#ryan talks science

[ryan-sometimes]

I’ve been seeing too much prejudice lately against intersex people. Here are some biological FACTS about sex genetic variations that can cause someone to be intersex.

Gender/sex isn't binary, even if we're talking from a purely biological standpoint. I have a degree in biochemistry, and literally in my first year of college I learned about genetic sex variations. There are dozens of X-Y chromosome combinations a person could have other than XX and XY, with hundreds of different presentations among all of them! It's a commonly known fact among scientists that biological sex isn't as simple as XX female and XY male.

Intersex people are a fact of life, and they have been around for as long as all other humans have. It doesn't matter if you "believe" in intersex people, or think they're cursed just for existing. They exist, and that's not up for debate.

[ryan-sometimes]

I’m a biochemist, and the reason why I became one is quite simple: it was the only thing. I've always been interested in chemistry, even when I was very young. Nothing I found seemed more basic, more fundamental to understanding the universe. Everything you will ever experience is chemistry - it answers almost any question. I wanted to explain the entire universe, and so l became a chemist.

I liked biochemistry specifically because it explained the biological world around me, which is some of the most complex out there. The chemistry that happens in stars is nowhere near as intricate as the chemistry in your own body. A single human cell is infinitely more chemically complex than any star. Biochemistry is so intelligent and intricate for something completely devoid of real conscience.

[ryan-sometimes]

biochem question! what's the difference between synthetic estrogen/testosterone and the homegrown variety?

The thing about estrogens is that they’re not just one molecule. Estrogens are a class of hormones that include different molecules. And everyone, regardless of sex, produces them.

The human body natively produces 3 different estrogens (you unlock a 4th one only during pregnancy), and each do slightly different things.

There are also synthetic estrogens, which are not native to the human body, but are similar enough to have most of the same effects as their natural counterparts. They have been chemically altered in specific ways for specific reasons.

Synthetic estrogens are processed differently in your body, and they’re associated with side effects like blood clots and cardiovascular issues. However, they are more chemically stable, potent, and have longer lasting effects, which is why synthetic estrogens are usually found in birth control pills. Synthetic estrogens can do more at lower doses.

If you’re receiving estrogens as HRT (whether for menopause or for gender transition), they’re most likely bioidentical estrogens, meaning they’re chemically identical to the estrogens your own body makes.

Testosterone is a bit simpler, because it’s not a class of molecules. There’s multiple estrogens, but only one testosterone. The same logic applies here. Bioidentical testosterone is identical to the one in your body, while synthetic testosterone has been chemically modified somehow.

One important note: an estrogen/testosterone being chemically modified doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. For example, testosterone can be modified in such a way that it only “becomes” testosterone once it’s processed in certain ways by certain cells, meaning it can have more specific targets or timing.

Your body tends to process bioidentical hormones very quickly, which is why you need to take/apply them so frequently, often daily. They don’t last very long in your body.

For HRT, bioidentical hormones are almost always the choice. Synthetic estrogens are mainly used in birth control pills, while synthetic testosterone is used to target specific issues/functions. In both cases, synthetic hormones are used for long-term effects, as they remain active for longer in your body.

[ryan-sometimes]

Hello! I really liked your answer about hormones and how they get treated by your body. But I did have a (probably very naive) ask following that:

I know some athletes misuse testosterone for muscle-gain, and some use steroids for the same effect. Do they share a class of molecules, or do they just happen to have the same effect? If it's the second, how come these two different molecules have such similar effects?

Yes, they do share a class of molecules!

Steroids are a class of organic compounds, and they serve many different functions in your body. Testosterone, cholesterol, progesterone, are only examples. There’s hundreds of steroids and different subclasses of steroids!

A steroid is named after this template structure:

So steroids are molecules that have this baseline skeleton, with their own individual add-ons. For example, here is testosterone:

Notice how it has the three hexagons and one pentagon, with a few other groups added. These other groups are what make steroid molecules different from one another and allows them to have different functions. Here’s two other steroids:

Progesterone (left) and estradiol (right)

See how they’re different molecules, but they still have that baseline skeleton of 3 hexagons and 1 pentagon.

Because steroids are so varied, they do many different things in your body, and regulate all sorts of processes. Some steroids, like testosterone, are anabolic.

