Sublime

By decoding, I mean that molecules within a cell read certain sections of the genetic code, like musicians in an orchestra reading their parts of a musical score—the cell’s individual song—thereby enabling a gene’s instructions to become physically manifest in the actual protein.

The purpose of studying the ribosome was to understand protein synthesis, and, as we’ve already learned, the ribosome doesn’t make protein all by itself. It needs mRNA to specify which protein gets made, and it needs tRNAs to bring in the matching amino acids.

Babu and his colleagues mapped a dense web of 1,295 links joining 755 genes. The map Babu’s team drew looks a lot like the hierarchy of a government or a corporation. A few powerful genes sit at the top, each directly controlling several other genes. Those middle-manager genes control many other genes in turn, which may control still others. This o

the bacteria had the immunity embedded in their DNA so it was passed from one generation to the next.

The ribosome is your turntable, the mRNA is the vinyl LP record, and the protein is the music you hear when you lower the needle.

mitochondrial DNA is selected for how well it works in females, but not in males.

Reading out that information and doing something with it requires proteins—and RNA.

The membrane is a capacitor: