Dumb Things With Bioinformatics 30
PrvtBurrito writes: "About 3% of the human genome is "coded" as genes. The proteins those genes encode can be represented as long sequences of amino acids, a twenty letter alphabet. In an attempt to perhaps prove that nothing is sacred, someone has cataloged all of the english words found in known annotated protein sequences from many organisms. It looks like after cataloging over 37,000,000 characters, the longest word is chapstick and the most common word is kilter."
Option (Score:1, Funny)
No "CowboyNeal"?
(Yes I know there's no amino acid with the abbreviation 'B')
Re:Funny that... (Score:1)
Amino Acids (Score:4, Informative)
a Alanine
r Arginine
n Asparagine
d Aspartic acid
c Cysteine
q Glutamine
e Glutamic acid
g Glycine
h Histidine
i Isoleucine
l Leucine
k Lysine
m Methionine
f Phenylalanine
p Proline
s Serine
t Threonine
w Tryptophan
y Tyrosine
v Valine
Re:Amino Acids (Score:1)
Maybe thats the point.
Excuse me while I cut and paste something to see if I can get modded up to 3,Informative.
Re:Amino Acids (Score:1)
Re:Amino Acids (Score:1)
Do you actually know what a moron is?
I await your cutnpaste reply.
Re:Amino Acids (Score:1)
Actually, the abbreviations do follow some sort of logic. "A" is for alanine, "C" is for cysteine, etc. Argenine couldn't use "A", so it has "R".
When you get to asparagine (which was first found in asparagus), A, S, P, R, G, and I were already taken, so it got "N".
Aspartic acid and glutamic acid have the same structures as asparagine and glutamine (except for the carboxylic acid groups on the ends); they got stuck with "D" and "E", respectively.
By the way, if you're counting, the six letters that aren't used are B, J, O, U, X, and Z.
Re:Amino Acids (Score:1)
Let's copyright them. (Score:4, Funny)
Patent on DNA material [slashdot.org] is already there, so let's go one step further with proteins.
If I find... (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:If I find... (Score:1)
When will it (Score:1)
SecureGene 1.0! Now available in fine stores everywhere!
Maybe it should be the basis of a new audio codec - it's pretty small in the first place.
I want my MPGene!
War and peace (Score:2)
This gives a whole new meaning to the saying about an infinite number of monkeys will eventually produce War and Peace. No need for the typewriters anymore.
-"Zow"
Kilter!!! (Score:1)
Re:Kilter!!! (Score:1)
Right there (Score:5, Funny)
Do it yourself (Score:4, Informative)
Sports (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sports (Score:1)
Mind the P's and Q's (Score:3, Interesting)
I took biochem in undergrad. When trying to remember the amino acids, we'd spell our names. I was one of two people who could write their *entire* name in amino acids.
I also took to writing sentances. "Chemistry and art. Well, that's an interesting idea. Is it new?" became a printmaking project. It probably doesn't exist though... too many mixed hydrophyllic and hydrophobic residues.
Re:Mind the P's and Q's (Score:1)
By the way, because E, I, L, S, and V are all hydrophobic residues, they're often found near each other. It isn't uncommon to find "ELVIS LIVES" in your protein sequence :)
Surprise (Score:1)
And the $64,000 question is..... (Score:3, Funny)