Biochemistry Quotes

“We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language.”
― Arne Tiselius

“The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself—not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day.”
― Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution

“Life is the continuing intervention of the inexplicable.”
― Erwin Chargaff, Heraclitean Fire: Sketches from a Life Before Nature

“Every day, hundreds of observations and experiments pour into the hopper of the scientific literature. Many of them don't have much to do with evolution - they're observations about the details of physiology, biochemistry, development, and so on - but many of them do. And every fact that has something to do with evolution confirms its truth. Every fossil that we find, every DNA molecule that we sequence, every organ system that we dissect, supports the idea that species evolved from common ancestors. Despite innumerable possible observations that could prove evolution untrue, we don't have a single one. We don't find mammals in Precambrian rocks, humans in the same layers as dinosaurs, or any other fossils out of evolutionary order. DNA sequencing supports the evolutionary relationships of species originally deduced from the fossil record. And, as natural selection predicts, we find no species with adaptations that only benefit a different species. We do find dead genes and vestigial organs, incomprehensible under the idea of special creation. Despite a million chances to be wrong, evolution always comes up right. That is as close as we can get to a scientific truth.”
― Jerry A. Coyne, Why Evolution Is True

“Molecular machines display a key signature or hallmark of design, namely, irreducible complexity. In all irreducibly complex systems in which the cause of the system is known by experience or observation, intelligent design or engineering played a role in the origin of the system... We find such systems within living organisms.”
― Scott A. Minnich

“As we mentioned in the previous chapter, scientific insights into the way our brains and bodies work suggest that our feelings are not some uniquely human spiritual quality, and they do not reflect any kind of 'free will'. Rather, feelings are biochemical mechanisms that all mammals and birds use in order to quickly calculate probabilities of survival and reproduction. Feelings aren't based on intuition, inspiration or freedom they are based on calculation.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

“As we mentioned in the previous chapter, scientific insights into the way our brains and bodies work suggest that our feelings are not some uniquely human spiritual quality, and they do not reflect any kind of 'free will'. Rather, feelings are biochemical mechanisms that all mammals and birds use in order to quickly calculate probabilities of survival and reproduction. Feelings aren't based on intuition, inspiration or freedom they are based on calculation. (page 36)”
― Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

“The language of biochemistry speaks volumes, deciphering the molecular code that underlies the complexity of living organisms.”
― Aloo Denish

“At the intersection of biology and chemistry, biochemistry reveals the invisible threads that weave together the fabric of existence.”
― Aloo Denish

“Biochemistry unveils the molecular blueprints of existence, empowering us to unravel the mysteries of life and harness its potential for the betterment of humankind.”
― Aloo Denish

“In the realm of biochemistry, every atom is a storyteller, revealing the secrets of life's molecular dance, unlocking the greatest mysteries of life”
― Aloo Denish

“Biochemistry is the alchemy of nature, transforming simple elements into the majestic tapestry of life”
― Aloo Denish

“I get a prompt about using my Dissociative Cognition System. It takes considerable effort to make even that decision, but I manage to give my systems the OK and immediately I can step back from the crushing burden of misery, cut off from certain aspects of my own biochemistry so that I can function and make rational decisions. It was an essential mod, for someone who was going to be on their own for long periods of time without any social contact. My emotions are still out there, and I can get fascinating readouts about what that locked-away part of me is actually feeling, good, indifferent, bad, worse, but it doesn't touch me unless I choose to open the door again. It's a fine line, I suspect, between useful logic and that pathological numbness that true depression can often lead to, where doing or wanting anything seems like climbing uphill.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Elder Race

