Mangrove Pitta (Pitta megarhyncha)

Spotting such a scarce and exquisite bird therefore tends to generate an incredible amount of excitement among bird enthusiasts and photographers alike, all of whom want the chance to observe and photograph the bird in its natural habitat. This level of excitement, however, leads some people to do things that may end up being detrimental to the livelihood of the bird in general and although I’ve heard many stories of such incidents happening, today was my first time witnessing this appalling behaviour in the flesh.

Mangrove Pitta (Pitta megarhyncha)

In this instance, the mangrove pitta was reportedly spotted somewhere in the East and the appearance of the pitta near the boardwalk sparked off a flurry of activity among the 10-odd bird photographers present with their unfeasibly large and expensive camera setups. With everyone focused on capturing a clear shot of the bird, things were remarkably calm and civilised, at least until one birder began making squeaking noises (known as ‘pishing’) to try to draw the bird closer to where the cameras were. As I found out to my surprise during my LSM2251 Ecology module, although pishing does have the effect of luring birds closer, doing so disrupts the natural behaviour of the birds and is therefore not recommended as a birding practice as it places unnecessary stress on the bird. In this case, with the pitta already so close to the cacophony of clicking cameras, pishing the pitta was entirely unnecessary and unwarranted since the bird was largely in plain view, albeit not directly facing the cameras, and that alone should be no reason for having to resort to disrupting the natural behaviour of the bird. In spite of this, however, not one of the birders present said a word and most of us were too engrossed with photographing the bird.

Mangrove Pitta (Pitta megarhyncha)

The last straw came, however, when the pitta finally flew off deeper into the mangrove, whereupon several of the birders present took the opportunity to leap off the boardwalk and onto the sandy mangrove substrate to chase after the bird. In addition to that, our erstwhile pisher whipped out his iPhone and began playing back a recording of the mangrove pitta’s call in an attempt to draw the bird out of the dense mangrove forest and out into the open. Like pishing, call playback also has the effect of luring out birds, though in this case it’s mainly due to the fact that birds tend to be territorial and playing back the call of another individual of the same species fools the bird into thinking another individual is present and is contesting its territory. This, too, has the unwanted side effect of placing the bird under unnecessary amounts of stress and duress since defending one’s territory is quite a taxing task for the bird and may lead to birds abandoning their territories if they lose the challenge. Indeed, if the bird happens to be nesting, playing back the call of another individual may sometimes lead to birds abandoning their nests and aborting their breeding cycles if the bird thinks the playback is a more dominant or aggressive individual. This is particularly problematic for slow-breeding species like the pittas and using call playbacks to draw pittas out may have the opposite effect of chasing the bird away from the site. All this, of course, on top of the fact that members of the public are generally not supposed to stray off the boardwalk in the mangrove areas for fear that their trampling may accidentally damage the mangrove trees or negatively affect the mangrove fauna.

Having seen and heard enough, I decided to approach the man behind these highly disruptive activities and his birding companion (see below) and very politely told them that they ought not to be using recorded calls and pishing to draw out the birds, whereupon the man simply paid no attention to what I said and his companion claimed to not have pished or played back any calls at all, an excuse which I found to be completely preposterous since he was clearly a party complicit in his friend’s needlessly disruptive actions.

Badly Behaved Birder (centre) and his companion (left)

Badly Behaved Birder

Badly Behaved Birder using his iPhone to playback pitta calls

Badly Behaving Birder's Companion

Badly Behaving Birder's Companion

Another couple who came along much later and tried the same tactic of using call playbacks to lure the pitta out were much more receptive and when informed of the disruptive effects of call playbacks, claimed that they were unaware of the potential detrimental effects of playbacks and that they were simply following what other birders were doing (I have a very low res video of them which I’ll upload later).

At the end of the day, what this whole episode demonstrates is the dangers of over-enthusiasm and the problem of the o’erweening sense of self-entitlement that some birders and bird photographers possess toward their subjects. Having sunk tens of thousands of dollars into amassing ever longer lenses most certainly does not give one the right to disturb nature for one’s own selfish purposes and, as birders, we all have a responsibility toward treating our subjects with respect to ensure that their lives and the environments they live in are not unnecessarily impacted by human disturbance. More than that, however, it would appear that the root causes of this behaviour is sometimes selfish but also sometimes unintentional and may stem from imitating the practices of others. As such, it is just as important for us as birders to inform and educate, and maybe even sometimes admonish, those who would exhibit such errant behaviour in the hopes that misconceptions and unintentional disturbances can be minimised. All this, so that we may preserve and protect the birds we profess to love so very much.

