11-27-18 Stephen Goodfellow Part II, Rising Waters David McClintock Low Earth Orbit

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Presentations

Stephen Goodfellow: "Part II, Rising Waters"

David McClintock:

Topic A – "The archaeological promise to History from... Proteins!"

Last time, with procedures (also known as programs and algorithms)

we showed that very simple rules can give rise to very complex processes.

We illustrated that with the Mandelbrot set and the Fibonacci sequence.

Where we are going is to show there exist very simple rules that govern Life (as distinguishable from non-life).

It is such an absurdly large topic which compresses into such a small gem of thought, it might seem preposterous, but we will be taking it in steps.

This time, we use one story about proteins to work our way further up from Fibonacci and Mandelbrot to the tens of thousands little engines which do so much of the heavy lifting in living things: proteins.

To keep this part short, we will only touch on the new archeological history now available from a new field studying the interactions of proteins called proteomics.

In the history of science there have been long periods for gathering data followed by a much quicker realization of what the data mean. From ancient times folks gathered astronomical data. Tycho Brahe was a culminating figure who gathered high quality observations. That lead directly to Johann Kepler's laws of planetary motion, and that eventually lead to Einstein and beyond. In our times, there has been a long period of gathering biological data. We are at the cusp of realizing some new understandings.

Now, David McClintock introduces us to Pier Giorgio Righetti and Gleb Zilberstein who may be compared to Brahe and Kepler. Turns out proteins survive over centuries on many things, including manuscripts. A bit of sweat, a cough or drool can reveal an author used a certain drug, survived a specific disease, and worked on this draft during a particular epidemic... The significance for archaeology and history cannot be overstated.

The reliability of life replicating information across thousands of descendants, as shown by the reliability of proteins being accurately made in zillions of copies, also means proteins are faithful carriers of information over long times of great historical interest. A time capsule... and another little step up towards uncovering those simple rules that govern life processes.

Topic B – "The Next Telecommunications Revolution in Very Low Earth Orbit."

The Technical, Economic and Social consequences are large.

Location & Time: Tuesdays, 11:30am to 1:30pm