If we think of our chromosomes - they carry our genetic material - as being like shoelaces, I work on the plastic tips at the end that protect them.
Interpretation
Blackburn compares chromosomes to shoelaces, emphasizing the importance of their protective ends.
In this quote, Elizabeth Blackburn uses an analogy between chromosomes and shoelaces to illustrate her work on telomeres, which are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes. Just as plastic tips prevent shoelaces from fraying, telomeres protect our genetic material from deterioration, highlighting the crucial role they play in maintaining the integrity of our DNA and overall cellular health.
In practice
In a lecture about genetics, you could use this quote to illustrate the importance of telomeres in DNA protection.
Cancer cells have had so many other things go wrong with them, genetic, non-genetic changes, that those cells, one of the things they then get selected for is that they have lots of telomerase because now the telomeres in those cells get maintained.
We and other groups are seeing clear statistical links between telomere shortness and risk for a variety of diseases that are becoming very common, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and certain cancers.
Checking your telomere length is a bit like weighing yourself: you get this single number which depends on a lot of factors. Telomere length gives a sense of your underlying health.
We think there are lifestyle factors that boost telomerase naturally.
For me, arguably the story of telomeres and telomerase began thousands of years ago, in the cornfields of the Maya highlands of Central America.
Being senior enough in the field, having enough solidity, I don't feel afraid of being marginalized.
Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power.
We know so much about planets and the universe and small particles and we do not know anything about the inner state of our own bodies, we do not know about this microcosm we have inside our skin.
Science is objective. And in my view we cannot take any experimental results seriously except in the light of good explanations of them.
We consider it vital that the community of nations be drawn together in an orderly, disciplined, rational way to review the history of our global environment, to assess the potential for future climate change, and to develop effective programs.
Eventually we must leave Earth-at least a certain number of our progeny must as our sun approaches the end of its solar life cycle. But just as terrestrial explorers have always led the way for settlers, this will also happen extraterrestrially. Earth is our cradle, not our final destiny.
When it comes to the things that people really want in science fiction - like space travel - the simplest things end up causing them not to happen. Humans are 100-pound bags of water, built to live on Earth.
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