THE MAGICAL MEMBRANE is the title of Chapter 3 in cell biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton's
The Biology of Belief.* As it turns out, the cell's plasma membrane is the brain of the cell, not the nucleus as previously believed, and still taught, following deciphering of the nuclear DNA chromosome, the famed Double Helix with its genes. The 'Central Dogma' of genetics biology became "one gene codes for one protein", which although true, ran into trouble when the Human Genome Project counted all the genes on all the chromosomes and found there are far fewer genes (>80% fewer) than there are different proteins making up the human body. This 'oops' ushered in the new biology of Epigenetics which has determined that intelligent control from the membrane manipulates a genetically coded protein into many different proteins, sometimes thousands. Here are some numbers:
-- total number of genes on the human chromosomes: fewer than 25,000
-- total number of different proteins that make up our bodies: more than 120,000.
The previous CR Session 72 focused on the electrical energy generated by the 'integral membrane protein' (IMP) Na,K-ATPase (Na/K pump). Their numbers are vast, many millions per cardiomyocyte, but equally vast are other IMPs, variously called channels, pumps, receptors, effectors, etc., which together make the membrane "a liquid crystal semiconductor with gates and channels", functionally a homologue of a computer chip.
Proper care and feeding of the magical mem-Brain** is of utmost importance to Afibbers.
Erling
*[
www.amazon.com]
**Dr. Lipton in his lectures on the membrane.