In any case, here are some of the highlights from the parks I’ve been conducting my fieldwork at:

1. Pasir Ris Park and the Botanic Gardens (2 Oct)

Funny story, this one. I started the morning off with a pretty uneventful survey at Pasir Ris Park in the middle of a light drizzle, though there was a very active pair of Collared Kingfishers (Todiramphus chloris) hanging around the Calophyllum inophyllum trees.

Collared Kingfisher (Todiramphus chloris)

Immediately after the survey, though, it turned out that another friend of mine was in the vicinity (at East Coast Park) and that we both wanted to give the Circle Line open house a go so we both ended up at Kent Ridge MRT station after making a detour to Harbourfront MRT station, at which point we both decided that we ought to pay a visit to the Botanic Gardens since the Circle Line passes through that place. All of which explains why a good three hours later, the two of us were still in the middle of the Botanic Gardens despite having originally intended on making only a short visit before popping back to Kent Ridge to get some work done.

And as with any trip to the Botanic Gardens, the highlight is always the eco lake at the Bukit Timah end, which supports a remarkable number of waterbirds and the like, such as these Lesser Whistling Ducks (Dendrocygna javanica), who are regularly fed by park visitors that bring along with them bags and bags of white bread.

Lesser Whistling Duck (Dendrocygna javanica)

This population of Lesser Whistling Ducks is also one of the last few sustainable populations of ducks found in Singapore due largely to habitat loss since this species favours relatively pristine freshwater wetlands such as Lorong Halus and the former Marina South Park.

Another bird caught milling about was this White-breasted Waterhen (Amauornis phoenicurus) that came out to steal some of the breadcrumbs being thrown around.

White-breasted Waterhen (Amaurornis phoenicurus)

Ok, not as many things to say about this trip aside from the fact that a really beautiful Green Crested Lizard (Bronchocela cristatela) and a triplet of Straw-headed Bulbuls (Pycnonotus zeylanicus) happened to turn up as I was counting trees. Totally made my day.

Bronchocela cristatela

Juvenile Straw-headed Bulbul (Pycnonotus zeylanicus)

Straw-headed Bulbul (Pycnonotus zeylanicus)

So! Welcome back for yet another dose of my ramblings, musings, and general mumblings on and about anything that strikes my fancy. Today’s post, however, is about my recent trip to Bishan Park for my ecology fieldwork to study the effect of native/non-native vegetation composition on native/non-native bird composition, though not everything is as it seems (yes, this post and subsequent ones to come bear some degree of ulterior motive as well, heh heh heh…).

For as long as I can remember, I have never had occasion to visit Bishan Park before though I have recently heard some pretty cool things about the place in light of the PUB’s recent ABC project to spruce up the Kallang River beside the park and boy, was I amazed when I was greeted by the sight of this on arrival:

The Kallang River looks like an actual river!

Never before have I seen the Kallang River look more gorgeous than this, especially after having spent 4 years of secondary school life seeing the concrete canal banks of the river further downstream near the McDonald’s at Kallang.

Can you spot the heron in this picture?

With the river, too, come the exquisitely beautiful waterbirds that hang around catching fish in the river. This Striated Heron (Butorides striatus), for instance, was fishing near one of the bridges when an old lady came by with some bread to feed the fishes. The clever little fellow was intelligent enough to observe that the pieces of bread were attracting loads of fishes and so stalked over for a quick meal or two (I think the fish were green chromides).

There were many other birds over by the grassy and landscaped areas, though the only ones I could capture with my camera were this Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus) hanging out in an open field

Paddyfield Pipit (Anthus rufulus)

and this Scaly-breasted Munia (Lonchura punctulata) with its mate in a tree near the river.

Scaly-breasted Munia (Lonchura punctulata)

Birds, however, were not the most important part of my field trip as one major component of my survey was to study the vegetation composition in Bishan Park and that means having to identify the trees within the survey area, shown in the map below.

