Your DNA Is a Song: Scientists Use Music to Code Proteins

[Guest guest]

-------

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:45:55 -0000

Charles F. <cfroh >

 

 

This certainly gives credence to our teachings regarding the power of

shabd (the sound current) and mantra (the mind's projection through

vibration).

 

Enjoy...

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1021_051021_protein_music.html

 

Your DNA Is a Song: Scientists Use Music to Code Proteins

John Roach

for National Geographic News

October 21, 2005

 

What are proteins? How are they structured? What's the difference

between a protein in a human and the same protein in a lizard? Ask

Mary Anne Clark these questions and she is likely to respond with an

earful of music.

 

Clark is a biologist at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, and

she's part of a growing field of science educators who use so-called

protein music to help illustrate the basic structure of the building

blocks of life.

 

All living things are made up of proteins. Each protein is a string of

amino acids. There are 20 different amino acids, and each protein can

consist of dozens to thousands of them.

 

Scientists write down these amino acid sequences as series of text

letters. Clark and her colleagues assign musical notes to the

different values of the amino acids in each sequence. The result is

music in the form of "protein songs."

 

By listening to the songs, scientists and students alike can hear the

structure of a protein. And when the songs of the same protein from

different species are played together, their similarities and

differences are apparent to the ear.

 

"It's an illustration transferred into a medium people will find more

accessible than just [text] sequences," Clark said. "If you look at

protein sequences, if you just read those as they are written down,

recorded in a database, it's hard to get a sense for the pattern."

 

When people look at a page full of text corresponding to protein

sequences, Clark explained, they tend spot clusters of letters but

fail to see the larger pattern.

 

"If you play [the protein song for that sequence] you get that sense

of the pattern much more strongly," she said. "That's my feeling at

least. You hear stuff you can't see."

 

Different Songs

 

One song for a protein may sound different than another for the same

protein, depending on how notes are assigned to amino acids' various

properties. For example, Clark tends to arrange her compositions based

on the protein's solubility.

 

"Where it's soluble and insoluble is one of the big factors in

determining how [the protein] folds up," she said. Solubility

influences how proteins fold, and those folds determine what category

a certain protein belongs to.

 

In 1996 Ross King, a computer scientist at the University of Wales,

Aberystwyth, wrote a program called Protein Music. It assigns a note

to each of the three compounds that make up amino acids and a note to

various amino acid properties--charge, solubility, and so on.

 

"This produces a chord for each amino acid," King wrote in an e-mail

interview. "Because proteins are an interesting mixture of novel and

repetitive elements, like music, the translation to music sounds

interesting."

 

By changing the rules of how notes are assigned to amino acids,

composers can create variations in their songs. However, since all

proteins have a basic structure, all the protein songs have a basic

structure as well, Clark said.

 

According to King, while some scientists have used protein music to

help them analyze data, it is most useful as a teaching tool.

 

If people can understand how the music is produced, he said, they can

understand how DNA codes proteins.

 

Clark said one of the more interesting things demonstrated by the

music is the differences and similarities between the same protein of

different species.

 

While some proteins change very little between species, others, such

as beta globin, are quite variable.

 

Therefore, Clark said, by playing the beta globin song for a human and

tuatara, an ancient three-eyed lizard, people can hear the process of

evolution--a variation on a theme that was present before mammals split

from reptiles some 200 million years ago.

 

"You can hear the parts that remain constant and the parts that

change," she said.

 

SOURCES AND RELATED WEB SITES

 

* Pulse of the Planet

* Mary Ann Clark: Genetic Music

* University of Wales Aberystwyth: Protein Music

[Guest guest]

"Clark and her colleagues assign musical notes to the different values of

the amino acids in each sequence. The result is music in the form of

"protein songs."

 

By listening to the songs, scientists and students alike can hear the

structure of a protein. And when the songs of the same protein from

different species are played together, their similarities and differences

are apparent to the ear."

 

 

 

Interesting! Kryon an entity channeled by Lee Carroll (www.kryon.com

<http://www.kryon.com/> ) urged scientists to look for the song of our DNA.

To assign notes to the amino acids is only a first step. We still need to

hear more subtlely. Kryon says that DNA has a vibration of its own, it is a

song at a very subtle level and is detectable. I am sure there is more to

come from the scientific world!

 

 

 

Blessings,

 

Awtar

[Guest guest]

I was in love with the idea but when I read it I was

not to impressed it looks like they are trying to make

an uncarved block into something that it really doesnt

need to be the " uncarved block is fine just as it is.

 

--- D h a r a m <pran--yogi (AT) sahej (DOT) com> wrote:

 

>

> -------

> Mon, 23 Oct 2006 19:45:55 -0000

> Charles F. <cfroh >

>

>

> This certainly gives credence to our teachings

> regarding the power of

> shabd (the sound current) and mantra (the mind's

> projection through

> vibration).

>

> Enjoy...

>

>

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1021_051021_protein_music.html

>

> Your DNA Is a Song: Scientists Use Music to Code

> Proteins

> John Roach

> for National Geographic News

> October 21, 2005

>

> What are proteins? How are they structured? What's

> the difference

> between a protein in a human and the same protein in

> a lizard? Ask

> Mary Anne Clark these questions and she is likely to

> respond with an

> earful of music.

>

> Clark is a biologist at Texas Wesleyan University in

> Fort Worth, and

> she's part of a growing field of science educators

> who use so-called

> protein music to help illustrate the basic structure

> of the building

> blocks of life.