Life's Ratchet: How Molecular Machines Extract Order from Chaos
Peter M. Hoffmann
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 0465022537
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Below the calm, ordered exterior of a living organism lies microscopic chaos, or what Hoffmann calls the molecular storm—specialized molecules immersed in a whirlwind of colliding water molecules. Our cells are filled with molecular machines, which, like tiny ratchets, transform random motion into ordered activity, and create the “purpose” that is the hallmark of life. Tiny electrical motors turn electrical voltage into motion, nanoscale factories custom-build other molecular machines, and mechanical machines twist, untwist, separate and package strands of DNA. The cell is like a city—an unfathomable, complex collection of molecular workers working together to create something greater than themselves.
Life, Hoffman argues, emerges from the random motions of atoms filtered through these sophisticated structures of our evolved machinery. We are agglomerations of interacting nanoscale machines more amazing than anything in science fiction. Rather than relying on some mysterious “life force” to drive them—as people believed for centuries—life’s ratchets harness instead the second law of thermodynamics and the disorder of the molecular storm.
Grounded in Hoffmann’s own cutting-edge research, Life’s Ratchet reveals the incredible findings of modern nanotechnology to tell the story of how the noisy world of atoms gives rise to life itself.
Cell Biology: A Short Course (3rd Edition)
What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite
Inheritance: How Our Genes Change Our Lives—and Our Lives Change Our Genes
The Rocket Man: And Other Extraordinary Characters in the History of Flight
Measurement in Psychology: A Critical History of a Methodological Concept (Ideas in Context)
likelihood of the occurrence of an event; given by the number of ways the event could occur, divided by all possible outcomes. processivity The ability of a molecular motor to move on a molecular track for long distances without detaching. protein A large molecule consisting of a folded strand of amino acids connected by peptide bonds. Proteins fold into specific shapes, which allow them to fulfill many tasks in cells, including acting as enzymes, molecular machines, or structural elements
design, 223, 245 Interfaces, in nanoscale, 98–99 Irreducibility argument, 221–222 Irreversibility, 133–134, 158 Irritability, 24, 34–36 experiments disproving vital forces as necessary for, 38–40 Isoleucine, 151–152 Iyengar, Ravi, 236 Jacob, François, 153, 235 Janssen, Hans, 22 Janssen, Zacharias, 22 Jarzynski, Christopher, 134–136 Jeffries, Steve, 96 John the Evangelist, 15 Joule, James, 37 Jun, Yonggun, 132 Kant, Immanuel, 32–33 KIF1B, 182 Kielmeyer, Carl Friedrich, 33
Kevin Spacey portrays a morally impaired MIT mathematics professor, who teaches his students how to break the bank playing blackjack. Using card counting and secret signs, the students descend on Las Vegas casinos and clean them out. Certainly an interesting way to pay for college and a great idea for a movie (based on a true story), but it is hardly original: the idea to pay for college by gambling precedes 21 by five hundred years. The person who first conceived of this ingenious use of
arrived a few months later, it was the beginning of summer. John typically disappeared for extended periods, only to reappear with a bagful of new ideas. After John’s return from his mysterious summer travels, I got into one of the typical—as I soon realized—conversations with him. These conversations always involved new ideas, connections, and recent publications. Listening to John, I would often be reduced to nodding and saying, “aha, yeah, mmmh,” only to scramble back to the office to look up
structures are “irreducibly complex.” What they mean is that a structure has many interdependent parts, so that if you remove just one, the whole thing could not work. For example, how could a car evolve? The engine could not evolve without already having a whole car in place. But the car could not evolve without an engine. All the parts of a car must be designed to fit together. No part can be left out. Thus, goes the argument, molecular machines must be designed, just as a car is designed. This
