What I am going to tell you about RNA is very, very simplified, but I think it will give you the gist. RNA or ribonucleic acid is much the same as DNA, a chain of nucleotides, but the sugar is always ribose (not deoxyribose), uracil replaces thymine, and RNA is usually single-stranded. RNA is essential in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of the genes coded in the DNA. Structure DNA and RNA molecule – Copyright: Designua, Image ID: 124474282 via Shutterstock There are several types of RNA: mRNA, rRNA, tRNA, and non-coding RNA. 1. mRNA – Messenger RNA: Encodes amino acid sequence of a polypeptide. mRNA synthesis involves separation of the DNA strands and synthesis of an RNA molecule with the action of an enzyme called RNA polymerase. One of the separated DNA strands is a template. mRNA carries the genetic code copied from the DNA in the form of triplets of nucleotides called codons. Each codon specifies a particular amino acid, but one amino acid can be coded by many different codons or groups of three nucleotides. There is some processing of mRNA before it moves from the nucleus to the cytoplasm of a cell. 2. rRNA – Ribosomal RNA. When combined with ribosomal proteins, rRNA makes a structure called a ribosome. The ribosome is the organelle where the mRNA is trranslated. rRNA constitutes the predominant material within the ribosome, which is approximately 60% rRNA and 40% protein. Ribosomes contain two major rRNA subunits – the large A acts as an enzyme, catalyzing the bond formation between the amino acids. rRNA sequences are of ancient origin and are found in all known forms of life. This is a three dimensional reconstruction of a ribosome, where blue is the small subunit and red is the large. 3. tRNA – Transfer RNA is the physical link between the mRNA and the amino acids that go into a protein. It does this by carrying an amino acid to a ribosome, as directed by a three-nucleotide sequence or codon in the mRNA. As such, tRNAs are a necessary component of translation, the biological synthesis of a protein originally coded in the DNA. 4. Non-coding RNA (ncRNA) is a functional RNA molecule that is transcribed from DNA but not translated into proteins. In general, ncRNAs function to regulate gene expression at the transcriptional (DNA to RNA) and post-transcriptional (RNA to protein) levels, and there are a lot of them, more being discovered all the time! Hopefully you didn’t find this too confusing. I use to teach a more detailed version of this to my non-biology majors, because they would be living in a world where they will be confronted with these terms. 0 0
Tales from the Garden by Sally Cronin is at heart a book for all ages. I read several excerpts of the book in posts on Sally’s blog (Smorgasbord – Variety is the Spice of Life — https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/) and decided to read the entire book. This is a collection of imaginative stories giving life to the various stone creatures that inhabit her garden: lions, eagles, dogs, dwarves, butterflies, young boys and beautiful girls, and of course the world of fairies living under the magnolia tree. All of them come alive at night and there is a story about each of them – how they came to live there, how they contribute to the busy life of the garden. The author imbues each of these creatures with a charming personality and a backstory that reminds the reader of long ago folktales. The writing is smooth with a gentle quality and effortlessly provides lessons in responsibility, loyalty, love, and respect. This adult was transported back to her childhood and was left smiling and a little bereft after the last page, reminding me of The Borrowers, one of my early favorites. I highly recommend this book to the parents of young children – it will be on the list of books that I give each year – and I hope all who read this review will indulge their inner child and get a copy for themselves. Ten stars if it were possible! About the author After working in a number of industries for over 25 years, Sally decided to pursue a completely different career and began studying nutrition and the human body, ultimately opening her first diet advisory center in Ireland in 1998. Over the last 18 years, she has practiced in Ireland and the UK and has written columns, articles and radio programs on health and nutrition. She published her first book with a Canadian self-publisher in the late 90s and since then has released eight others as part of her own self-publishing company. Apart from health, she also enjoys writing fiction in the form of novels and short stories. All of her books demonstrate her humor, charm and love for her subjects. 0 0
I am delighted to have Rosie Amber’s here for a guest post on her favorite things! ***** These are a few of my favourite things – family trees and history Ever since we had a lesson in school about family trees, I’ve been hooked on genealogy. I remember going home and working for weeks on the homework project, interviewing family members, writing to others for details and asking the teacher for a really long piece of paper to share my family tree with the class. I love the stories, the unanswered questions and the search for new links. I would love to share a cup of tea with so many of these relatives and hear their stories first-hand. My grandmother’s father, born in 1878, was said to have walked from Oxford to Reading in search of work when he was a young man. He found a job on the railway, and worked his way up to be Station Master, becoming a strong union man. When I married I was delighted to inherit a whole new family, and this one deserved its own long piece