Too good to be true: Many a scientist has been seduced by an elegant idea, only to find that aesthetics are not always a good guide to a theory's accuracy

Article Abstract:

Ideas that are wrong in all circumstances, but deserve to be right include the published paper in 1957 by Francis Crick, John Griffith and Leslie Orgel, explaining why just 20 amino acids are used in proteins, despite the existence of other possible amino acids. The sequence of amino acids in a protein was known to be determined by four kinds of bases A, C, G and T, but the code which connects the base sequence to the amino-acid sequence was unknown, although it was widely assumed to be a triplet code. The authors suggested that only some triples were meaningful when specifying an amino acid, and that no 'out of frame' triplet was meaningful. It is now known that 61 of the 64 triples specify an amino acid.

Observations, Science

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Amino acids from coal gasification?

Article Abstract:

Naturally occurring coal gasification rather than the impact of a large object from space may have formed the two amino acids found in Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary sediments at Stevns Klint, Denmark. M. Zhao and J.L. Bada argued against volcanism as an explanation for the acids' presence on the grounds that high volcanic temperatures would have eliminated the acids. However, the extreme heat associated with an extraterrestrial impact would likewise have left no amino acids behind. Coal gasification is therefore a likelier explanation for the acids' origin.

Denmark, Natural history, Geology, Stratigraphic, Stratigraphy, Coal gasification, Cretaceous period

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An excitatory amino-acid transporter with properties of a ligand-gated chloride channel

Article Abstract:

Excitatory neurotransmission is controlled by the excitatory human aspartate /glutamate transporter (EAAT4) which has the joint effect of a neurotransmitter re-uptake and mechanism for enhancing chloride permeability, combining the value of an ion channel with a transporter. The transport activity coded by EAAT4 possess an attraction for L-glutamate and L-aspartate and has a pharmacological profile. EAATs in the central nervous system regulate extracellular glumate concentrations below excitotoxic levels.

Neural transmission, Synaptic transmission

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