h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Maybe a new link would be better, and we could just copy and paste the best stuff into this new conversation, leaving out stuff like movie reviews and Canadian folksongs(if you look, they are in there), it would help us to organize our thoughts and reduce the clutter. All in favor of leaving the old conversation where it is and forming a link say Aye!

Er... what *exactly* do you mean by "forming a link"?

The link wasn't my idea. Read the backlog.

My apologies; my naturally pedantic nature stems from the fact that I don't automatically look at a phrase like "form a link" and instantly associate it with "post a link"; I can just as easily see it as meaning "form an entry"... I just wasn't sure which you meant. "My bad", as they say in the teen dramas...

That's OK. What's Important now is making order from this quandry. What should be trensposed?

We need a link to the first "significant" posting on the thread; if anyone wants to backtrack all the way to the Peer Review stuff, there's the "in reply to this posting" links, or they can jump back to the start manually. Said link should be posted with accompanying explaination as a different conversation here so new readers don't have to plough through this to find it...

All we need to do is agree on the best starting post... Nominations, anyone?

The first posting by Orcus mentions beta-sheet agrigation, and the beta-sheet agrigation thread died in the DownTime(a phrse I made up for that time when H2G2 was closed) I think it should start at the beginning. I'm right now downloading the entire conversation to paper and highlighting the best stuff.

Sal and Orcus discussed a lot over on my BBS during the downtime (which, I gather, has been named "Rupert"... The downtime, not the BBS! As good a name as any, I suppose!)

Follow the Goo Overflow! link at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A521407#back3 and look for Sal's homepage... The conversation's called "Prions and more".

If Sal has a link to her "Goo Overflow!" page from her H2G2 one we can direct people through that to fill in the gaps...

The beta-sheet aggregation thread's still there George. There's a link to my goooverflow page on my "page of links" guide entry, Peet. You folks have been busy. I'm ever so impressed

That's here by the way:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A530263

Good. Now we can get back to Prions.

I just found out that there are 42 known point mutations in the prion deseases. 42? Coincidence, I think not! This page needs to be here.

What's all this 42iness going on here George? You've left a cryptic message about 42 over at the unedited version as well. I'm getting worried about you . Are you alright?

Point me to your source. It seems a big jump in a short time. If it's right then work must be moving on apace.

Sal

I would imagine that there are a variety of prion proteins (in different species) and one can align the amino acid sequences of these proteins. They are presumably identical apart from 42 of the amino acids - these being the point mutations. I would have though this was rather a lot too. Closely related proteins are usually much more similar than that.

Look over the articles at "double-U double-U double-U dot mad-cow dot org" the dash in mad-cow is included. I found lots of interesting info there.

That's handy. Thanks George

Hmm. Did you understand this stuff George? These are point mutations in the DNA and don't necessarily lead to an amino acid change in the protein (DNA codons are coded such that a mutation will often lead to another Codon for the same amino acid).
I work in chemistry/biochemistry and I found this article a bit hard going.

I was going to have a look at the stuff tonight when I get home (if I can still keep my eyes open). Sounds as though just keeping my eyes open wouldn't be good enough. Might leave it till Tuesday, when I should have more time.

I, too, will be very busy Tuesday and can only hope to check in on Wednesday.

I'm sorry. Today is Friday and, well, that's about it.