the.com/amino acid
Twenty tiny letters spelling out every protein, every muscle, every thought you've ever had.
means An amino acid is a small molecule with both an amino group and an acid group, twenty kinds of which the body links into chains to build every protein.
from A clinical compound name, exactly what it says on the tin. 'Amino' points to the amine group, itself derived from 'ammonia' — a word that traces back through Latin to the Egyptian god Ammon, near whose temple in Libya the salt sal ammoniac was reportedly gathered. 'Acid' comes from Latin 'acidus,' meaning sour or sharp. So the name fuses an ancient desert deity with the Roman word for a sour taste, two-and-a-half millennia of language compressed into a chemist's label.
- only twenty
- Twenty standard ones build all known life
- left-handed
- Life uses only the left-handed versions
- space rocks
- Found inside meteorites that predate Earth
- essential nine
- Nine cannot be made; you must eat them
- glutamate
- One is responsible for savory umami flavor
glutamate — most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter in the human brain, comprising ~90% of cortical synapses
leucine — branched-chain amino acid that triggers mtor signaling in muscle protein synthesis
tryptophan — precursor to serotonin, found in turkey meat (popular misconception about thanksgiving drowsiness)