All of which conveniently segues into the true motive of my most recent return to blogging: crowd-sourcing plant identification. While I may love all things nature, the one thing I find really difficult and am still trying to get my head around is plant identification. As such, I’d like to seek the assistance of the wider world of the internets to help identify some of the particularly puzzling plants found within my survey area (cheeky, eh?). As far as possible, I’ll try to guess the species of the plant but should I be completely wrong, please do not hesitate to let me know and disabuse me of my misconceptions. Here goes:

Plant #1: Suspected Andira inermis tree

Shot of the entire tree (with the crown)

Bark

Leaves

Fruit

Plant #2: Suspected Anthurium plowmanii

Anthurium plowmanii (?)

Plant #3: Semi-confirmed Xanthostemon chrysanthus

Crown

Leaf clumping pattern

Leaves

Plant #4: Kopsia flavida – Confirmed (Silly me)

Crown and trunk

Leaves

Plant #5: Salix babylonica - Semi confirmed

Full tree

Leaf detail

So there you have it! If you should know what these trees/shrubs are or are able to confirm some of my suspicions, do let me know by dropping a comment in the comments box at the bottom.

Writing is something no ‘A’ Level student can escape from. With the notable exception of Mathematics, every single subject on offer, even the sciences, requires some form of writing and by extension, demands some sort of faculty with writing as well. But how do we know what to write, or if what we’ve written is worth reading? As mentioned in an earlier post by Grace, one of the ways of gauging the value of your writing is to apply the ‘So What?’ test - a test which, I feel, deserves much more than passing mention. As such, I’ll be using this and subsequent posts to elaborate more on the ‘So What?’ test and why it’s so important.

So What is the ‘So What?’ Test?

The ‘So What?’ test is, simply put, the repeated asking of the question ‘So What?’ whenever you establish a point in your writing. Although this may sound simple, the question ‘So What?’ is in fact an excellent way of evaluating the quality of your points and also serves to maintain the focus of your argument. By asking the question ‘So What?’, you are being forced to ask yourself why your point matters, and why it is important to your argument and to the wider question in general.

Take for instance the question of whether or not we should allow more immigrants into Singapore. If I wish to argue that yes, more immigrants should be allowed into the country because they possess skills and expertise that the local workforce lacks, so what if they do? How does this relate to the question? Why are skills and expertise a significant issue in this argument? From these two simple words, we have raised a good many other pertinent questions that need to be answered, and should be answered, in order to ensure that the argument you are making is meaningful and significant.

The test doesn’t just end there, though. To continue with the example at hand:

So What if immigrants bring new skills and expertise?

We can say that the new skills and expertise brought in by immigrants can contribute toward boosting the competence and competitiveness of the workforce, not just from the individual involvement of these immigrants, but also from the transference of skills to the local workforce.  

So What?

Having a more competent and competitive workforce will cater to the needs of the industry, thus attracting and encouraging various industries to develop in Singapore.

So What?

An increase in industrial interest and development will result in a boost to Singapore’s national economic development.

So What?

Since national economic development is a desirable outcome, it would be very much in Singapore’s interest to allow more immigrants into the country and bank on their skills and talents in developing the national economy.

If you’ve paid attention to how I’ve applied the ‘So What?’ test in this scenario, you’ll see that by repeatedly asking the same question, we are forced to be more and more specific until we end up at last with a statement directly addressing the original question, thus signalling that the ‘So What?’ test has come to an end. The ‘So What?’ test takes a point we wish to make and turns it into an argument by constantly questioning the meaning of the point, forcing us to add more and more elaborations until at the very end where we arrive at a statement that directly addresses the question. If this all sounds familiar to you, it should be – we have essentially completed the entire PEEL process. The ‘So What?’ test effectively equips us with the necessary questions to better clarify what we wish to say and is an excellent complement to the PEEL technique in ensuring that clear and meaningful arguments are made in the course of your writing.

The most amazing thing about the ‘So What?’ test, however, is that it isn’t limited solely to GP essays. From History essays to Physics structured questions, the ‘So What?’ is an incredibly versatile way of checking what you’ve written to ensure that it’s both relevant and significant. In subsequent posts, I’ll be delving deeper into the nature of the ‘So What?’ test by dissecting the test into its constituent bits to see just how exactly these two words work, so do stay tuned and do leave your comments here, should you have any.

Cheerio!

When a molecular signal binds to a receptor on the outer surface of the cell membrane, the signal-ligand binding causes a conformational change in the shape of the receptor molecule, which causes the receptor molecule to trigger a cascade of biochemical reactions in the cytosol of the cell. Depending on the signalling mechanism, some signal molecules will induce the cell to begin the expression of a particular gene. When that happens, the transcription initiation complex will form around the promoter of the region and begin to transcribe a strand of pre-mRNA.

