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#232 - Gel Together (silver dice)

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#85
#232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 01/03/2007 18:58:27

mindcandy
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Please use this thread for discussion about this card.
#1872
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 11/03/2007 04:06:01

GirlAnachronism
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I have an idea about how this one is set up, but not a clue as to where to go from the basic info. What I think is follows:

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

As the card name suggests, this might be a gel electrophoresis block. The spaces therefore, are not meant to be filled in. The letter/number combos stand for pieces of DNA, and I've found some of the abbreviations simply by typing them into google. Big names for each one, and I'm not a genetic expert, so I'm stumped beyond this. Maybe the animals in the picture mean something?



edit: fixed spoiler tag - spugmeistress
#2382
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 17/03/2007 16:55:20

Perplex_Vertex
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Spoiler: (highlight to read)

The abbreviations are all ligands, apparently. Ligands bind with proteins, and gel electrophoresis is also used to identify proteins, so I guess we're looking for a protein, and not the DNA of an animal. It's probably a protein shared by the pictured animals.

#2679
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 20/03/2007 20:34:18

a11420151425
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Trying to get somewhere with this one I emailed some science guys to see if they could help. The reply I got back is in the next post. Looks like progress might be slow with this one but there are a few more avenues to look down.
#2680
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 20/03/2007 20:35:02

a11420151425
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"Thanks for your e-mail and the intriguing puzzle. It caused some amusement in our lab, although no one has been able to crack the puzzle.

All the codes on the card happen to be names of ligand molecules in the Protein Data Bank (PDB). This is either a coincidence (and the same names also have a diferent meaning elsewhere) or is relevant.

To help you I have knocked up a little page showing the molecules in question, arranged as the codes on the card are. you'll find this at: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/~roman/gel_together.html

I can't see any pattern. The name of the card suggests the arrangement of molecules on a 2D gel, although these are generally used for separating larger molecules such as proteins and DNA (see http://www.bergen.org/AAST/projects/Gel). I have no idea how the given molecules would separate out on a 2D gel, nor how one might determine what the blank squares correspond to. (We are computational biologists rather than wet lab experimentalists so don't have much experience of gels)."
#2698
#232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 20/03/2007 22:31:59

hobyrne
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This is my thinking.

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

The sequence is down the columns first, then across the rows. Perhaps each box represents a letter: then, there are 8 words that have 4, 2, 2, 10, 4, 2, 4, and 7 letters respectively. This may spell out the actual question that needs answering (like Season 1, #218, The World).



An observation on the page pointed to by a11420151425...

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

Reading down, the boxes in each 'word' all have comparable weights: 80, 83, 95, 97; 287, 285; 201, 204; 175, 174, 191, 192, 103, 100, 115, 101, 116, 105; 357, 346, 398, 387; 127, 122; 253, 258, 249, 274; 150, 126, 132, 147, 161, 141, 164. Looking at it that way, perhaps the bottom of the first column is a word break too.



A related idea:

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

Perhaps we're supposed to look at the number of protons, or electrons; those would give integer results, rather than molecular weight giving nonintegers.
#2702
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 21/03/2007 00:02:19

yochanan1
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Following on that,

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

if you look at the number of atoms (not counting hydrogen), you get nice integers.. all under 26 except for one of them...

1,6,7,5 – 18,20 – 6,14 – 12,12,13,13,5,6,7,7,4,6 – 24,23,29,25 – 1,8 – 19,17,16,20 – 11,9,9,10,12,10,11
#2944
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 24/03/2007 00:18:36

astro_random
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a11420151425 wrote:

To help you I have knocked up a little page showing the molecules in question, arranged as the codes on the card are. you'll find this at: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/~roman/gel_together.html


Blimey - be sure to thank your science friends from us, that must have taken a fair bit of work for them.

I just hope we have a better answer to tell them eventually than the Antarctic guys had with 'Polar' last time round!
#2945
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 24/03/2007 00:55:43

sloth007
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astro_random wrote:


Blimey - be sure to thank your science friends from us, that must have taken a fair bit of work for them.

I just hope we have a better answer to tell them eventually than the Antarctic guys had with 'Polar' last time round!


Yeah, something that would really seal it!
"Out on a limb!"
#2947
#232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 24/03/2007 03:01:51

HouseOfScience
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I don't have the card itself, but 1/3rd of the HouseOfScience is a Microbiologist. He's working on whatever I could dig up about this card, as well. So, if there are any questions about how this gel stuff works or might go together ask in a PM or on this thread.

On a side note, if anyone has a spare of this card, please PM me.
#3142
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 26/03/2007 21:31:36

Untouchables
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This is a site I found that might have some info connected to a solve:

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

http://www.ebi.ac.uk/thornton-srv/databases/cgi-bin/vctr/ligands_search.pl?template=tmplt33



From the site, I found some potentially interesting info regarding these ligands:

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

Using the above link to examine the ligands, pretty much all of them seem to have something to do with escherichia coli, or e. coli. They also have connections to rats, humans, and bovine.



I don't know if this info actually will help toward a solve but I figured I post the link at the very least to see if someone else can use it to crack this card.
#3144
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 26/03/2007 22:29:00

Jezza
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I knoow when I'm beaten. I've got the card, but haven't even got O level Chemistry, so you've all totally lost me.
#3145
#232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 26/03/2007 22:59:08

captainplanet
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HAH i just found something that was wuite funny! BR (top left ) is bromide and it is "rumoured to reduce erections for males" .... very helpful
#3268
Re: #232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 27/03/2007 20:57:49

HouseOfScience
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Untouchables wrote:

This is a site I found that might have some info connected to a solve:

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

http://www.ebi.ac.uk/thornton-srv/databases/cgi-bin/vctr/ligands_search.pl?template=tmplt33



From the site, I found some potentially interesting info regarding these ligands:

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

Using the above link to examine the ligands, pretty much all of them seem to have something to do with escherichia coli, or e. coli. They also have connections to rats, humans, and bovine.



I don't know if this info actually will help toward a solve but I figured I post the link at the very least to see if someone else can use it to crack this card.


Spoiler: (highlight to read)


There are several that are shared between types of animals, but there are just as many with no connection of that sort.

#3453
#232 - Gel Together (silver dice) 29/03/2007 23:49:06

astro_random
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hobyrne wrote:

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

Reading down, the boxes in each 'word' all have comparable weights: 80, 83, 95, 97; 287, 285; 201, 204; 175, 174, 191, 192, 103, 100, 115, 101, 116, 105; 357, 346, 398, 387; 127, 122; 253, 258, 249, 274; 150, 126, 132, 147, 161, 141, 164. Looking at it that way, perhaps the bottom of the first column is a word break too.



Well, since my theory is we have to get a sentence out of this rather than some hardcore scientific result, I tried:

Spoiler: (highlight to read)

Subracting units of 26 from the weights in each 'word', hoping that each one would eventually yield a nice set of numbers of 26 and under that would convert into workable English using 1=A, 2=B etc.



Didn't work.

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