surfing the universe

20221214W-1151-AustinTX

Last night I enjoyed Grayson Kohl performing at OPA’s coffee and wine bar. I had dinner plans with Z that seemed to be on then off then on then off. The last seven days exiting this wormhole seem to be affecting me. I woke up sick this morning with a cold. I’m also noticing that I’m feeling edgy, easily triggered, and depressed.

P is for Proline. It is encoded by all codons starting with CC. It is uniquely shaped being the only proteinogenic amino acids with a secondary amine. The ring caused by this secondary amine is important in structural proteins.

A Proline rich diet may increase depression in humans (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2022.04.001).

20221213T-1321-AustinTX

N is for Asparagine. Asparagine is non-essential and encoded by the codons AAU and AAC. Nearby codons GAU and GAC encode the often substituted and similarly sized amino acid Aspartate.

20221212M-1492-AustinTX

I played my Amino Acid song at House Wine on Monday.

M is for Monday.

M is for Methionine.

Methionine restricted diets have been shown to increase longevity. See https://brendadavisrd.com/methionine-restricted-diet/ for more info.

Methionine is an essential amino acid encoded by AUG, which is also the start codon in Eukaryotes and Archaea.

20221211u-1312-AustinTX

I walked around the neighborhood with Katie this morning and found some interesting tree life along the path. The neighborhood of old homes is giving way to new construction.

L is for Leucine, an essential, non-polar, aliphatic, branched-chain amino acid. It is the most important ketogenic amino acid important for the generation of acetyl-CoA and acetoacetate.

Leucine is encoded by the codons UUA and UUG and all 4 codons starting with CU. The nearby codons starting with GU encode the similar branch-chain amino acid Valine. And the other BCAA Isoleucine is encoded by nearby codons AUA, AUC, and AUU.

20221210S-1462-AustinTX

Just a fun fact – during the 1970’s and 1980’s, the price of a barrel of oil was never cheaper than 1 gram of gold and was sometimes as high as 3 grams of gold. The recent “oil price cap at $USD 60” is about 1.03 grams of gold. I found it synchronistic that when I wrote down the prices and calculated the oil price in gold, that the end of the paper results in a oil price of 1.01 grams gold per barrel of oil, very, very close to the oil price cap when converted to gold. When China opens back up after they have their COVID case wave like other countries, then demand for oil will very likely push the price of oil higher.

K is for Lysine, which is essential, basic, charged, and aliphatic. Some important functions of Lysine are cross linking collagen polypeptides and histone modifications. Lysine was isolated from the milk protein casein in 1889. Lysine is encoded by the codons AAA and AAG.