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The Millennium Problems for Biology

164 points · 120 comments · artninja1988

  1. dnautics · · focus · HN ↗
    These are almost all so stupid. Written by people who clearly don't know their chemistry

    Reverse translatase and protein amplification in particular.

    How the fuck do you plan on selectively priming protein amplification. If you know ANY protein chemistry, you will know "the juice is not worth the squeeze" -- how would I exponentially amplify a protein? I'd do mass spec proteomics, synthesize the DNA, and express it.

    Simply amazing that electrofixation is not on the list.

    1. c1ccccc1 · · focus · HN ↗
      I was going to comment to complain about those two as well!

      Do you mean electrofixation of nitrogen? What level of biological involvement are you imagining? More like biology producing (some?) of the catalysts, or more like the entire reaction happening inside of cells?

      1. dnautics · · focus · HN ↗
        Electrofixation of carbon. Build a bug with one of the alternate (non rubisco) pathways and pump electrons from the mains to turn CO2 into sugar
        1. c1ccccc1 · · focus · HN ↗
          Oh, interesting, thanks. I got curious a while back about the whole "how do you attach wires to a bacteria?" thing, but didn't look into it too deeply. Do you have any takes?
          1. dnautics · · focus · HN ↗
            There are bacteria which naturally use wires. For example to strip electrons off of metal nodules (the videos are amazing, you can see the bacteria attach to the nodule, the metal shrinks, and you see the Schlieren effect of the high concentration of dissolved ions).

            AIUI the biggest obstacle is likely the fact that bacteria want to operate in a high current, low voltage regime and everything we do with bulk power wants to operate in a low current high voltage regime.

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