Rubisco
@Rubisco@slrpnk.net
4 billion years of fixing inorganic carbon in the biosphere. Sometimes mistakes O2 for CO2. Slower than other enzymes, but very abundant. Here, have some phosphoglycerates about it.
- Comment on Social media users probably won't read beyond this headline, researchers say 4 hours ago:
o7 Thank you!
- Comment on Social media users probably won't read beyond this headline, researchers say 15 hours ago:
Ahhh, thank you.
- Comment on Social media users probably won't read beyond this headline, researchers say 17 hours ago:
Unfortunately, Sci-Hub doesn’t have the requested document: 10.1038/s41562-024-02067-4
Rats! Anybody got a pdf?
- Comment on It's a tradeoff 3 days ago:
There is a small wormy parasite that attacks our red blood cells (RBCs).
It turns out that people with mutant and half-mutant RBCs are less likely to be attacked by the parasite.
Also, the red blood cells of the mutant variety are more likely to be cleared by white blood cells than those that are non-mutants.
Full-blown (homozygous) mutant RBCs kinda suck at their day jobs though. Whereas half-mutant (heterzygous) RBCs are still mostly functional by comparison.
So being a little weird, but not totally weird, gives an advantage over normies (wild-type) when the RBC parasite is common.
Were there no parasite around, the advantage would go to the non-mutant RBCs because they do their job best. Their downside is being easy targets.
- Comment on It's a tradeoff 3 days ago:
For the curious: www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa072464?url_ver=Z39…
- Comment on Protein 3 days ago:
“Those are some good-lookin helices you have there. Wanna come back to mine and try out some novel ways to fold?”
- Comment on Penguins 🐧 3 weeks ago:
- Comment on Is Lemmy an effective alternative to Reddit? 5 weeks ago:
The on-the-fly meme-making by the Trekkies is positively inspiring.
- Comment on Science or some other arcane wizardry PCM 5 weeks ago:
Comrade Pauli?!
- Comment on Chat, what do you see? 5 weeks ago:
- Comment on Rabbit Population 5 weeks ago:
- Comment on English Ivy 1 month ago:
Because Crake is saving it for some special project at Rejoov.
- Comment on Launches 2 months ago:
To the depths of Jupiter, then.
- Comment on Clueless about Biology 2 months ago:
Wouldn’t Jabba being ‘stupid as fuck’ and making erroneous claims about nature be the less convoluted answer here? Bioengineering, canon or not, sounds like the more complicated explanation.
- Comment on Clueless about Biology 2 months ago:
Sarlac that lost the ability to grow ‘roots’ and instead worked out venom and energy storage (fat and muscle) would outcompete and supplant the sarlacs still producing energetically-expensive, overly-complicated stasis bellies.
What happens if they momentarily fail to keep their meals alive, do they starve or become poisoned by the rotting meat? Do they have issues keeping a varied diet alive? How do they maintain a net positive energy balance after producing all that is required to keep organisms alive? Why not stun them and stash them, like wasps and spiders? Why not fatten up like -gestures broadly at all life-. Fat requires very little maintenance.
Could one, in theory, rescue one’s friends were they trapped in a sarlac?
Sounds like an organism that would quickly be out of business were there any competition at all.
- Comment on Lord of the Rings Characters: Screen Time vs. Mentions in the Books 2 months ago:
He could wear the one ring and remain unaffected by it, laughed at it even. Then he could make the ring vanish and bring it back at will.
He seemed unconcerned by the war, almost as if he knew of and had seen wars greater and far more terrible. Yet he had chosen a side and was willing to provide what aid he could.
He was Doolittle to all lifeforms, his songs tranquilized ancient evils, and he could be called upon at long range to swiftly respond.
His very existence suggested fundamental mysteries about the world; old and powerful.
Bombadil, moreso than Strider, was the embodiment of strong, old roots not withering, remaining out of reach of the frost. Old roots that could reason with willows and wights.
- Comment on what would happen if a rogue, earth-size planet ran straight into the sun? anything interesting? 3 months ago:
At what speed?
- Comment on Sexual dimorphism 3 months ago:
Pretty impressive, but is he magnificent enough? Oh dear, her departure says it all.
- Comment on Is he cheating on just me or with the Second Law of Thermodynamics? 3 months ago:
The godhead got bored and felt like playing hide-and-seek.
- Comment on As Hundreds of Churches Sit Empty, Some Become Malls and Restaurants 3 months ago:
In 1983, the Gothic revival Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion in New York City was converted into a disco called the Limelight, known for its sometimes drug-fueled party scene.
Sounds familiar.
- Comment on Botany 3 months ago:
Capsicum annuum?
- Comment on Slow and steady wins the race. 4 months ago:
Cheers!
- Comment on What's the worst hacking scene from any movie or show? 4 months ago:
Hollywood hacker bullshit. Not once have I ever come across an animated singing virus.
- Comment on What's the worst hacking scene from any movie or show? 4 months ago:
“I bet you right now some writer is working hard on a TV show that’ll mess up this generation’s idea of hacker culture.”
- Comment on How can I improve my handwriting? 4 months ago:
Practice.
Taking notes during lecture helped. Not only does it help cement the information in your mind, it is practice writing legibly enough it can be studied later. You could practice this now, before school starts, by watching something like Khan Academy.
If your major sends you to the whiteboard often, that will help a lot, too. You will naturally improve as you do it out of necessity. Practice on the board until you can write a straight line of consistent text that doesn’t droop or curve down as it goes along.
I second the suggestion for calligraphy in a script you like.
Perhaps practice by trying to quickly write down song lyrics as you listen? I think that’s when I first started to improve.
Pay attention to your classmates who can take good notes quickly. I made a friend who found my writing to be glacially slow, so I watched how they wrote to learn some tricks.
Sorry if some of these won’t help until you’re in, but don’t worry about it too much. I’m sure your handwriting will be markedly improved by the end of even the first year.
- Comment on Academia to Industry 4 months ago:
So when it helps out with a recipe, we won’t get a suggestion specifically for Elmer’s, but rather the IUPAC name for superglue?
- Comment on No going back 4 months ago:
- Comment on No going back 4 months ago:
Gotcha. Thanks! Do the points P, E, Y, U, and F stand for something or are the letters arbitrary?
- Comment on No going back 4 months ago:
Can a TI-84slinger explain this for us pipette-wielders?
- Comment on This is what I hired you for! 5 months ago:
Turkish delight?
