A “key to cellular metabolism”:
Scientists have previously observed cells create vesicles—fluid-filled sacks that move materials within a cell or from one cell to another. They have also observed a protein called clathrin form a cage-like arrangement that made up the outside structure of vesicles.
But there were still questions about how exactly clathrin forms those structures and what determines the shapes it can take.
Using high-powered microscopes, the FSU researchers discovered that another protein, known as an adaptor protein, ties multiple clathrin molecules together in a way that allows those structures to take on different sizes.
They also showed that the clathrin coat could make a so-called “basket” shape, and one that scientists had thought the protein could not form, showing that clathrin assembly is more complicated than previously thought.
“We learned a lot about clathrin-coated vesicles by looking at the ones that were made by cells themselves,” said Mohammadreza Paraan, a researcher at FSU’s Institute of Molecular Biophysics and the study’s lead author. “We found new structures and patterns that really surprised us.”
Florida State University, “Biologists shed light on how cells move resources” at Phys.org
Paper. (open access)
Again, funny how it’s all so intricately interconnected but it somehow supposedly “just happened.” Bet there’s lot’s more to learn, too.
Isn’t it interesting how everything seems to get more complex at smaller scales?
Now we have dodecahedral protein baskets transporting something from somewhere to somewhere else by cellular Ubiquitous Protein Shells (UPS). 😉
Gone are the days where science could easily explain the evolution of cell walls and protoplasm. Similarly, gone are the days of everything explained with electrons, protons, neutrons, and photons. We now have different kinds of quarks, leptons, and bosons. We have chaos theory, quantum electrodynamics, dark matter, and maybe dark energy. Just in general, it seems that the proportion of “settled science” is shrinking. With one exception!
Luckily for science, we can still hold on to the “Fact of Evolution” from the 1800s despite everything else that changed so dramatically! So, how exactly did these buckyballs of protein evolve?
-Q
Darwinists have it easy. Science does not matter, unless it is the right science, which is not science. New information can be dismissed, unless it can be twisted to fit their preconceptions. There is no morality, unless it suits them. There is no free will, until there is. It is the strong dominating the weak, unless it is inconvenient. Facts do not matter, since they are the bearers of fact.
The most powerful protein of all is MTPT, with its variants ETPT and OTPT and MCTPT.
BobRyan,
The temptation that everyone needs to resist in science is to take the broken shards of facts and to create from them a mosaic of our choosing using liberal amounts of grout to fill in the gaps.
Yes, this cuts in all directions. Where science goes wrong is when it becomes polarized into fanatical supporters of one position over another. This approximates a court of law where each side presents the best case they can for their client, ignoring the inconvenient issues and pounding the table and shouting over anyone not in academic power.
This pathology is not exclusive to ID versus Darwinian positions, but in many other issues as well, including those in the field of quantum mechanics. For example, Sabine Hossenfelder asserts that the current state of QM hasn’t made significant progress due to the lack of observational data and the surfeit of speculation and arm-waving.
Science is always in flux. What’s commonly accepted today as Scientific Truth, will in a few years be considered incomplete, incorrect, or even quaint. For example, the continents were once considered immobile, and mainstream science did not begin to accept the “quack science” of plate tectonics until after Jack Oliver’s paper, Seismology and the New Global Tectonics, was published in 1968.
Thus, authentic scientific inquiry follows the facts wherever they lead without committing to theories as absolute facts, but treats them as useful but tentative approximations.
-Q
I have a question for everyone here
As we all know Craig Venter managed to swap the DNA in a cell and replace it with DNA of another (but very closely related) cell
Using the method he used to create the synthetic cell, what is stopping him or anyone else from taking human dna and putting it in another animal cell like a dog cat monkey or pig
Would it become human? Is that even possible? Because technically the host cell is a shell
I’ve found no information on this question and wether this has ever been done
Further more would that show that our mental Facilities would be strictly in our dna
AaronS1978,
I’m not an expert on this subject, but I’ve read that inheritable coding is not all located in the nucleus of a cell. Also, Bornagain77 recently posted a fascinating video about the difference between mind and brain that’s well worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQo6SWjwQIk
So, DNA alone, cannot be the source of the mind and the sense of self.
-Q
Querius,
“transporting something from somewhere to somewhere else”
Are you a Guardians of the Galaxy fan?
Peter,
Haha! Much as I’d like to take credit for cleverness, the reference was purely unintentional. 😉
-Q