This post is a keeper. Thank you for compiling this— I’m always interested in these sorts of articles, but as a non-specialist, I only encounter them by chance. Here is a whole treasure trove!
The love of biology I learned from Lewis Thomas and Konrad Lorenz is why I do what I do.
The unfolding of the complexity of biology enabled by science is astonishing and awe inspiring. The molecular biology textbooks of my daughter who is now in University contain 20x more than those I had 40 years ago.
Solid list! I might add Frank H. Westheimer's landmark 1987 Science paper "Why Did Nature Choose Phosphates?" since it explained how phosphates' unique ability to act as a reversible on/off switch through phosphorylation made them nature's chosen mechanism for regulating proteins and controlling cellular signaling.
So I was re-reading this today and the 250 °C bacteria struck me as implausible. Looking into it more, those results were called into question shortly after being published (in 1984): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6700703/
Later papers in the 2000s had good evidence for prokaryotes growing at 121 °C (which is still super cool!) but I think 250 °C is out of the question on biochemical grounds (stability of amino acids and ATP)
This is such a great idea for a blog. I tend to read about health from a more big-picture, epidemiological/sociological point of view. I am looking forward to falling in love with the science behind it all over the next month ❤️
This post is a keeper. Thank you for compiling this— I’m always interested in these sorts of articles, but as a non-specialist, I only encounter them by chance. Here is a whole treasure trove!
I'm not from this field but on mere glancing the first essay, I got interested.
Let's see how reading one a day turns out...
👍
The love of biology I learned from Lewis Thomas and Konrad Lorenz is why I do what I do.
The unfolding of the complexity of biology enabled by science is astonishing and awe inspiring. The molecular biology textbooks of my daughter who is now in University contain 20x more than those I had 40 years ago.
Solid list! I might add Frank H. Westheimer's landmark 1987 Science paper "Why Did Nature Choose Phosphates?" since it explained how phosphates' unique ability to act as a reversible on/off switch through phosphorylation made them nature's chosen mechanism for regulating proteins and controlling cellular signaling.
So I was re-reading this today and the 250 °C bacteria struck me as implausible. Looking into it more, those results were called into question shortly after being published (in 1984): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6700703/
Later papers in the 2000s had good evidence for prokaryotes growing at 121 °C (which is still super cool!) but I think 250 °C is out of the question on biochemical grounds (stability of amino acids and ATP)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966842X03003160
This is such a great idea for a blog. I tend to read about health from a more big-picture, epidemiological/sociological point of view. I am looking forward to falling in love with the science behind it all over the next month ❤️
Thank you for this list, I want to read them all!