“Biochemistry illuminates the invisible pathways of life, guiding us towards a deeper understanding of the complex web of molecular interactions that shape our existence.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“The language of biochemistry speaks volumes, deciphering the molecular code that underlies the complexity of living organisms.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“Biochemistry is the alchemy of nature, transforming simple elements into the majestic tapestry of life.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“In the realm of biochemistry, every atom is a storyteller, revealing the secrets of life's molecular dance, unlocking the greatest mysteries of life”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“Biochemistry unveils the molecular blueprints of existence, empowering us to unravel the mysteries of life and harness its potential for the betterment of humankind.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“At the intersection of biology and chemistry, biochemistry reveals the invisible threads that weave together the fabric of existence.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“As biology meets technology, biotechnology emerges as the architect of groundbreaking scientific innovations: from cellular mastery to societal progress.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“Anxiety is a powerful gift from almighty God. It is our fear of anxiety that destroys us.”
― William G. Alston

“Hopkins’s real mission was the development of biochemistry as an experimental discipline, with its own methodology and way of seeing the world. It was vibrant and fun. The lab’s journal, Brighter Biochemistry, included compilations of verse (Haldane wrote an annual report in rhyming couplets), exam questions from the future, cartoons and cautionary tales, such as laments for ‘Jane who had no bacteriological technique and so perished miserably’ and ‘Belinda who broke everything and left the laboratory under lamentable circumstances.’ Don’t be fooled by their irreverence. These were serious minds at play, and Hoppy’s laboratory nurtured some of the most imaginative and original scientists of their generation, including a number who went on to win Nobel prizes.”
― Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

“Putting terms aside, we’ll see that the ancient biosynthetic Krebs cycle was fixing CO2 a billion years before rubisco and the evolution of photosynthesis in the cyanobacterial ancestors of plant chloroplasts. When it first emerged, the reverse Krebs cycle had little to do with energy generation, instead providing the carbon skeletons needed for biosynthesis. This perspective elucidates the deep metabolism of cells, yet it is still largely missing from the more medically oriented textbooks. It’s a serious omission.”
― Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

“Keen to progress the work on photosynthesis, Lawrence hired Melvin Calvin, a colleague from the Manhattan Project, immediately after the war. The story has it that on the day of the Japanese surrender Lawrence told Calvin that ‘Now is the time to do something useful with radioactive carbon.”
― Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

“The need to prevent ferredoxin reacting with oxygen might also explain the propensity of rubisco to fix O2 through the apparently futile process of photorespiration. Very little in evolution is genuinely futile; if it survives natural selection there is usually a reason. In the case of rubisco, think what happens if CO2 levels fall while O2 levels rise inside a leaf (when the stomatal pores are closed). Now rubisco is obliged to slow down because its substrate, CO2, is in short supply. This means that NADPH cannot pass on its electrons to regenerate NADP+. As a result, ferredoxin in turn is unable to pass on its electrons, and so it becomes reactive with oxygen, just when oxygen levels are rising. To stave off catastrophe, rubisco consumes oxygen instead. Photorespiration converts NADPH back to NADP+, allowing ferredoxin to offload its electrons again. So it could be that photorespiration acts as a safety valve, lowering the levels of reactive ferredoxin and oxygen simultaneously, staving off an impending catastrophe.”
― Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

“The dream of every cell is to become two cells’ said François Jacob, the most lyrical revolutionary of molecular biology. No cell lives the dream so wholly or so senselessly as a cancer cell, turning dream to nightmare. Nothing else captures the myopic immediacy of natural selection so starkly. The moment is all that matters for selection: there is no foresight, no balance, no slowing at the prospect of doom. Just the best ploy for the moment, for me, right now, not for the many, and often mistaken. Cancer cells die in piles, necrotic flesh worse than the trenches. The decimated survivors mutate, evolve, adapt, exploit their shifting environment, selfish to the bitter end. Their horror is that they know no bounds. They will eat away at our flesh to fuel their pointless lives and deaths, until, if we are unlucky, they take us too. I am writing about cancer, but must confess that I have the pointless greed and destruction of humanity at the back of my mind. May we find it within ourselves to be better than cancer cells.”
― Nick Lane, Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death

“To study biochemistry is to decode the code of life, written in the language of atoms and elements.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“A single molecule can set the path for a million possibilities.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“Biochemistry is the language of life spoken in the smallest of parts yet felt in the grandest of forms.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero

“Fieldwork is where theory meets truth.”
― Aloo Denish Obiero