2 ms·
> I think a similar digital-vs-analog split happens in computers. Does it? In computers, digital computation is the ideal that we try to mimic via analog circu
by moring 5y ago
> I think a similar digital-vs-analog split happens in computers.
Does it? In computers, digital computation is the ideal that we try to mimic via analog circuits (or vacuum tubes, relays, or whatever). We are actually glad that we can chain two CMOS inverters and the result is that anything close to Vcc becomes Vcc, and anything close to GND becomes GND.
As far as I understand, in biology "improving signal quality" like that actually disturbs the system because you are removing an "error" that actually has a useful function somewhere else.
Or for a software analogy: Consider a program that breaks memory safety, but you can't fix it because some other part relies on that "bug". Now consider a program that doesn't just contain lots of weird quirks like that, but has grown around them and makes them an integral part.
At least that is how I imagine chemistry inside a cell as a layman.
- Kim_Bruning 5y agoSo as you might intuit, having everything work totally differently doesn't scale so well. So a lot of the chemistry inside cells is strongly standardized. Ok, so the nice thing about standards is that there's a bunch to choose from, and sure there's a lot of times when cells cheat just a smidge (or two, or three). But... end of day, if you squint just a little, most everything is done with a standard set of amino acids that chain together in standard ways. In some AA's The Amino and Acid groups used to daisy-chain them together dwarf the actual active part! And data is stored using a standard set of 4 ( ok 5, ok... exceptions exist) bases. (Just to be sure, eg. Hemoglobin does suddenly have an Iron atom in there, but it's still _mostly_ made of standard "lego blocks" == amino acids)