Amino Acids Quotes

• People crave laughter as if it were an essential amino acid.

  Patch Adams

  Laughter, People, Essentials

  Patch Adams, M.D. (1998). “Gesundheit!: Bringing Good Health to You, the Medical System, and Society through Physician Service, Complementary Therapies, Humor, and Joy”, p.74, Inner Traditions / Bear & Co

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• The basic structure of proteins is quite simple: they are formed by hooking together in a chain discrete subunits called amino acids.

  Michael Behe

  Simple, Ties, Together

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• It is one of the more striking generalizations of biochemistry - which surprisingly is hardly ever mentioned in the biochemical textbooks - that the twenty amino acids and the four bases, are, with minor reservations, the same throughout Nature.

  Francis Crick

  Twenties, Textbooks, Four

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• It will be possible, through the detailed determination of amino-acid sequences of hemoglobin molecules and of other molecules too, to obtain much information about the course of the evolutionary process, and to illuminate the question of the origin of species.

  Linus Pauling

  Determination, Science, Illumination

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• Originally, the atoms of carbon from which we're made were floating in the air, part of a carbon dioxide molecule. The only way to recruit these carbon atoms for the molecules necessary to support life-the carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, and lipids-is by means of photosynthesis. Using sunlight as a catalyst the green cells of plants combine carbon atoms taken from the air with water and elements drawn from the soil to form the simple organic compounds that stand at the base of every food chain. It is more than a figure of speech to say that plants create life out of thin air.

  Michael Pollan

  Taken, Mean, Simple

  Michael Pollan (2009). “The Omnivore's Dilemma: The Search for a Perfect Meal in a Fast-Food World”, p.15, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• This seems highly likely, especially as it has been shown that in several systems mutations affecting the same amino acid are extremely near together on the genetic map.

  Francis Crick

  Together, Mutation, Maps

  "The Realm of Science" by David Rosenberg, Volume 18, Touchstone Publishing Company, (p. 171), 1972.

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• There's a new science out called orthomolecular medicine. You correct the chemical imbalance with amino acids and vitamins and minerals that are naturally in the body

  Margot Kidder

  Tyrants, Vitamins And Minerals, Medicine

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• Self awareness is NOT just a bunch of amino acids bumping together.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Inspirational, Funny, Motivational

  Robert A. Heinlein (1983). “Stranger in a Strange Land”, Berkley

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• One amino acid does not a protein make-let alone a being.

  Preston Cloud

  Life, Science, Doe

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• The mission of DNA is to evolve nervous systems able to escape from the doomed planet and contact manifestations of the same amino-acid seeding that have evolved in other solar systems. The mission is the message--to escape and come home.

  Timothy Leary

  Home, Dna, Able

  Timothy Leary (2003). “Musings on Human Metamorphoses”, p.15, Ronin Publishing

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• The balance of evidence both from the cell-free system and from the study of mutation, suggests that this does not occur at random, and that triplets coding the same amino acid may well be rather similar.

  Francis Crick

  Cells, Balance, Doe

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• The meaning of this observation is unclear, but it raises the unfortunate possibility of ambiguous triplets; that is, triplets which may code more than one amino acid. However one would certainly expect such triplets to be in a minority.

  Francis Crick

  Minorities, May, Acid

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• It now seems certain that the amino acid sequence of any protein is determined by the sequence of bases in some region of a particular nucleic acid molecule.

  Francis Crick

  Molecules, Acid, Determined

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• If one compares the sequence of amino acids that go to form the protein haemoglobin, it becomes apparent that humans and chimps are identical and do not differ in a single site.

  Simon Conway Morris

  Acid, Form, Protein

  "The Crucible of Creation". Book by Simon Conway Morris, 1998.

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• It now seems very likely that many of the 64 triplets, possibly most of them, may code one amino acid or another, and that in general several distinct triplets may code one amino acid.

  Francis Crick

  May, Acid, Triplet

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• A final proof of our ideas can only be obtained by detailed studies on the alterations produced in the amino acid sequence of a protein by mutations of the type discussed here.

  Francis Crick

  Ideas, Mutation, Finals

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• I go to a poison registry and I find that no one has died from any overdose of any vitamins, herbs, or amino acids... But FIVE THOUSAND people end up dying from drug reactions in a single year.

  Gary Null

  Years, Medicine, People

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• You see, proteins, as I probably needn't tell you, are immensely complicated groupings of amino acids and certain other specialized compounds, arranged in intricate three-dimensional patterns that are as unstable as sunbeams on a cloudy day. It is this instability that is life, since it is forever changing its position in an effort to maintain its identity--in the manner of a long rod balanced on an acrobat's nose.

  Isaac Asimov

  Long, Effort, Forever

  Isaac Asimov (2010). “Pebble in the Sky”, p.31, Macmillan

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• It is, I believe, justifiable to make the generalization that anything an organic chemist can synthesize can be made without him. All he does is increase the probability that given reactions will 'go.' So it is quite reasonable to assume that given sufficient time and proper conditions, nucleotides, amino acids, proteins, and nucleic acids will arise by reactions that, though less probable, are as inevitable as those by which the organic chemist fulfills his predictions. So why not self-duplicating virus-like systems capable of further evolution?

  George Wells Beadle

  Believe, Science, Self

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• Unfortunately it makes the unambiguous determination of triplets by these methods much more difficult than would be the case if there were only one triplet for each amino acid.

  Francis Crick

  Determination, Would Be, Acid

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• A comparison between the triplets tentatively deduced by these methods with the changes in amino acid sequence produced by mutation shows a fair measure of agreement.

  Francis Crick

  Agreement, Mutation, Acid

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• If you have a universe that was just the mirror image of the one we know about, then in fact, presumably it would have right-handed amino acids. That's why I'm only half kidding when I say there is a guy on the other side of the universe with his heart on the right hand side.

  Ronald Breslow

  Heart, Mirrors, Hands

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• Back in the day I took a lot of supplements and tons of amino acids. Still do. But back then it was pretty unusual. That's how I got the nickname The Chemist.

  Frank Zane

  Nicknames, Acid, Back In The Day

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• An amino acid residue (other than glycine) has no symmetry elements. The general operation of conversion of one residue of a single chain into a second residue equivalent to the first is accordingly a rotation about an axis accompanied by translation along the axis. Hence the only configurations for a chain compatible with our postulate of equivalence of the residues are helical configurations.

  Linus Pauling

  Axes, Elements, Rotation

  Linus Pauling, Barclay Kamb (2001). “Linus Pauling: Selected Scientific Papers”, p.983, World Scientific

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• But all the vitamins, amino acids, protein etc. needed to get stronger can be found in abundance in plant foods. Anything that is a fruit, nut, grain or seed is vegan and there are thousands of those.

  Robert Cheeke

  Nuts, Stronger, Fruit

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