Here's two examples of why biology is so damn fascinating.
1 - It makes no sense
Proteins are the most important molecule for living organisms. “Protein” literally means “of first importance.”
They does all of these vital functions for life to exist. So, you’d think they’d be efficiently & logically structured. That it would be hyper optimized so it can handle thousands of processes necessary to maintain life?
Wrong!
Proteins are, I kid you not, basically tangled balls of yarn. Precisely tangled yarn, sure. But tangled yarn nonetheless.
Like what?!?! The most important molecule is literally just a tangled ball 😂. It makes no sense. Yet, it works! This, my dear friend, is why biology is fascinating.
2 - The speed of progress is hard to comprehend
200 years ago, we believed living things had some special 'vital force' that inanimate objects didn't have. Then in 1828, a German chemist named Friedrich Wöhler made urea (found in urine) in a lab by combining two inorganic compounds, and everyone was like 'WHOAAAAAA' - you could create 'living' molecules from 'non-living' materials.
Then in 1838, Schleiden and Schwann were like "wait, everything is made of cells!"
20 years later, Darwin was like "oh sh*t, things evolve and change over time"
94 years after that, Watson and Crick cracked the DNA structure in 1953.
Then we figured out mRNA in the 1960s, developed CRISPR gene editing in 2012, and now we're using AI to predict protein structures and design new drugs.
We're literally editing people's genes and on the cusp of solving every freaking disease ever… less than 200 years after thinking living things had some magical 'vital force.’
CRAZY.
If I caught your attention, here’s a few good places to start your biology journey :)
- I should have loved biology (essay)
- Isomorphic Labs (company)
- The machinery of life (book)
- Cells are very fast in crowded places (essay)
- Some people can get 4 hrs of sleep with no repercussions (essay)
- L
Read more pieces here.
Read my newsletter here.