of paper. We’ve managed to reach back as far as the early 1700s, but are currently stuck. A branch of the family moved from Hail Weston, which was then in the county of Huntingdonshire, but is now part of Cambridgeshire, and came to London. To be able to trade in the city a man had to become a “free man of the city” and a member of one of the city’s Guilds. Our relative became a member of the Guild of Joiners. His certificate of “Freedom” was obtained in 1774. Later generations lived in Bermondsey, London and owned many properties, they were wharfingers, lighter men (flat bottomed boat workers used to transfer goods from large ships to docksides) and granary men along the Thames. One member leased some land to Bermondsey Abbey so they could extend their graveyard on a 999 year lease. We believe the family business was forced to be sold by a family split and we have the original sales catalogues from 1886. Some of the family moved to Hampshire and began farming, and although the generations have moved farms, we are still farming in the area today. My husband’s great grandfather had polio, yet he fathered five children. A descendent from the wife of the aforementioned great grandfather in time married a very distant relative of the youngest child of the great grandfather’s fifth child. Confusing?! Not knowing any family connections, the couple bought the very old farmhouse which we moved my husband’s mother out of just two years ago. As my brother-in-law still farms the surrounding land it seems fitting that the farmhouse will remain in the “family”! Other interesting characters who have popped up in the tree: a brother who went to be a sheep farmer in Australia in the early 1800s, but the heat was too much; he later moved to and died in Tasmania. Another family member served in India as a soldier. He wrote home about an interesting man named Ghandi who was making a lot of noise…. We had a gentleman who part owned Mabi & Todd, makers of Swan Pens. Another worked for the Bank of England in the late 1800s. We have certification for another who was made a “Special Constable in the City of London” for a two month period covering the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Queen Victoria. Apparently this was common practice during times when large crowds were expected in the capital. In amongst the family papers was a memoir from a family friend about “Old London Town”. On his 70th birthday in 1884, Mr F Fitch looked back on his life. Here is a segment from his memoir: “In 1814 London had scarcely emerged from its medieval character. The inhabitants lived in their places of business. The houses, many of them were of ancient date, overhanging the pathway: in some instances projecting floor by floor until the upper stories overhung the roadway itself. The “cries” of London (tradesmen crying their wares) were then a reality… Old London Bridge was still in existence, with its quaint recesses, small arches and long timber abutments (This was the bridge built after the great fire of London. The “Rennie” bridge would be built in 1824) As also were the waterwheels under the bridge, by which a part of the city was still supplied with Thames water. These obstructions prevented the flow of the river, so that as the tide ebbed rapids were formed, and navigation stopped for hours. The first novelty in vehicular accommodation for passengers was started by Mr Shillibeer, and called after him “Shillibeers Omnibus”. It had three horses drawing abreast.” By 1884 Mr Fitch believed life had generally been transformed. “Indoors we have gas and the duplex oil lamp for light: in our streets gas and electricity. Cabs, omnibuses and trams take place of the lumbering hackney coach for town travelling, and steamers take the place of rowing boats for the Thames. Railways take us in a few hours where the journey took us many days. We send a message by the telegraphic wire, even beyond our own country and we talk with our neighbours by the telephone. Progress is not stopped. It may go on, and probably will go on with accelerated speed.” Thank you for joining me today as I sit here surrounded by paper, photos and pieces of precious history. ***** Rosie is of course the power behind Rosie Amber’s book Review Team, to which I and a number of other authors belong. You can find Rosie and read our reviews at https://rosieamber.wordpress.com/ She’s also on Twitter: @Rosieamber1 and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Rosie-Amber-413145378724802/ 0 0
Most people know the story of the Mayflower and the first Pilgrims, but I doubt many know ‘what happened next.’ It was not all good. Because the Plymouth colony was financed by London-based Merchant Adventurers, who expected some return on their investment, other ships sailed to the New World. In the fall of 1621, the Fortune became the second ship after the Mayflower to make the voyage. Fortune was much smaller than the Mayflower and transported only 35 settlers to the colony, arriving – as had its sister ship – in November, one year later. The ship had been unexpected and it brought no supplies, straining the resource of the colony. It did bring useful settlers, many of whom were young men. The Fortune stayed only three weeks, returning to England with good tail winds in December, and loaded with furs and other goods. Fortune was captured by a French warship and ended up back in London in February of 1622, but without its cargo. The Merchant Adventurers thus lost their investment for the time being, but some of the passengers on the Fortune would come to play major roles in the history of the colony. The leader of these passengers was Robert Cushman, who