/sci/ - Science & Math

I want to teach myself about biology and neuroscience in the New Year.

What are some concepts I should learn, preferably knowledge from which most knowledge within these fields builds from?

No need to give me sources, but they are of course appreciated.

>>2007222
Real biology isn't.

>>1984470
If you're synthesizing ricin from scratch (the virus carries none of it), consider the following steps:
1. Infection. No ricin.
2. Virus genome is integrated into cells. Protein synthesis begins on both viral proteins and ricin. No ricin toxicity yet - nascent ricin is not toxic, it needs to be cleaved by a mitochondrial enzyme to be toxic. This takes a while.
3. Virus is assembled. Ricin begins transport into mitochondria. The key disulfide bond in ricin is cleaved; thus, metabolism into active form begins.
4. Virus leaves cell to infect others. Cell death of the first is just beginning.


Of course, when the cell dies by lysis, the ricin will be spread locally, but by then the viral infection is spreading, presumably to lungs or nose or some other communicating tissue. Particles go on to infect some other person.


Do not kid yourself into thinking that I'm the only person that's thought of this. There are those that are more devious and proportionally more skilled than I am...I used to work a subcontractor for the DOD, and there were (classified) about a (classified) segment of (classified) in an ebolavirus that was modified to be nonpathogenic in itself - chosen for its transmission rate, its preference for lysogenic pathway and its payload capacity, not its pathogenicity - but expressed a surface receptor and the components of a linked signal transduction pathway that led to the synthesis of digestive enzymes, but only when the surface receptor bound a ligand.

This ligand happened to be lead(II) ion, but could be a lot of things. You spread the disease, population gets minor flu-like symptoms and then is fine. At some time in the future, you dissolve a nonlethal and undetectable amount of lead in the drinking water. Everyone - EVERYONE - dies immediately, in a way that is impossible to trace, apparently random, and very very mad scientist chic.

>>1911580
That's physics.
Just like genetic engineering is biology. No penises allowed.

Synthetic bio, nerds!

Pic related

>>1807393
Mol./Synth. Bio, gogo real biology!

Pretty much, yeah.

It is absolutely fucking amazing, the capacity one has to be utterly depraved in my field.