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Comment by nynx | Hacker News Reader

There are many gear-like shapes in proteins.

I'm a big fan of ATP synthase. It brings me joy to imagine a quadrillion spinning doodads powering my body at all times. We don't just have a rotor and stator like a jet engine, we have a quadrillion of them! Possibly even a quintillion! Wheee!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXpzp4RDGJI

Wait, they've put together an entire online class on mitochondria? :D

I wonder how much stabilisation would they give to my body if they all flipped to the same axis / direction.

This reads like an xkcd, and that is one of the highest compliments I can give.

Also, where can I read more about this? I assume wikipedia's a good place to start, anywhere else?

Ha, it does feel that way! I can see it now: a framing narrative about hearing the word "protein" in the context of bulk nutrition and derailing into molecular biology. Hover text: One of the figures in the "quintillion" calculation is a bit suspect but the result is still guaranteed to within three orders of magnitude, or your money back!

This feels a bit too good to let it die here. I wonder if Randall Munroe has an idea box I can toss it into and help spread the good word of ATP synthase.

The Rob Lue animation linked by jacquesm is probably a good next step, but it does feel like it was intended to be played in the middle of a lecture. At any rate it's a good excuse to brush up on molecular bio :)

It appears there are forums and an IRC channel, I may drop in at some point and leave a link to this, because I agree, it does seem to good to let die here.

And the video is definitely a good start, as it definitely gives enough search terms, as well as enough background to start building an understanding.

To me, it just adds to the engineering anxiety about maintenance. The whole thing is already a bunch of spaghetti on the macro-level, repair is a major pain in the ass.

Are they also used to transmit power from one gear to another?

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