The pre-mRNA will then leave the nucleus via the nuclear pores to be spliced, capped and polyadenylated before being translated. Depending on the protein being synthesised, the mRNA strand is translated while freely suspended in the cytosol by the attachment of the small 40S subunit of the ribosome followed by the 60S ribosomal subunit to form the complete 80S ribosomal complex that translates the mRNA into a polypeptide sequence. In other cases, the same process occurs, albeit on the surface of the Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum (Rough ER), where the resultant polypeptide is synthesised directly into the lumen of the Rough ER in order for the protein product to be modified and packaged into vesicles for further repacking by the Golgi Apparatus. The vesicles leaving the Rough ER move to, and fuse with the cis face of the Golgi Apparatus, where the protein products are repacked and budded off as vesicles from the trans face of the Golgi Apparatus. The proteins in these secretory vesicles then go on to other compartments in the cell such as the cell membrane.

Well, that was a mouthful, wasn’t it? After having said all that, how much of the preceding 2 paragraphs were you able to internalise? My guess is probably very little, and I can understand why. Now let’s try something different. Take a look at the video below and tell me what you think:

The preceding video is the Siggraph Award winning animation titled The Inner Life of the Cell, created by a brilliant group called BioVisions over at Harvard University, and serves to highlight the usefulness of animations in illustrating biological concepts beyond what mere text can. By being able to ‘see’ the biological processes not just as a 2-dimensional drawing but as a dynamic series of processes occurring in a 3-dimensional space, the same principles introduced earlier in this post become easier to understand, and also go a long way toward aiding us in visualising the elegance of the cell’s inner workings.

The best part is, this isn’t the only such animated clip in the world. There lies out there in the internet, a massive treasure trove of biological animations just waiting to be watched and none of them will cost you a single cent. YouTube aside, both the McGraw Hill and W.H. Freeman websites are chock full of excellently made animations and interactive tutorials illustrating various biological concepts in a simple and accessible manner.

So there you have it; in the absence of simple ways for visualising biological concepts, animations aid in filling that gap by not only demonstrating how these reactions take place in a 3-dimensional space, but also by showing us how these individual reactions form part of a larger process aimed at effecting a specific cellular response. Do note, though, that the sites I’ve cited here are not the be all and end all of useful biological animations. If you know of any sites with particularly good content, please do share them with us in the comments section.

One last parting note: For those who are interested in seeing the full version of The Inner Life of the Cell with backing commentary, you can view that here:

Diagram drawing should not be new to most ‘A’ Level Biology students. It has been tested during the practical assessment component of the ‘O’ Level Biology course and is also an important skill for those who did the ‘O’ Level Geography course. The problem, however, is that most people do not realise that drawing diagrams is not just an examinable skill, it is also a powerful studying technique and an excellent way of visualising and revising concepts learned in class.

The key to drawing good diagrams is simplicity. You don’t have to be a master of the brush to draw good, effective diagrams that fully illustrate the concept in question. Take a neuron for example. Very simply, a neuron looks like this:

There is no need to add in any shading or colouring to add ‘depth’ or ‘character’ to your diagram, just use simple, clean lines to draw in the essential aspects of the concept in question.

Now that you’ve got a nice, simple diagram, the next step is to add some labels. While commonly overlooked, labelling your diagrams is pretty much the most important step in this whole process because it involves taking the facts that you have to internalise and matching them to the visual diagram that you’ve drawn. It is this process that helps you to remember the facts because of the visual context the diagram provides. In this way, not only do the facts become so much easier to visualise, they also become much more recallable, as compared to staring passively at someone else’s diagram in your textbook or lecture notes.

To be fair, however, not all the facts can be represented on the diagram without cluttering up your work beyond all visual recognition. As such, in order to provide a more complete picture, the last step is to annotate your diagram. Annotating your diagram is very much the same as taking notes, and involves writing down the remaining points significant to your diagram or a short paragraph explaining your diagram, usually in point form. When doing so, my advice is to keep your annotations simple and focused and avoid lifting points straight off your textbook or lecture notes. As far as possible, try to keep your annotations in your own words or your own voice so that it will be easier for you to personally understand.