had been the Leiden agent for the Mayflower and Speedwell. He sailed with his son Thomas, whom he left in the care of William Bradford, when he returned to England. Thomas would become the husband of Mary Allerton, the woman whose life I am attempting to recreate. Although Bradford stated that there were thirty-five persons on board Fortune, the names of only twenty-eight persons arriving on the Fortune received lots of land in the 1623 Division of Land. In 1623 the ships Anne and Little James were the third and fourth ships financed by the London-based Merchant Adventurers sailed to the New World. Anne carried mostly passengers, and the much smaller Little James carried primarily cargo, with a few passengers. After a stormy three-month voyage, Anne arrived at in early July 1623, with the Little James a week or so later. Pictures of the Anne Between them, 90-odd new settlers arrived, along with about thirty others who were not part of the core emigrant group. Some of this emigrant contingent would be judged unfit for the hardships of colony life and be sent back to England. Little James was sent with the specific purposes of bringing back furs, but things did not go as hoped, so she sailed around Cape Cod as far as what is now Rhode Island, seeking Indian trade relations. Unfortunately, the captain did not have the quality trade goods that the natives wanted in exchange for furs and he was supplanted by very active Dutch traders, who could pay the natives a better price. When Little James arrived back from Rhode Island and anchored at the entrance to Plymouth harbor, a storm ripped her anchors and drove the ship toward a dangerous sand bank. The crew had to chop down the mainmast and cut away rigging to save the ship. The company was forced to provide Little James with a new mast, and refit her with anchors and rigging. Throughouit the freezing winter of 1623, the crew had to exist on short rations with only cold water to drink, when alcohol was the drink of choice at the time. Discipline on Little James collapsed completely. In the spring of 1624, her captain took the ship to Maine where the crew mutinied and sent the captain back to Plymouth in a small boat. Ultimately, the Little James wrecked during a storm in Maine and once again the colonists made the repairs to make her seaworthy. William Bradford decided to send the ship and its angry crew back to London. The Charity, which arrived in March of 1624, brought three heifers and a bull, the first of any cattle in the colony. According to Captain John Smith of Jamestown fame who visited in 1624, there were about 180 people, some cattle and goats, and many pigs and poultry living in Plymouth. There were 32 dwelling houses stretching for about half a mile, and above the town on a high hill was a fort built with wood, loam and stone, containing cannon. The colonists had also made a saltwork, in order to salt and thus preserve the fish they caught to send back to London. 0 0
There is an empty boat slip on the waterfront in Plymouth, MA. One of our national treasures, the Mayflower II, the full-scale reproduction of the tall ship that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620, has left. According to Whit Perry, the director of maritime preservation and operations at Plimoth Plantation, this replica of the original, which was built in Britain and sailed to the US in 1957 as a gift of friendship, needs a massive refit. The hull is rotting, thanks to beetles having their own Thanksgiving by gorging on the timbers. Half of the ship below the water has to be replaced, and the Mayflower needs major structural frame repair and planking. She has been loved almost to death: an estimated 25 million people have visited the 60 year old ship. The Mayflower is now in the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, where skilled craftsman will do the overhaul over the next 2 ½ years. She should be back in Plymouth in time for the 400th anniversary festivities marking the Pilgrim’s landing in 2020. The cost: $7.5 million, well worth the price to allow generations of visitors to explore above and below decks, learning about the doughty people who came to the New World aboard her. If you want to watch the refit, a live webcam has been set up to provide 24-hour views of the reconstruction. Stop in at http://plimoth.org/mayflowerlive from time to time to watch the work. In the meantime, there is another project to create a second replica of the Mayflower, the Harwich Mayflower project. A seaworthy replica sister ship is being built in Harwich, England, and will participate in the 400th anniversary celebrations taking place in the US and the UK. Harwich had a large role in British maritime history, building ships in the time of the Spanish Armada and the two World Wars. The ship, its construction, and its historical interest will serve as a tourist hub for the East of England, drawing visitors from around the world, and apprentice training in shipbuilding and marine engineering will be given during the ship’s build. Updates on the progress of the Harwich Mayflower’s construction can be found on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MayflowerProject/ and you can watch videos at https://www.facebook.com/MayflowerProject/videos/ In an upcoming post, I will tell you what happened to the original Mayflower. 0 0
