▲ | jcims 7 months ago | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Only tangentially related, but because they are so amazing here are a few videos that illustrate the process of transcription (creating mRNA from DNA) and translation (creating a protein from mRNA). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMtWvDbfHLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfYf_rPWUdY The common complaint with these videos is that everything is more complex. One thing that isn't evident is that these specific videos (built mostly by Drew Barry) actually model a lot of other molecules to create a more realistic physical environment with brownian motion and whatnot. Then the irrelevant molecules are simply made transparent in the rendering. Obviously it's still much much more complex (eg the constant stream of ATP used to drive many of these operations is not illustrated). There are these and many more great illustrations/explanations at WEHImovies on youtube | |||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | divbzero 7 months ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
We would be remiss to leave out the 1970s classic Protein Synthesis: An Epic on a Cellular Level | |||||||||||||||||||||||
▲ | throwawaymaths 7 months ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||
these videos are better than most, but are still bad in one sense, they really fail to capture just how random walk the movements are. For example, in the first video the script says "a mediator protein complex arrives" as if it is directed there by some sort of orchestration agent. It's not. It's more like "a mediator protein complex drunkenly stumbles in and connects after a few thousand misses". Of course it's hard to make that into a captivating video. As I said, the WEHI movies are pretty good in that at least they add some random walk into the motions. There was a harvard artist-professor (can't remember who) who literally made videos with exact parabolic and helical trajectories and then was crowing about how beautiful the biological system is. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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