"Defying textbook science, study finds new role for proteins"

[Wally]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150101142314.htm

A new finding goes against dogma, showing for the first time that the building blocks of a protein, called amino acids, can be assembled by another protein, and without genetic instructions. . . .

"This surprising discovery reflects how incomplete our understanding of biology is," . . . "Nature is capable of more than we realize."

"I love this story because it blurs the lines of what we thought proteins could do."

"There are many interesting implications of this work and none of them would have been possible if we didn't follow our curiosity,". . ."The primary driver of discovery has been exploring what you see, and that's what we did. There will never be a substitute for that."

To read more about this finding click here - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150101142314.htm

 

[Christopher]

I love seeing established dogma knocked down a peg or two.

 

[Snow Leopard]

Like a half-made car with extra horns and wheels tacked to one end, a truncated protein with an apparently random sequence of alanines and threonines looks strange, and probably doesn't work normally. But the nonsensical sequence likely serves specific purposes. The code could signal that the partial protein must be destroyed, or it could be part of a test to see whether the ribosome is working properly. Evidence suggests that either or both of these processes could be faulty in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Huntington's.

So really we don't really know what role it plays yet.

 

[alex3619]

Science is not a destination, its a journey, or a process. Dogma keeps getting revealed. So much of what we were told, including by doctors, about diet about thirty years ago is now in serious doubt.