I need some quick info on my seminar powerpoint. I have to present it tomorrow, it must be 40 to 50 minutes long. It's about adding synthetic amino acids to the genetic code of living things.
Natural organisms use 20 amino acids to build proteins that they need to carry out important chemical reactions or other functions. The properties of each amino acid is determined by its sidechain, the chemical structure that sticks off the backbone. Organic chemistry has methods for producing almost any amino acid imaginable, but it's harder than that to get organisms to use them for proteins. Genetic engineering has allowed scientists to create strains of bacteria that include artificial amino acids. This has the potential to improve our ability to study protein structure and function, or to create new catalysts for reactions vital to pharmaceuticals, biofuels, or other industries.My other big project this semester is a solar system formation simulation using python. I started by setting a thousand particles at random positions in a sphere and calculated the gravity force between the particles, this simulation showed that they collapse into a large central mass with smaller bodies orbiting at all angles and directions. I then wrote two more programs to see what happened to these particles. The first had 2 planets, the first with a constant radius from the sun, and the second was started at further and further distances from the sun. I did this for the planets moving in the same direction and opposite direction, and timed how long they took to collide. The opposite direction orbits were more stable than the same direction orbits. The other program had two orbits set at angles to each other. The orbits twisted around each other, but never came into the same plane. So what does this mean for our solar system, where all our planets travel in the same direction and in the same plane? It means that whatever dust cloud we formed from had significant angular momentum. My simulation assumed a dust cloud with no initial angular momentum. So do these results imply that there are solar systems formed with odd orbits like the ones I observed? Maybe. There is no way to get a good enough look at other solar systems yet, and improved telescopes will be needed to confirm it.Anyway, here's my program. You'll need a python compiler. IDLE works well. And I did this on a linux computer, the outputs may not work.
Python is not compiled. It is interpreted. So we need a Python interpreter.
I'm learning as I go. I have never had a programming class, or even a book. Guess and check is the only way to learn!
Did you use any additional libraries? I'm trying to run with Py 2.5 on Vista but numpy is nowhere to be found. Don't want 2.6 because Blender doesn't like it ):
Dude that's pretty interesting. I'm going to check it that out tomorrow.
Well your program isn't a perfect simulation so how can you be sure it would actually happen?
Jesus, 40-50 minutes, that's harsh. Sorry, my science education when it come to that sort of stuff is 10th grade Honors Bio.
My presentation actually went really well. Biggoron, I did use additional libraries, I'm not quite sure numpy and scipy are actually necessary, I use the math and random packages extensively, and some with the Gnuplot package. Try commenting those out and see what happens.