Co-Lab Open Science School

• Refer to The Universal Features of Cells on Earth
• prokaryotes vs eukaryotes
• prokaryote: a prokaryote is a single-celled organism that lacks a membrane-bound nucleus (karyon), mitochondria, or any other membrane-bound organelle.
• eukaryote: a eukaryote is any organism whose cells contain a nucleus and other organelles enclosed within membranes.

• You are composed of many cells. You begin with one single egg cell.
• All cells stores their hereditary info in the same linear chemical code (DNA)
• All cells transcribe portions of their hereditary information into the same intermediary form (RNA)
• Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule implicated in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation, and expression of genes. RNA and DNA are nucleic acids, and, along with proteins and carbohydrates, constitute the three major macromolecules essential for all known forms of life.

• http://genius.com/Igem-paris-bettencourt-team-how-to-build-an-igem-team-annotated
• http://genius.com/artists/Igem-paris-bettencourt-team
• http://genius.com/Igem-paris-bettencourt-team-what-is-the-central-dogma-of-biology-annotated

• All cells use proteins as catalysts
• All cells translate RNA into protein in the same way

The translation of genetic information from the 4-letter alphabet of polynucleotides into the 20-letter alphabet of proteins is a complex process. The rules of this translation seem in some respects neat and rational, in other respects strangely arbitrary, given that they are (with minor exceptions) identical in all living things. These arbitrary features, it is thought, reflect frozen accidents in the early history of life chance properties of the earliest organisms that were passed on by heredity and have become so deeply embedded in the constitution of all living cells that they cannot be changed without wrecking cell organization.

• "Its just a bit of a GTCA": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQEaX3MiDow