Sandwalk: Monday's Molecule #160

Monday, March 05, 2012

Monday's Molecule #160

This is a very important molecule for some species. It's important to me, for example, because I worked with it in an undergraduate research project ~~forty-nine~~ many years ago.

UPDATE: The original structure was missing a methyl group at the bottom right. This has now been corrected.

Identify the molecule—the common name will do but make sure you get it right because there are quite a few similar molecules. You must also say why it's important for some species.

Post your answer in the comments. I'll hold off releasing any comments for 24 hours. The first one with the correct answer wins. I will only post correct answers to avoid embarrassment.

There could be two winners. If the first correct answer isn't from an undergraduate student then I'll select a second winner from those undergraduates who post the correct answer. You will need to identify yourself as an undergraduate in order to win. (Put "undergraduate" at the bottom of your comment.)

Some past winners are from distant lands so their chances of taking up my offer of a free lunch are slim. (That's why I can afford to do this!)

In order to win you must post your correct name. Anonymous and pseudoanonymous commenters can't win the free lunch.

Winners will have to contact me by email to arrange a lunch date.

~~Comments are invisable for 24 hours.~~ Comments are now open.

UPDATE: The molecule is a gibberellin-like molecule. It was intended to be gibberellin GA1 but I left off a methyl group. This is similar to Monday's Molecule #102 (gibberellin GA3). Defects in one of the genes for gibberellin GA1 synthesis gave rise to the tall/short phenotype studied by Gregor Mendel [Mendel's Stem Length Gene (Le)]. Gibberellin GA1 was one of the molecules synthesized by Elias James Corey, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1990. The winner this week is Albi Celaj.

Winners
Nov. 2009: Jason Oakley, Alex Ling
Oct. 17: Bill Chaney, Roger Fan
Oct. 24: DK
Oct. 31: Joseph C. Somody
Nov. 7: Jason Oakley
Nov. 15: Thomas Ferraro, Vipulan Vigneswaran
Nov. 21: Vipulan Vigneswaran (honorary mention to Raul A. Félix de Sousa)
Nov. 28: Philip Rodger
Dec. 5: 凌嘉誠 (Alex Ling)
Dec. 12: Bill Chaney
Dec. 19: Joseph C. Somody
Jan. 9: Dima Klenchin
Jan. 23: David Schuller
Jan. 30: Peter Monaghan
Feb. 7: Thomas Ferraro, Charles Motraghi
Feb. 13: Joseph C. Somody

7 comments :

Albi Celaj said...: I've discovered that it must be a Gibberellin, but I couldn't find an exact match. The closest is Gibberellin A1, but it's off by a methyl group. I am an undergraduate.; Monday, March 05, 2012 11:40:00 AM
Bill Chaney said...: It is a Giberellin--GA1 to be exact.

Giberellins were discovered in the 1950's as plant growth regulators, but they are important for regulating many aspects of plant growth and development.; Monday, March 05, 2012 12:59:00 PM
Dima Klenchin said...: This molecule is almost exactly the same as "Monday's Molecule #102" (save for a lack of a methyl group). So, this is desmethyl gibberellic acid :-) If that's not a right name then there are too many of them and it happens that I have to work...; Monday, March 05, 2012 1:55:00 PM
Raul A. Félix de Sousa said...: Molecule #160 resembles closely Giberellin A1 (a plant hormone), but it lacks the methyl group attached to carbon 4 (the carbon atom linked to the lactone carbonyl).; Monday, March 05, 2012 2:42:00 PM
Miguel Sánchez said...: The molecule is a gibberellin (it seems to be Gibberellin A1), a class of plant hormones involved in organ elongation and seed germination among other vital processes in plants.

undergraduate; Monday, March 05, 2012 4:06:00 PM
Nostranoodle said...: Gibberellin A1 with a missing methyl group in the structure. Plant hormone and (troublesome) fungal metabolite.; Monday, March 05, 2012 11:18:00 PM
Starbuck said...: gibberellin A1; Tuesday, March 06, 2012 1:12:00 PM

Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)

Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)

Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Peter Atkins

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake. Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory. Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change. Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat. Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is True

I once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000

It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma

One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick

There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner

An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins

Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod

The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.

Richard Lewontin

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Monday, March 05, 2012

Monday's Molecule #160

7 comments :