Thursday, November 29, 2012

G-Protein Receptor Work Wins Nobel


News of a recent Nobel Prize awarded to two researchers who have been studying protein receptors which are part of our human bodies and facilitate a form of "communication" between our cells.  Our Roger's posts have piqued my interest in this area.

Here is a link to an interesting animation which attempts to help us visualize how a form of these G-Proteins functions. Ironically, this video is copyright McGraw-Hill which also operates the moron S&P rating agency, I guess too bad McGraw-Hill doesn't have as intelligent folks working at their S&P group as they have working at their biology education group here, but I digress.

From the article announcing the Nobel:
Since the discovery of cells in the 17th century, scientists have understood that these building blocks of life are constantly exposed to myriad chemical signals, which are then recognized, interpreted, and translated into a cellular response. But until around 20 years ago, how cells did this was a mystery.
Taking on the problem in the late 1960s, Lefkowitz set about trying to isolate receptors from cell membranes. He attached iodine isotopes to various hormones to track their paths through cells in the lab. His experiments revealed several cell surface receptors, including the β2-adrenergic receptor, which responds to adrenaline to regulate the body’s fight-or-flight response.
So it can be looked at as though these biochemical sub-units of our bodies "communicate" based on the input from our "real world" or cognitive language communication in the brain.

Here these researchers have isolated protein receptors that regulate our body's response to "fight or flight" situations that we encounter in our cognitive experience.

I've often observed Mike's videos where Mike confronts one or more of these morons and it seems that Mike is able to get them in a "fight or flight" situation. It looks to me that they exclusively take the "flight" option, and refuse to engage Mike.

If they didn't, they would certainly lose the "fight" which would lead to their education and a change in their point of view.

Their "path of flight" always seems to include language communication that contains a false metaphor. We've seen it recently with Mike's appearance on The Blaze where the host there was put in a "fight or flight" situation by Mike and fled the situation via literally a request for "help" and the metaphor then delivered by Miller "gobbledegook".  We can observe many other instances where Mike has fomented this same chain of behavioral events in the morons.

This is interesting.

Mike, simply through language, places these people in a "fight or flight" situation, and then apparently one of these G-protein receptors, acting as a virtual "regulator", somehow chemically "guides them" into the "flight" option, where the "path of flight" is also apparently facilitated by language.

So, if these Nobel winning researchers have indeed identified the protein receptors that "regulate our body's response to 'fight or flight' situations", then there has to be some sort of virtual "link" between our language and our biochemistry.

And then we could ask: What if anything is guiding the "regulator"?  Or are these "regulators" static?  Or do these regulator proteins possess a form of "hardwired judgement"?

This "link", whatever it is, seems to be malfunctioning within the morons and those who are remaining  morons.

11 comments:

mike norman said...

"This "link", whatever it is, seems to be malfunctioning within the morons and those who are remaining morons.

LOL!!!!

Love it!!

Roger Erickson said...

'What if anything is guiding the "regulator"?'

System science 101 - it's distributed feedback. Look up "autocatalysis."

The concpept's been well discussed, with huge literature, for over 80 years. Rather amazing that economists are familiar with it.

Diverse connection methods among components in complex systems is very passe. Practice at using them is what's neglected.

Ask any baskeball or rugby coach.

That's one reason why so many team athletes are recruited into finance. They're at least a bit used to actually practicing flexible teamwork.

Roger Erickson said...

ps: the equivalent in economics would be Krugman actually listening to and actively coordinating with Mosler/Wray/Mitchell ... the past 10 years.

Doh!

Roger Erickson said...

Any team member or citizen seeking credentials or prizes is, by definition, a "toxic" team player.

Capitalism is toxically confused over this fundamentally simple feature of social species.

It's not the static capital, stupid! It's the net sum of (static + dynamic) capital.

How is it that we invented both calculus and capitalism ~500 years ago, and the two have neve met! You couldn't make this up.

mike norman said...

"the equivalent in economics would be Krugman actually listening to and actively coordinating with Mosler/Wray/Mitchell ... the past 10 years."

He may be starting to.

Roger Erickson said...

Finally realized something.

There's a reason I feel like I've been talking to a brick wall all my adult life.

My entire culture IS a freaking brick wall.

Every culture is, by definition. It's always been this way. The latent capabilities are always stacked out the Wazoo. They can be unleashed only by group practice.

How do you get people to explore their options? Just get 'em started practicing, by any trick imaginable. Then let the momentum roll.

And for god's sake, don't do anything to slow the momentum.

When was the last time you visited an elementary school classroom?

EVERY freakin' time practice at diverse, group thinking & discourse breaks out, the teacher panics and brings it to a screeching halt - using "clasroom control" techniques learned in teacher-training colleges (of all places). It's painful to see, and enough to bring you to tears once you realize what's occurring.

Plea to all citizens. If you have kids currently incarcerated in orthodox schools of any form whatsoever ... please, for the love of our country, get 'em the hell out of there. Do what Steven Spielberg's mom did for him. Let their imagination keep running, and don't do ANYTHING to slow down or limit their time spent in individual thought or group discourse.

If we leave our kids where they are, we end up with a nation full of stulted morons.

That's why I wrote Up Against the Wall Orthodox Ma's. We've done this to ourselves. Pa's are guilty too, not just moms.

mike norman said...

What did Steven Spielberg's mom do?

Matt Franko said...

Roger,

Do you think if it were possible to get a tissue sample from Mike and perhaps say Schiff.. and isolated each of some of their individual β2-adsrenergic receptors that the molecular structure between them would exhibit significant differences?

Or do you know if these proteins are all the same?

rsp,

Matt Franko said...

Roger,

As far as the basketball analogy, it's like they are shooting into the wrong basket, and then looking at the scoreboard and seeing the other team's point total increase and then just doing it again without any modification in behavior...

It looks like their protein receptors are bad or something...

rsp,

Matt Franko said...

Roger,

"System science 101 - it's distributed feedback. Look up "autocatalysis."

from wiki: "A single chemical reaction is said to have undergone autocatalysis, or be autocatalytic, if the reaction product itself is the catalyst for that reaction."

So perhaps these proteins are produced by the body in an autocatalytic reaction and self-replicate in the form that regulates towards the "flight" decision and these drown out the "fight" proteins and people are trapped in the falsehoods by this self-reinforcing reaction?

They cant get out of it because of this self catalyzing chemical reaction that keeps making them think "flight"?

rsp,

Matt Franko said...

This still leaves open how the language effects the chemical elements in the body?

What "link" or "pathway" that is active there...

Hard to understand...

rsp,