Proteomics

Reader Eliot Morrison, a protein biochemist, has been looking for the longest English word found in the human proteome — the full set of proteins that can be expressed by the human body. Proteins are chains composed of amino acids, and the most common 20 are represented by the letters A, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, and Y. “These amino acids have different chemical properties,” Eliot writes, “and the sequence influences how the whole chain folds in three dimensions, which in turn determines the structural and functional properties of the protein.”

The longest English word he’s found is TARGETEER, at nine letters, in the uncharacterized protein C12orf42. The whole sequence of C12orf42 is:

MSTVICMKQR EEEFLLTIRP FANRMQKSPC YIPIVSSATL WDRSTPSAKH IPCYERTSVP 
CSRFINHMKN FSESPKFRSL HFLNFPVFPE RTQNSMACKR LLHTCQYIVP RCSVSTVSFD 
EESYEEFRSS PAPSSETDEA PLIFTARGET EERARGAPKQ AWNSSFLEQL VKKPNWAHSV 
NPVHLEAQGI HISRHTRPKG QPLSSPKKNS GSAARPSTAI GLCRRSQTPG ALQSTGPSNT 
ELEPEERMAV PAGAQAHPDD IQSRLLGASG NPVGKGAVAM APEMLPKHPH TPRDRRPQAD 
TSLHGNLAGA PLPLLAGAST HFPSKRLIKV CSSAPPRPTR RFHTVCSQAL SRPVVNAHLH

And there are more: “There are also a number of eight-letters words found: ASPARKLE (Uniprot code: Q86UW7), DATELESS (Q9ULP0-3), GALAGALA (Q86VD7), GRISETTE (Q969Y0), MISSPEAK (Q8WXH0), REELRALL (Q96FL8), RELASTER (Q8IVB5), REVERSAL (Q5TZA2), and SLAVERER (Q2TAC2).” I wonder if there’s a sentence in us somewhere.

(Thanks, Eliot.)

| Language · Science & Math

The Bingo Paradox

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bingo_cards.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Surprisingly, when a large number of people play bingo, it’s much more likely that the winning play occupies a row on its card rather than a column.

The standard bingo card is a 5 × 5 square in which the columns are headed B-I-N-G-O. The columns are filled successively with numbers drawn at random from the intervals 1-15, 16-30, 31-45, 46-60, and 61-75. And it turns out that, during play, it’s very likely that at least one number from each column group will be called (enabling a horizontal win) before some five numbers are called that occupy a single column (enabling a vertical win). In fact it’s more than three times as likely.

The math is laid out rigorously in the article below. If a free space appears in the middle of the board, as is common, the effect still obtains — Joseph Kisenwether and Dick Hess found that the chance of a horizontal win is still 73.73 percent.

(Arthur Benjamin, Joseph Kisenwether, and Ben Weiss, “The BINGO Paradox,” Math Horizons 25:1 [2017], 18-21.)

| Science & Math

The 36 Officers Problem

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Euler_36.svg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Suppose we have a group of officers in six regiments, each regiment consisting of the same six ranks (say, a colonel, a lieutenant colonel, a major, a captain, a first lieutenant, and a second lieutenant). Is it possible to arrange these 36 officers into a 6 × 6 square so that no rank or regiment is repeated in any row or column? That is, each row and column must contain an officer of each regiment and of each rank.

In 1782 Leonhard Euler wrote, “After we have put a lot of thought into finding a solution, we have to admit that such an arrangement is impossible, though we can’t give a rigorous demonstration of this.” He saw that the equivalent problem is impossible in a 2 × 2 square and surmised that it’s impossible in every case where the side of the square contains 4k + 2 cells.

It wasn’t until 1901 that French mathematician Gaston Terry proved that the 6 × 6 square has no solution, and it wasn’t until 1960 that Euler’s conjecture about the pattern of impossible squares was proven wrong: In fact, the task is impossible only in these two cases, 2 × 2 and 6 × 6.

| Science & Math

The Speech-to-Song Illusion

In 1995 UCSD psychologist Diana Deutsch was fine-tuning the spoken commentary on a CD when she noticed something odd. When the phrase “sometimes behave so strangely” was repeated on a loop, it came to sound as though it were being sung rather than spoken. When the full surrounding passage was then played in its entirety, this phrase still sounded as though it were being sung (you can hear this here).

The phenomenon is not completely understood, but “the present experiments show that for a phrase to be heard as spoken or as sung, it does not need to have a set of physical properties that are unique to speech, or a different set of physical properties that are unique to song,” the researchers write. “Rather, we must conclude that, assuming the neural circuitries underlying speech and song are at some point distinct and separate, they can accept the same input, but process the information in different ways so as to produce different outputs.”

(Via MetaFilter.)

| Science & Math

Another One

Humans aren’t the only species that tend to move to a musical beat: Animals that mimic vocally (such as parrots and, here, a sulphur-crested cockatoo) bob their heads and move their feet. Animals that don’t mimic vocally don’t do this. So possibly our urge to move to music is a by-product of our tendency to mimic vocally — it’s a motor response to something we hear.

(Aniruddh D. Patel, et al., “Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal,” Current Biology 19:10 [2009], 827-830; Adena Schachner, et al., “Spontaneous Motor Entrainment to Music in Multiple Vocal Mimicking Species,” Current Biology 19:10 [2009], 831-836.)

| Science & Math

Math Notes

                                       1 
                                      1 1 
                                     1 0 1 
                                    1 0 0 1 
                                   1 0 0 0 1 
                                  1 0 0 0 0 1 
                                 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                                1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                               1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                              1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                             1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                            1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                           1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 
 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
  1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
   1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
    1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
     1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
      1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
       1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
         1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
          1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
           1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 9 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
            1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 9 9 9 9 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
             1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 9 2 9 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
            1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 9 9 9 9 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
           1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 9 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
          1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
         1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1  
        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
       1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
      1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
     1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
    1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
   1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
  1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 
                           1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                            1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                             1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                              1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                               1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                                1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                                 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 
                                  1 0 0 0 0 1 
                                   1 0 0 0 1 
                                    1 0 0 1 
                                     1 0 1 
                                      1 1 
                                       1

Amazingly, this is a prime number. When the digits are assembled into one long string, beginning at the top of the star and reading each row left to right, they form a 1093-digit number whose only factors are 1 and itself.

It was discovered by Australian mathematician Michael Hartley. See more of his prime curios.

| Science & Math

The Copenhagen Faustparodie

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pauli.jpg

In The Roots of Coincidence, Arthur Koestler mentions that the participants at a 1932 conference on nuclear physics put on a parody of Goethe’s Faust in which Wolfgang Pauli played Mephistopheles. “His Gretchen was the neutrino, whose existence Pauli had predicted, but which had not yet been discovered.”

MEPHISTOPHELES (to Faust):

Beware, beware, of Reason and of Science
Man’s highest powers, unholy in alliance.
You’ll let yourself, through dazzling witchcraft yield
To weird temptations of the quantum field.

Enter Gretchen; she sings to Faust. Melody: ‘Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel’ by Schubert.

GRETCHEN:

My rest-mass is zero
My charge is the same
You are my hero
Neutrino’s my name.

There’s more here, including a link to the original script (in German).

| Literature · Science & Math