Yeast Reproduction is romantic

Here's the mating cycle of yeast taken right out of my lecture slides:

Scientific Terminology

Diploid: Having full the full set of chromosomes (one from mother, one from father; or two copies of homologous chromosomes)

Haploid: Having half the full set of chromosome (half the diploid; or one copy of a homologous pair)

Budding: Asexual reproduction by creating a mini-clone of the self that 'buds' off to create a new cell with the exact same genetic make up

Spore: The 4 haploid cells that are released when the yeast chooses to go with sexual reproduction

In yeast, the two haploid spore types that are formed during sexual reproduction are called an a cell or an a cell. You can kind of think of these cells as akin to male and female. These haploid cells are able to reproduce their haploid genome via budding. 

Mating occurs when one a cell finds another a cell and the two halves of a full diploid combine together, fusing their membranes and joining their DNA into one. I think the notion that in order to become a full diploid yeast cell, two haploids have to find each other and literally fuse into one, is really quite romantic. 

To top that off, if a haploid cell has a loss of function mutation in a gene (let's call it gene A), it's overall growth and survival is very limited since they don't have a correct copy of said gene to make up for the one mutation. Now say there's another haploid with a mutation in a different gene (let's call it gene B) but has a functional copy of gene A. If these two haploids mate then they will fuse their genes together so that there are now two copies of each gene. Since one haploid had the wildtype (functional) allele for gene A and the other haploid had the wildtype allele for gene B, the diploid cell will have two perfectly functional alleles for both gene A and gene B! The two haploids complement each other's flaws so perfectly!

Of course, in the case that both haploids have a mutation in the same gene, well, their resulting relationship will also be pretty in-viable... I guess it's all about finding the right match.

Paperwork: My greatest nemesis

Recently I've been looking into rentals for the summer and next year. It's been stressful. So stressful that I feel like it's already exam season or something...

I'm going to go all spazztastic now.

So two friends and I were planning on leasing a place for a year starting this summer. After many weeks of searching, we finally found a place. Then a whole bunch of paperwork flooded me and I feel like my intense "do things on time" nature kicked into place. Mostly it's the fact that I feel like this stuff is serious now; not just school stuff. It kind of hit me that this is what "adults" deal with.

Money, and paperwork and all sorts of fun. I feel like I might be taking this too seriously, but then I tend to do that for most things I feel are important. I should really take things more easily.

But at the same time I feel like my seriousness is the key to all the good things that have happened in my life.

-Update-

Stress somewhat gone now. Now to de-stress and study

Respect to the creator of beautiful things

I like pretty things.

It's always nice to be walking merrily along and suddenly be struck by inspiration. People are such wonderful creatures with brilliant thoughts and imaginations. We're awesome. 

I really like admiring other people's creations, especially when they make me feel. Sometimes I'm a bit disappointed that I can't exactly explain my feelings or even describe them adequately, mostly this happens when I'm talking to someone else. But most of the time I'm content to just let the emotions wash over me without the care to focus on them too much. 

I guess that's another reason I really respect artists, they can express themselves and be understood. Somehow they can turn the abstract idea that only they can see into something that can be shared. I respect that, a lot. 

It's only through understanding each other that we an get along in the end, and it's very hard to be understood when you can't explain yourself.