Sue Vincent of The Daily Echo blog (http://scvincent.com/) agreed to my request for a guest post on the subject of: These Are a Few of My favorite Things. I know you will enjoy this. ******* Noelle recently agreed to write a guest post for my blog, and in return, she kindly asked me to reciprocate by sharing a few of my favourite things. This is more difficult than it seems… how do you pick out a handful of favourites from a world full of people and wonders? Leaving people out of the equation entirely seemed the only way forward. I went back to the blog for inspiration and looked at the things that generally make me pick up the pen, because these are the things that always make my heart smile. No surprise then, that the first ‘thing’ to come to mind was Ani, the accidental dog with a repertoire of expressions worthy of Disney. Technically, she is a Setter/Toller cross, but in fact she is simply unique. I grew up surrounded by dogs. My great grandparents kept a family of Irish Setters and there were always dogs in my life. I had been dogless for a while when my son was attacked; Ani was brought home form a canine rescue as a puppy, with the intention of training her to be an assistance dog. It never happened, although we began her training. My son recovered enough to move into a home of his own and I found myself with a dog. She knows how to ‘clean up’ her tennis balls and toys, but these days her idea of helping is to help herself to any unattended food, including, one year, the Christmas turkey. That was bad enough, but she regularly helps herself to what little dignity I possess and writes her own posts on the blog. Ani, given both her ancestry and inclination, is a bird dog… and that brings me to the second of my favourite things and one that came as something of a surprise. I am not a bird-watcher as such, but I watch a lot of birds. When I was small, my grandfather always decorated the laburnum tree outside the French windows with food for the birds and it was probably then that I started to learn about them. I always seem to have known the names of our garden birds. Then there were the homing pigeons we kept as I was growing up so I learned a lot about their behaviour and habits, just by helping to look after them. It wasn’t until we moved south, though, and into a region where the red kites fly, that I really began to take notice. Now, the wild birds are as much a part of my day as the dog and my camera is always at hand, home or away, in case I can get ‘that’ shot. I was born in Yorkshire, in the north of England, but I have moved around quite a lot over the years. Yorkshire and the moors of the north, though, have a very special place in my heart. I think the link with the land goes even deeper than emotion, though. I think it has something to do with resonance and the geology of the place you were born, or came into awareness of your surroundings. Then there are the memories that add their own richness to the mix and for me the most cherished memories of my childhood are the long tramps through the heather with my mother or grandfather, listening to the old tales and legends and learning to read the mysteries in the stones. Such places sing to the soul. The ancient stones that march across our land were set there by our ancestors around five thousand years ago. There are thousands of circles, standing stones, barrows and cairns…many of them decorated with enigmatic petroglyphs whose meaning we do not know. A lifetime is not long enough to spend amongst them, unravelling their mysteries… and yet, we try. It is the trying, I think, that matters and it is that quest for understanding that forms the backbone of many of the books written with Stuart France. Books have always been a passion. I cannot remember a time when they were not part of my life. Even before I could read, books were read to me. Stories of ancient myths and legends, stories written by my mother and grandfather, stories of far off times and places. Little wonder then that history has always had a fascination for me and particularly the history of the human search for meaning to ‘life, the universe and everything’. It was from these early tales, I suppose, that my own quest for understanding was born and it has taken me down some strange and wonderful pathways over the years. I remember that one of the first things I learned, very young, was that the butterfly was a symbol of the soul and its journey. These days, that journey occupies most of my time and all of my being as I work with the other directors of the Silent Eye to shape a place where seekers can find companionship on that quest. But today, it is Ani that has my attention, playing with another of my favourite thing… snowflakes. We are both watching the heavy-laden sky and hoping that the few meandering flakes will fall and settle, then we can go out to play. Thank you, Noelle, for asking me over. It is good to take a moment to appreciate the richness of the world around us and realise just how many ‘favourite things’ we have in our lives. ******** About the author: Sue Vincent is a Yorkshire born writer, painter and award winning poet. She is also one of the Directors of The Silent Eye, a modern Mystery School. Sue lives in Buckinghamshire, England, having been stranded there due to an unfortunate incident with a pin, a map and a blindfold; a
