A meditation on information transfer in the living cell; requires elementary knowledge of molecular biology.
Published online by the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts:
http://litsciarts.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=48
Copyright (c) The Johns Hopkins University Press, reproduced here with permission.
Beyond Babel
It all begins, of course,
With endless permutations of
The tetragrammaton ACGT,
Like whispered incantations from a
Kabbalist who's gone around the
Double-twist; next, messages
Of plainsong in the key of three, rising
To ribosomal athanors, and
Then, at last, translated works
For cytosol, massed choir and organelle:
A boom-crash protein opera Allegro con brio.
Sadly, we lack feeling for
Amino acid arias; often
Fearing bedlam when we hear
The glossolalia of life.
Our human genome is full of viruses similar to HIV-1. These have played an important role in human evolution and still play an important role in human embryology and day-to-day chemistry. Just how important are they to our evolution past and future?
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