With all that in the bag, what you will end up with is a clearer picture of how to understand the topic of neurons, as well as the added benefit of having made your own set of notes for revision. The topic of nervous control doesn’t just end there, of course, but with the techniques for drawing your own diagrams and making your own notes already at hand, you should have no difficulty using the skills discussed above to properly and visually represent the rest of the concepts in the theme of nervous control, and indeed for many other topics in Biology and other subjects.

For the benefit of those who still need more help, though, Let’s try to draw a diagram to explain the concept of ion exchange in maintaining the membrane potential across the axon membrane.

As can be seen from the diagram, there are embedded in the axon membrane transmembrane proteins that facilitate the transfer of Sodium (Na⁺) and Potassium (K⁺) ions across the membrane. One such protein is the sodium-potassium pump, that pumps Na⁺ ions out of the cell and K⁺ ions into the cell at a ratio of 3 Na⁺ ions going out for every 2 K⁺ ions coming in. As such, this establishes a negative charge on the inner surface of the cell membrane relative to the outer surface, which can be measured by a voltmeter across the membrane. This is called the membrane potential. In addition, there are 2 other proteins, the Voltage-gated Na⁺ channel and the Voltage-gated K⁺ channel. These proteins respond to changes in the membrane potential (the voltage) and will open and close to allow the respective ions through depending on the voltage across the axon membrane.

So as you can see, drawing clear, well labelled and well annotated diagrams can do plenty in helping you understand highly abstract topics. Not only does it help you visualise the concept, the act of drawing your own diagram versus looking at other people’s diagrams is similar to the effect of learning better by doing as opposed to just reading about it – the experience of drawing helps to make remembering easier.

Do bear in mind, though, that this is not the only method that can be applied in understanding nervous control or any other topic in the Biology syllabus for that matter, and the only reason why I’ve used this method here is because it happens to work particularly well for me and perhaps it might for you too.

On a separate note, the diagrams shown here were all taken from a set of notes that I’ve written myself during my JC days, and you can view the full thing by clicking on the thumbnail below.

This post will be up on Student Oasis soon…

The Order of the Stick is very definitely the intellectual property of Rich Burlew, and the reposting of this work carries with it no intention of copyright infringement, whatsoever.

This way to St. John's Island

The Island Beckons!

Arriving on the island at around 7:20am, we had barely enough time to catch what remained of the low tide. We were met at the jetty by Juanhui, a researcher with TMSI, who happened to be involved in the SECORE workshop monitoring the ongoing mass coral spawning event happening in Singapore right now. After a short safety briefing, it was off to the rocky shore!

White-orange black flatworm (Pseudobiceros uniarborensis)

No idea what species of octopus this is

Can anyone identify this species?

Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus) perched high over the coast

Button Zoanthids?

I have absolutely No Idea what this is. Possibly a colonial Ascidian?

Is this a flatworm?

I THINK this is the Herrmann's sea cucumber (Stichopus herrmanni)...

A bit of soft coral (no idea what species this is either)

Sea mat zoanthid (Palythoa tuberculosa)

Two Poriferans trying to smother each other to death

In this case, one of the corals appears to be winning the battle...

Turban Snail

Big Pimply Onch Slug

Another Big Pimply Onch Slug

Star Barnacles (Euraphia sp.)

Chameleon nerite snail (Nerita chamaeleon)

Exploring the shore as the tide rolls in...

After the tide got too high for us to continue, it was time for a break, after which we headed off to the TMSI facility, where we were treated to a lecture by Dr Michael Laterveer from the Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands on corals, followed by a very brief tour of the facility.

The Entrance to TMSI

Lecture by Dr Michael Laterveer

A pair of giant clams and a small colony of zoanthids in the TMSI viewing tank

All good things, however, must come to an end and it was soon time to head back, though not without taking more pictures along the way.

Domestic Cat (Felis domesticus)

Quaint little kampong house

The tranquility of the island

Now this is what I call a really Good Friday. Many thanks to Mrs Chua, who organised this whole trip, and the people at TMSI and SECORE, for being so kind and accommodating!

As mentioned in my earlier post, one of the most powerful ways of understanding Biology is to be able to visualise concepts. In this post, I will be demonstrating a powerful way of looking at, and understanding what is arguably one of the most important biochemical reactions in all living organisms: Phosphorylation.

