I have long since known what the following are.
Adenine
Thymine
Guanine
Cytosine
Uracil replacing Thymine in RNA
I still get confused sometimes over the difference between purines and pyrimidines.
Purines have two rings in the nucleotide and pyrimidines have one ring in the nucleotides. But fore fucks sake purine is a shorter word, it should denote the one ring, and pyrimidines should denote two because it is a longer word. For that reason I always get confused. I demand a recount!
The other thing that was slipping me up until today was 5 prime to 3 prime and 3 prime to 5 prime. The 5 and 3 refer to the position of carbon atoms in the sugar. The phosphate is basically the backbone, along with the sugar, and the base being like the rungs of a ladder. The inversion part was slipping me up, but now I get it.
I also now know how to read a codon chart.
I wish I had been more focused on this as a kid and teen rather than trying to fit in with bullies. I really felt dumb as a kid. This would have intimidated me as a kid. It seems so basic now, but I also don't have the performance anxiety of having to try to please teachers and my parents and feeling dumb when I failed.
Looking at the cartoon representations of the structures really makes it easy to understand. But back then you didn't have the internet and it was more of a sink or swim attitude when it came to learning science. But now that I am not under any pressure, I have learned that learning just about anything is nothing more than learning patterns and the language that describes those patterns, much like one would learn the parts of a car and how they interact.
Adenine
Thymine
Guanine
Cytosine
Uracil replacing Thymine in RNA
I still get confused sometimes over the difference between purines and pyrimidines.
Purines have two rings in the nucleotide and pyrimidines have one ring in the nucleotides. But fore fucks sake purine is a shorter word, it should denote the one ring, and pyrimidines should denote two because it is a longer word. For that reason I always get confused. I demand a recount!
The other thing that was slipping me up until today was 5 prime to 3 prime and 3 prime to 5 prime. The 5 and 3 refer to the position of carbon atoms in the sugar. The phosphate is basically the backbone, along with the sugar, and the base being like the rungs of a ladder. The inversion part was slipping me up, but now I get it.
I also now know how to read a codon chart.
I wish I had been more focused on this as a kid and teen rather than trying to fit in with bullies. I really felt dumb as a kid. This would have intimidated me as a kid. It seems so basic now, but I also don't have the performance anxiety of having to try to please teachers and my parents and feeling dumb when I failed.
Looking at the cartoon representations of the structures really makes it easy to understand. But back then you didn't have the internet and it was more of a sink or swim attitude when it came to learning science. But now that I am not under any pressure, I have learned that learning just about anything is nothing more than learning patterns and the language that describes those patterns, much like one would learn the parts of a car and how they interact.
