ABOUT
Creator
Science Denatured is ran by a MBiochem (Hons) Biochemistry undergraduate student at the University of York, who is an avid reader of scientific books and research (both new and old).
Inspiration
The recent coronavirus pandemic was the source of inspiration for this blog as it made me realise how out of touch the general public is with scientific research and some of the major breakthroughs in science. The root cause of this is how difficult science papers and articles are to understand for a non-specialist audience.
Science Denatured’s purpose is to provide the general public with a small insight into the world of science by breaking down scientific research and ideas into a much simpler, easier to understand form.
Behind the name
According to the Collins English Dictionary, the definition of "denature" is to change the nature of. In the field of science the term "denatured" is used to refer to the inactive state of a protein. A protein is a long chain of amino acids which folds up into a complex structure to become active. When unfolded the protein can no longer function so is said to be denatured.
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A denaturant such as heat can break down the complex structure of the protein back to the basic backbone chain of amino acids. This blog acts as a denaturant for science, whereby complex scientific articles and ideas are broken down into much simpler forms which are easier to understand - the science is denatured.
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Imagine a slinky spring - this is your protein. When tangled up it's a complete mess and for the majority of people it's too difficult for them to make any sense of it. Science Denatured's purpose is to untangle that slinky and denature it into a straightforward simple spring, which is much easier to make sense of.