Let me tell you about the hardest language in the world

Take a moment to survey the room you're currently in. Now, imagine filling it from top to bottom with trillions of grains of sand, billions of grains of rice, hundreds of thousands of grapes, several thousand apples, and a dozen watermelons. This is a representation of what the inside of your cells looks like in terms of numbers. Inside your cells, water molecules dominate, giving them a soft jelly-like consistency that allows for easy movement of other components. Alongside water, the rice and fruit in our analogy represent proteins, which are abundant in cells, numbering in the billions and encompassing over ten thousand different types depending on the cell's function. In essence, your cells can be thought of as protein robots, as is the case for all forms of life.

In fact, proteins form a major part of your body's composition, even contributing to non-fat structures like bones. These proteins, although lifeless in themselves, play a crucial role in sustaining life processes. How does this work? It all comes down to the language of life. Cells perform a multitude of complex tasks to stay alive, such as obtaining nutrients, eliminating waste, growing, building structures, responding to stimuli, and reproducing. To accomplish all these tasks, cells communicate using the language of life, and the words of this language are proteins.

Here's a simplified overview of how this language operates: it begins with amino acids, which are small organic molecules and serve as the alphabet of the language of life. There are 21 different amino acids, similar to different letters in an alphabet (e.g., amino acid A, amino acid B, etc.). When around 50 amino acids combine, they form a protein, which can be considered a word in the language of life. When multiple protein words come together, they create a biological pathway, akin to a sentence, that conveys a specific function, such as breaking down sugar. In reality, the language of life is incredibly complex, surpassing our imagination. While it takes around 8,000 words to speak a human language proficiently, the language of life consists of an estimated 20,000 words, with human proteins averaging 375 amino acids in length. The longest protein contains over thirty thousand amino acids. Cells must execute thousands of steps simultaneously, constantly speaking the language of life, as any interruption in communication can result in their demise.

But how do seemingly mindless cells communicate using such a complex language? To understand this, let's delve deeper. There are 21 amino acids that can combine to form proteins, and proteins themselves consist of dozens to thousands of amino acids. Considering the average length of 375 amino acids in a human cell's protein, there are an astounding 6.8 x 10^495 possible proteins that your cells can create, which is significantly more than the number of atoms in the universe. However, most of these possible proteins are nonfunctional, just as most random letter combinations result in gibberish. Therefore, cells need to know which proteins make up their language to communicate effectively. This crucial role is performed by DNA, which contains a lengthy sequence of instructions. If you were to unravel your cell's DNA, it would stretch about two meters long. Combining all the DNA in your body would reach the Sun and back over 20 times. Approximately one percent of your DNA comprises genes, which can be thought of as protein dictionaries, containing all the words of the language of life that your cells use. Genes also serve as the building instructions for the proteins your cells require to function. The remaining DNA is likely not useless but serves as a set of rules, akin to the grammar book of the language of life, specifying which proteins to build, when to build them, and how they interact.

Now, let's explore how seemingly lifeless proteins come together to create life. To understand this process, we must consider one of the fundamental forces of the universe: electromagnetism. The elementary particles constituting atoms, which, in turn, make up amino acids, possess different charges that attract or repel each other. The 21 amino acids have distinct charges, with some being more negative and others more positive. When cells construct proteins, they link amino acids together in chains, forming long strings. Due to the varying charges of the amino acids used, these strings fold upon themselves, resulting in the complex three-dimensional structures we observe in proteins. The intricacies of protein folding are still not fully understood, but the general concept is that one-dimensional strings transform into three-dimensional shapes. Proteins essentially act as puzzle pieces with specific shapes, and their three-dimensional structure determines their charged regions and, consequently, their interactions with other proteins. These differently charged puzzle pieces can fit together, creating new shapes and, thus, new proteins that perform different functions. This remarkable feature of proteins allows them to perform a wide range of tasks, such as building complex structures, dismantling substances, forming micro machines that utilize energy, and transmitting information.

Consider a scenario where a toxic chemical enters your cell. There may be a protein with a specific shape that can bind to this toxin. When the protein encounters the toxin, it changes its shape. With its new shape, it can bind to another protein, causing the latter to change shape as well. This new protein can activate a micro machine that directly interacts with your DNA, initiating the production of a specialized protein that acts as an antidote to the toxin. This sequence of interactions represents a biological pathway or a sentence in the language of life. In reality, these pathways can involve dozens to hundreds of steps. Life operates through mind-numbingly complex interactions between seemingly inert and lifeless proteins, resulting in a more sophisticated and active system. Somewhere within this intricate network, life emerges, although we still grapple with defining its essence and understanding how non-living components combine to create something as remarkable as life itself.

To grasp the concept of how seemingly unintelligent entities come together to form intricate systems, let's draw a parallel with ants. Ants, like cells, exhibit a fundamental property: they are individually simple-minded. However, when many ants gather, they exchange information and accomplish incredible feats, such as constructing elaborate structures, organizing themselves, caring for their young, or launching coordinated attacks. This phenomenon, known as emergence, is prevalent throughout nature and explains how your body operates. Individually, cells are like bags of proteins, guided solely by chemical processes. However, when numerous cells collaborate, they form specialized tissues and organ systems, from muscles that enable your heart to beat to brain cells that facilitate thinking.

When you contemplate the vastness and grandeur of the external world, where infinity is a reality, it's easy to feel insignificantly small. Yet, if you redirect your gaze inward, you will uncover an indescribable complexity—the intricate language of life. Upon closer examination, nearly everything in the universe unveils hidden layers of complexity, provided one possesses the knowledge to comprehend it.