Elegant biochemistry, chaotic origin

Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning Toxins: Biochemistry and Origin

Plankton feeders such as bivalves often become toxic. Human consumption of the toxic bivalve causes severe food poisoning, including paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP) which is the most dangerous because of the acuteness of the symptoms, high fatality and wide distribution throughout the world. Accumulation of PSP toxins in shellfish has posed serious problems to public health and fisheries in...

Origin of the martian chaotic terrains.

Elegant Equations.

RE EQUATIONS BEAUTIFUL? TO SCIENTISTS, FORMULAS’ ABILITY TO represent fundamental truths or concisely capture complexity is indeed exquisite. To many in the public, though, they can be the opposite of beautiful—intimidating, utilitarian and opaque. Yet for others, the very mystery can be alluring: even when we cannot understand what equations say, we can be moved by knowing they have meanings b...

Elegant Science

Elegance is a prized quality in science that is associated with simplicity and explanatory power. This essay considers the qualities that make a scientific model, experiment, method, or theory "elegant," with a focus on the life sciences. We propose a definition of elegance that includes clarity, cleverness, correctness, explanatory power, parsimony, and beauty. The pursuit of elegance can impr...

On the origin of biochemistry at an alkaline hydrothermal vent.

A model for the origin of biochemistry at an alkaline hydrothermal vent has been developed that focuses on the acetyl-CoA (Wood-Ljungdahl) pathway of CO2 fixation and central intermediary metabolism leading to the synthesis of the constituents of purines and pyrimidines. The idea that acetogenesis and methanogenesis were the ancestral forms of energy metabolism among the first free-living eubac...