Molecular diagram of a variety of amino acids
James Gleick strikes here again, this time a short mention of radiologist Henry Quastler (University of Illinois) suggesting that “an amino acid has the information content of a written word and a protein molecule the information content of a paragraph” (page 289).
Visualization of the structure of a protein (specifically Putative Acetyltransferase)
This of course suggests the reading of texts into amino acids/proteins and vice versa.
Gleick’s notes cite this as from a paper by Quastler called “Some of the Physicists Now Turning to Biology” in Essays on the Use of Information Theory in Biology, 1953 – an intial search of Google and JSTOR didn’t find the paper.
Amino acid diagram via: New England BioLab
Protein visualization via: Topsan.org