Protein Motor

Edited to add: Holy crap this type looks really small today. I'm going to make it bigger. Does it always look this tiny? Maybe my eyes are going...

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With some research help from my husband, I will now demonstrate a tiny fraction of what life is like with my son.

When I went to visit Daniel's school the other day, we all had to check out our kid's writing journal.

Now, a writing journal for a first grader is a pretty funny thing, since they don't know how to spell yet. So "reading" (and I use that term loosely), the journal feels a bit like being Champollion reading hieroglyphics.

But about midway through Daniel's journal I find a page that says in his handwriting:

Proteon motr

and has a crude drawing that looks similar to that image above. (Except that at the time I didn't know what the connection was, because who the hell knows what a "Proteon motr" is?)

Well, in the midst of my conversation with the teacher, she mentioned that journal page and how he had told her it was a "Protein motor". He explained a little bit about it to her and she asked him if this was a real thing. He said it was.

None of it rang a bell to me, but I did have the foresight to tell her that actually almost everything he talks about is REAL. And I mentioned that we have to explain to him sometimes that most people don't understand oh, string theory, or advanced engineering techniques or ...oh I don't know... physics.

When I relayed this conversation to my husband, he tells me that "Yes Viginia, there is such a thing as a "Protein motor". "

It is located within your cells.

And you know who else knows about this stuff?

The kids at Harvard who take classes in Cellular Biology.

I guess my husband showed this stuff to Daniel last spring, and it made an impression.

Here are some links, if you want to be smarter than all your friends too.

This one shows the awesome "Inner Life of a Cell" (the videos on the top row titled "Inner Life: View the Animation". Pick the version that works best for your bandwidth), with a boring narrator guy explaining what is happening.
(The part that Daniel was referring to is about half-way through, they show the words "Motor Protein" or "Protein Motor" or something, I've forgotten already)

Now if that one just sends you spiraling into a depression like it did me, because I couldn't understand a word of what he was talking about - try this one (scroll down below the picture and click on Watch the Video), which has the same animation but instead of those pesky words, there is a lovely new-agey soundtrack that makes you want to have a massage and take a nap, and doesn't make you feel bad because you are woefully ignorant about your cells' inner lives.

The third choice is this page which gives you a run-down of what happens in the video, without any animation. Just words.

I kind of wanted to burn a dvd for the teacher, so she would know that he isn't making this stuff up,  but Daniel doesn't want to and besides I don't want the teacher to know how insane we all are.

Yet.

Comments

[barbex]

I'm such a nerd. I actually sort of knew about this but we never had such pretty pictures in school.
Amazing that Daniel remembered all this stuff!

[jcmerritt]

That's the coolest thing I've seen in a long time...and I didn't even mind the music. Can't wait to hear what he draws in the journal next time.

[monkeyhead]

Sometimes I come home from my Anatomy & Physiology class and mention what I learned and my kid already knew it from her science class. I watch animations over and over on my textbook's website. It really helps me understand it better.

[scatteredmom]

Oh that is just TOO FUNNY.

Just wait. He'll be like Jake and you'll find him reading university textbooks that you've long since forgotten about for his "night time reading".

How can I put fourth year psychology textbooks down for his reading log?

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

[Greg]

I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say I enjoyed reading it. Have a great afternoon!
Greg