Okay, nerds, buckle in!
It's time for some SCIENCE.
Back in the late 1960s, a scientist got some government funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Atomic Energy Commission to look for interesting bacteria living in extreme environments.
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It's time for some SCIENCE.
Back in the late 1960s, a scientist got some government funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Atomic Energy Commission to look for interesting bacteria living in extreme environments.
1/x
Comments
PCR existed before taq
Very inefficiencntly
With people adding enzymes to reactions after the heating cycles
https://www.nsf.gov/science-matters/biotechnology-sector-materializes-yellowstone-hot-springs
/s
"Let's explore!"
"There's nothing to find over there!"
*discovers the scientific method*
Science is important
https://youtu.be/AWSWqn7UHYM?si=E4H4YN76PAnjqsTA
https://clintonwhitehouse4.archives.gov/WH/EOP/OVP/24hours/internet.html
Remember folks: the titles of NSF or NIH grants (which politicians love to use to enrage their constituents) say *nothing* about the practical value of the research to people (and sometimes it takes years or decades for that value to be realized).
#y’allneedscience
#becauseitworks
https://news.wisc.edu/tom-brock-who-discovered-world-changing-extremophiles-dies-at-94/
-Molecular Biologist, Gerald Lohnas
Fun fact, once in moving a biotech company I worked for I didn’t trust the moving company with the PCR machine, so I put it in the passenger seat of my truck and seat-belted it in to move it myself.
I remember high school chemistry class when there was a liter bottle on the desk in my usual seat. I thought at first someone had glued it to the desk until I lifted hard & realized it was just very heavy & turned out was full of liquid mercury; 13kg or about 30 lbs.
Very cool thread
Just because it does HAVE a result that make sense doesn't mean it has no purpose, we find incredible thing by researching the weird corners of the world
The dude who invented the method received a Nobel Prize for it.
He is also a climate change denier.
Which shoes that most of us are not generalists. Nobel Prize winner or not.
https://skepticalscience.com/skeptic_Kary_Mullis.htm
🎶don’t know much about history
🎶don’t know much of biology
🎶don’t know much about science books
That's where that idea flounders.
I refuse to study history
I refuse to study biology
I refuse to read a science book...
Thank you for sharing.
Now how do we get the elected president Harris inaugurated smarty pants?
JK
But how?
https://medicine.uq.edu.au/article/2024/04/rise-ozempic-how-surprise-discoveries-and-lizard-venom-led-new-class-weight-loss-drugs
What they discovered, to their surprise, was a new species of thermophilic (heat-loving) bacteria that could easily survive at 70°C, even up to 79°C (that's 158-174°F)
old boy damn near shit hisself after measuring some germs in celsius degrees
Why? At these extreme temperatures, proteins (enzymes) DENATURE and become irreparably damaged by heat.
so those bozos probably looking all sideways at first dude like nah gtfoh
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Now, surely by now you're probably thinking, "well, that's nice, but who cares about a bacteria living in a hot spring?
Hi!
You’ll laugh but this made me think of the beginning of the movie Prometheus. It shows an alien disintegrating its body at the top of a waterfall, as in COLD water, to seed its DNA and create human life. I said “that water is too cold,” out loud when I saw it. Lol Was I wrong?
rn y’all reading this like dafuq i care?
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but back when rock music was getting weird, some glasses-wearing types finally got the memo and figured they should study this hot water germ cuz durr eNzYmes
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the man coatsbstumbked on polymerase, yeah as in polymerase chain reaction pcr?
act like you known that shit took the world by storm like southern blot hybridization
anyway dNa gets hot bAd! but PolYmeRaSe is fine, whaat??
Let it cool, then repeat the heating cycle, and the copies grow exponentially: 2/4/8/16/32/64/128
If it weren’t for America protecting Yellowstone in 1872, when would this amazing discovery happened? Just forget that we quickly learned it grows in your water heater.
Thank you science, including the internets, which had information I needed to figure out the problem.
And thank you park rangers!