I went to a lecture many years ago about the protein folding problem (trying to predict the 3-D structure of proteins from the linear chain of amino acids that can be known through gene sequencing) and was hooked. Proteins make the world go ’round, or at least your body. They are the molecular basis of life, the machines that run our cells, and the product of DNA. For a period I became pretty fascinated with their role in cells, and still love to teach my students about how cells use proteins to affect each other.
The pictures only get better every year:
http://pharmacy.ucsd.edu/faculty/tlabimgs/Pascals-rainbow-web.gif
from http://www.nigms.nih.gov/NR/rdonlyres/2486A0A6-ACD3-4B8B-BA1B-EA917000EF12/1758/pseudomonasstructure.jpg
from http://www.themovingpixel.com/modelling/images/facetedmolecule.jpg
from http://jvi.asm.org/content/vol76/issue19/cover.dtl
from http://www.vimm.it/research/images/zanotti_fig1_1.jpg
from http://img.medscape.com/fullsize/migrated/575/924/eci575924.fig1.gif
from http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/file.php/4238/!via/oucontent/course/482/s377book1chapter3_f042hi.jpg
Some of these really give you an intuitive sense of how complicated nature is!
From http://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/uto/images/luisi2.jpg
