Hacker News Reader

captainclamon Phosphine detected in the atmosphere of Venus – an indicator of possible life?

In some ways humans are simpler than the cells they are made off. Yeah, you may know how to drive a car, but can you synthesize DNA? I find it fascinating that complexity goes up, when you zoom into a human. And cells exhibit all these behaviours.

This is certainly a fascinating notion, but it assumes arbitrary boundaries that have no real foundation in reality. Imagine instead what a staggering feat it is that the very cells that demonstrate all these remarkable biochemical behaviors can work in concert to drive a car!

I find this change in perspective to be quite instructive...that "humans" are not made of "cells," so much as collections of "cells" have developed a behavior that we describe as "human."

captainclamon A CRISPR first produces squid as clear as glass

Haha, as a Biochemistry PhD student, this is almost exactly how I will often break down biology to a layperson: DNA corresponds to proteins that are essentially just shapes bumping into other shapes, sometimes making new shapes and sometimes destroying them in the process.

Of course, provided 4 billion years of evolution, this has yielded staggering complexities, but at the heart of it is just globs.