Thursday, October 12, 2006

Weird Science

So, last night, I was working on my upcoming presentation, and, suddenly, the bacterial ribosome:













began to look a little bit familiar, as well as a little bit friendly and cartoonish. Each of the subunits reminded me of something from my childhood. Doesn't the shape on the left look a bit like Gumby? And on the right, Grimace? So, I spent about a half hour searching for images, and then enlisted a fellow grad student to help me with Photoshop (this is why it takes six years to get a Ph.D.), and here is the result:






You see the resemblance, don't you?





In other science news, Carnivorous Plant Eats Mouse.

"Botanists discovered a partially digested mouse inside the plant on Friday after several people complained of a horrible smell."


And lastly, but not leastly, grad school must have been a lot more fun during the 1970s. And by "fun," I mean "hallucinogenic drug-laden." Check out a large group of scientists at Stanford reenacting protein synthesis in the short film Protein Synthesis: An Epic on the Cellular Level. The good part starts around minute 4:00. It is one of the most bizarre and hilarious things I have ever seen. tRNA!

8 comments:

Mrs. V said...

Well if you had a hard time remembering the synthesis here is a visual you will not soon forget. What a bunch of nuts...my generation, granted, but still, what professor do you know would be willing to lend his name to such antics? I know my supervisors frown on audio visual aides I want to incorporate into my talks.

Anonymous said...

ummmm...that is freaking hysterical that you thought of gumby and grimace with those two shapes! that is a creative mind i tell you.

Anonymous said...

Maybe it is just me, but those shapes look a LOT like the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters Gloop and Gleep. You know, from the classic Hanna-Barbera series "The Herculoids". Who am I kidding, no one remembers this but me...

Anyway, if you look at the picture in the link, they are the two blob looking things. Quite a resemblance.

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eileen said...

It's an arm. Get your mind out of the cartoon gutter! Oh yeah, and the ribosome looks exactly like Gloop and Gleep.

Mrs. V said...

I forwarded the protein synthesis link to all 25 of my co-workers who could appreciate it, us being in molecular research. They thought it was hysterical, thanks, Eileen, for giving me this to share and take credit for it. ha ha ha

eileen said...

yeah, Mrs. V- I love that video! Every scientist should see it, it really is hilarious.