We’ve all heard of phosphorylation from Biology lectures. The process of attaching a molecule of inorganic phosphate (PO₄^3-) to another molecule, whether it is glucose or an enzyme such as p53, is a hugely important process that has massive implications for how the cell operates, and consequently how the entire organism functions. For enzymes, in particular, phosphorylation serves as a form of biochemical ‘on/off’ switch, with the ability to ‘activate’ or ‘deactivate’ an enzyme’s function and trigger a biochemical chain reaction resulting in one or many outcomes ranging from elevated expression of a particular gene to apoptosis (cellular suicide). Most of us students know what phosphorylation can do, but do we know why or how?

In order to properly understand phosphorylation, we must first look at the molecule behind it all: the PO₄^3- ion.

The PO₄^3- ion is an incredibly highly charged molecule, with a single atom of Phosphorous surrounded by 4 atoms of one of the most electronegative elements in the periodic table – Oxygen. Although the 3- charge held by PO₄^3- might not sound like much, chemically speaking, a charge with a magnitude of 3 is an immensely powerful one. The Al3+ ion, for instance, is so highly charged that it immediately polarises surrounding water molecules to form the [Al(H2O)6]3+ complex instead of remaining on its own. As such, PO₄^3- is in essence a highly electronegative and negatively charged ion, a ball of negativity, if you will.

Now that we know what PO₄^3- is like, let’s turn to the enzyme molecules that PO₄^3- often finds itself attached to. For the purposes of this illustration, I’ll be using p53, the tumour suppressor protein, as an example. All enzymes, as we know, are proteins, and all proteins are essentially folded chains of amino acids. There are 20 naturally occurring amino acids and each of them has the basic structure of where R is a side chain that can range from a simple Hydrogen atom (in Glycine) to a benzene ring (in Phenylalanine). These side chains are what differentiates one amino acid from another and as a consequence, each amino acid displays a different electron distribution and density.

Now how does this electron distribution affect p53? For this, we’ll need the help of a special software called PyMOL, which can be downloaded for free here. PyMOL is a software that allows us to view macromolecules such as proteins and DNA and is often used by scientists for demonstrative or analytical purposes. In addition to PyMOL, we’ll also have to download the file for p53 from the Protein Data Bank (PDB), which is an online archive of proteins, DNA and other complex structures.

Once you’ve installed PyMOL, open the p53 file using PyMOL and you will be treated to the sight of a p53 molecule bound to a short strand of DNA:Using your mouse, you can click and drag to move the protein molecule around. In addition, you can also play around with the settings to view the molecule in a variety of ways such as a ‘ball-and-stick’ model or in cartoon form. For the purposes of this demonstration, however, I will only be using the ‘generate vacuum electrostatics’ function, which is shown in the picture belowDo be patient while the software computes and generates out the vacuum electrostatics view of the protein molecule. When the process is done, this is what you should see (do note that the DNA strand is not included in the electrostatic model):

What this view shows us is the charge distribution across the entire p53 molecule in a vacuum. The red regions represent areas of negative polarity while the blue regions represent areas of positive polarity and the white regions are neutral – neither positive nor negatively charged.

So what happens when a PO₄^3- ion is attached to one of the blue or red regions when p53 is in its inactive state? Because PO₄^3- is such a negatively charged molecule, the attachment of a PO₄^3- molecule to either the blue or red regions on the p53 molecule will result in either repulsion or attraction. This repulsive or attractive force, in return, will alter the shape of the p53 molecule. This conformational change in the enzyme’s shape causes the shape of the active site, the catalytic region of the enzyme, to change its shape to be able to accommodate the shape of p53′s target substrate. When p53 is able to bind to its target substrate (i.e. DNA), it can thus perform its function as an anti-cancer, tumour suppressing enzyme.

As you can see, with the aid of a few diagrams and visualisation techniques, we are able to gain a better and clearer picture of how phosphorylation works and why it is so important. Of course, protein activation is not the only effect of phosphorylation (the phosphorylation of glucose in glycolysis serves a completely different purpose), but once you are aware of the importance of the charged nature of PO₄^3-, I’m sure you’ll be able to deduce for yourself the significance of phosphorylation as a process in general.

This post will soon be posted on Student Oasis
]]> http://g33k5p34k.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/ways-of-seeing-phosphorylation/feed/ 0 g33k5p34k Image from 3DChem.com PyMOL 1 PyMOL 2 PyMOL Electrovalence