Anabolism is a process by which your body makes bigger molecules from smaller ones. It is one of the two types of metabolism. The opposite would be catabolism, where bigger molecules are broken down into smaller ones. Digesting food for example involves many catabolic processes!

Examples of anabolic processes are building muscle, DNA replication, and healing wounds!

So when something is described as an anabolic steroid, it means it is a steroid molecule that regulates an anabolic process. The anabolic steroids that athletes take target muscle building (among other things) and testosterone is one example.

Not all steroids are purely for building muscle. If you’ve ever had allergies, you might’ve taken corticosteroids. They target (and suppress) inflammation, which is what causes allergies. Steroids are a wide class of molecules and do many, many different things!

[ryan-sometimes]

Ok, since you like science questions, here’s one (kinda), do you think time travel is possible? Could humans figure it out?

Depending on how philosophical you want to get with it, I’d say time travel is somewhat possible already, just not in the way you might think (Dr Who time machine that beep-boops you into the past/future). I don’t think we’re likely to figure that one out.

If you count merely seeing the past as time travel, we can already do that with telescopes.

If you look at Saturn through a cheap telescope, you’re not seeing Saturn as it is currently, but the Saturn of about an hour ago. You’re seeing the past, because we can only see things with light, and light has speed. A really fast speed, but it’s still a finite one. And with speed comes time. For light to travel, which allows us to see things, time has to pass. The farther something is from us, the longer that time is.

With the powerful telescopes we have today, we can see stars and galaxies billions of years old. The oldest among them are over 10 billion!

If they could look back at us, there would be no Earth for them to see. Maybe whatever’s over there is already smart enough to search, but we can’t know, just like they can’t know about us either, since their image of our corner of the universe is frozen from all of those years that it took for our light to reach them.

With other closer stars and galaxies, were they to look at us, they’d see dinosaurs, ice ages, maybe a planet with no life at all. At every given moment we’re beaming our past out into the universe. Just like they’re doing to us.

It might not seem like some grand, loud revelation to merely look at a star, galaxy, or planet, but it’s a glimpse into the past. And it’s been there all along, sitting in our sky, waiting for us to look.

You might not be able to experience the past with all of your senses, really go there, but you can see it. Ironically, the only past we can’t fully look into is our own.

[ryan-sometimes]

Say, you’re a chemist. Is there a chemical reason why distilled liquor like soju or vodka tends to hit WAY harder than something fermented like wine? I’m curious about the science but I’m a layman with no clue where to start looking besides the gay people in my phone

Distillation is a process by which a liquid mixture is purified. It takes advantage of the fact that different compounds have different boiling temperatures, and so they will evaporate separately, meaning you can obtain pure samples of each.

Alcohol distillation allows you to remove many of the impurities associated with the production process. So, distilled drinks have a higher alcohol concentration and purity.

You’ll also notice that distilled beverages like vodka and tequila tend to be more clear because of this. They’ve had a lot of the impurities removed, although it’s good to keep some of them for taste. Most people don’t find pure alcohol very palatable.

Beer tends to have an alcohol content of 5-10%. Wine from 10-20%. Meanwhile distilled beverages like vodka, whiskey, tequila etc often have alcohol content of 40-60%. They hit harder because they have more alcohol per unit volume.

[ryan-sometimes]

China and Europe every time Trump pulls funding from scientific programs:

[ryan-sometimes]

As a chemist is there a chemical you will NOT fuck with? Like a chemical you refuse to work with at all?

I think there’s only 2. I will NOT EVER use dimethylmercury or fluorine gas.

If only a drop of dimethylmercury falls on your hand, you’re dead. A world renowned chemist died this way a while back. She was working with dimethylmercury in the lab when a drop of it fell onto her gloved hand. It still got absorbed into her skin and she died of mercury poisoning. I’m not taking my chances.

I won’t fuck with fluorine gas because that stuff is just packed with hatred. It rips the electrons off of almost anything. Although many of the alkali metals are extremely reactive too, under room temperature they’re solids or at most liquids. Solids and liquids are easier to handle. Fluorine is a gas at room temperature, making it much harder to control. It’s the most reactive nonmetal. One tiny leak in your gas canister and your entire lab goes BOOM. No thanks.