I got the idea for my third book, Death by Pumpkin, watching a You Tube video of the pumpkin drop at the Damariscotta Pumpkin Fest, held every year in Maine (add link). Since the book opens with this event, but this time in my town of Pequod, I decided this event had to be the cover. Since the car on which the pumpkin is dropped is crushed, I called around and found Raleigh Metal Recycling, where they kindly agreed to let us use a crushed car for the photo-shoot. The day of the shoot was again bitterly cold – and since my daughter was once again posing, the usual complaints filled the car on the way over, along with the several pumpkins we bought to smash. When we got there, they had to find a car that was crushed, but not so badly that we couldn’t get Cameron into the passenger seat. Once they’d hauled it up, we smashed the pumpkins all over the car using a hammer, then squeezed her in and closed the door. As you can see from these photos, the pumpkins didn’t quite create the image I wanted to portray. This last one was the closest.However, my clever daughter found a place in LA (99 Designs) that for a reasonable price put several of their artists to work enhancing the basic photo. Last spring I let you followers pick from the two final designs, and this is the cover I ended up with: What am I going to do for my next book (Death in a Mudflat), you might ask? Stay tuned. I’ll have a cover choice sometime toward summer. 0 0
It seems like you can’t read a newspaper or online news about anything related to medicine (not to mention some novels) without running into terms such as DNA, RNA and protein, all sorts. I thought maybe I could provide a primer, in bite-sized bits, which you could use to follow along. The information I will begin with DNA. DNA is deoxyribonucleic acid, the material that makes up our genes, and it is composed of nucleotides. Each nucleotide contains a phosphate group (phosphorus and oxygen), a sugar group and a nitrogen base. The four types of nitrogen bases are adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C). They pair up with each other to make a single strand of nucleotides into double stranded DNA: cytosine with guanine, adenine with thymine. Our DNA contains the genetic instructions for the development and function of all living things. Even some viruses contain DNA. So the main of the DNA in any living thing is the long-term storage of information about what makes that life form what it is, and it is passed down from generation to generation. A chromosome is the double stranded DNA is encoded with genes. In most cells, humans have 22 pairs of these autosomal chromosomes plus the two sex chromosomes (XX in females and XY in males) for a total of 46. A gene is a unit of heredity transferred from a parent to offspring, which determines some characteristic of the offspring. Technically, a gene is a distinct sequence of nucleotides forming part of a chromosome. Two personal notes here: the molecular structure of DNA was identified by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953; their model-building efforts would not have succeeded without the X ray diffraction studs of Rosalind Franklin. I met James Watson in 1962 when he visited Mount Holyoke College in 1962, the year he and Crick won the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Rosalind Franklin was not included because she had died a few years earlier and the Nobel is never awarded posthumously. I think this is a shame. You can read about Franklin and her life in two books: Rosalind Franklin and DNA and Rosalind Franklin, the Dar Lady of DNA. There are four types of DNA examined in determining genealogy, which is a currently popular endeavor. I have had my DNA genealogy done twice, one by Ancestry DNA and once by 23 and Me. Both yielded the same results although 23 and Me was a little more specific. The four types of DNA that are examined are: Y chromosome DNA, mitochondrial DNA, autosomal DNA and X chromosome DNA. Y chromosome DNA is passed from father to son, so the women are excluded here. However, there is also mitochondria DNA (the mitochondria is a cell organelle that has its own DNA). Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mothers to both genders of her children, but only passed on by females. Males carry their mother’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) but they don’t pass it on. Autosomal DNA is the DNA on all the other chromosomes (excluding the Y chromosome in males and mitochondrial DNA). This is a combination of genetic material we get from both our fathers and our mothers. X chromosome DNA. The X chromosome is a part of the 23 sets used for autosomal testing, but the inheritance is different for males and females. Males only inherit an X chromosome from their mother (and a Y from their father which makes them male), but women inherit an X from both of their parents. The X chromosome has some special characteristics that can be analyzed separately from the other autosomes. As for my results, I learned that in addition to being of eastern and western European stock (my grandparents were French and Polish) as well as English stock (other grandparents), I am 13% Irish. I never knew that! There are also companies that will test your maternal lineage and your personal evolutionary history, if you want to delve into your ancient maternal lineage and discover your origins from thousands of years ago. I might try this! My next ‘genetics’ post will be on RNA. 0 0
An old song by Tom T. Hall for Hubs and all of you out there: Here’s a link to a duet by Tom Hall and Tammy Wynette. What more could you ask for? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWSgGhf0S7w I love little baby ducks, old pick-up trucks, slow-moving trains, and rain I love little country streams, sleep without dreams, Sunday school in May, And hay And I love you too I love leaves in the wind, pictures of my friends, birds in the world, and squirrels I love coffee in a cup, little fuzzy pups, bourbon in a glass, And grass And I love you too I love honest open smiles, kisses from a child, tomatoes on the vine, And onions I love winners when they cry, losers when they try, music when it’s good, and life And I love you too HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY 0 0
