really lucky. In the block model of 15+1 you any random selection of tRNA is fine if it ignore the last base.
Another big problem is that they predict that half of the proteins would have been constructed backward. But as they say this make proteins not fold correctly. They try to avoid the problem using palindromic proteins, that is not supported by evidence.
I wish I knew! I'm not in the field, and while I was close with this professor back in school we haven't kept in touch. The paper doesn't seem well cited, but I'm not sure what well cited looks like in this case.
Came here to say this. This video of his really opened my eyes to what Blender can do (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY8Ol2n4o4A) and makes a cool entry point into that world.
Same. I come from a long line of prematurely gray haired folks. I'm 42 and my hair and beard are almost entirely white. I definitely have a problem with stress, though given the number of family members (distant and otherwise) that have the same coloring I suspect there's more to it than just that.
