Topics › Biochemistry

When looking up the word for acid in Chinese, I came across the Chinese for the amino acids. Since I've previously written about DNA and the bases in Chinese, it seemed logical to compile a list of the Chinese amino acids. Working out the logic behind the Chinese words took quite a lot of research, but was very rewarding. Hopefully the effort will help me remember the words.

I wanted to write about a Java molecular simulation that I made a while ago, before I became entranced by Python. The program is a simple 2D physics simulation, with circles representing billiard ball-style atoms. The idea before the simulation was initially an attempt to create a virtual lava lamp. In its first incarnation, there were two types of atom. Each atom was attracted to nearby atoms of the same type (with a force proportional one over distance squared). If the distance between any two atoms was below a threshold then the two atoms repel each other.