3. Protein Folding
All proteins in living beings are made from different sequences of just twenty organic molecules called amino acids. Proteins have the extraordinary ability to assemble themselves without external intervention. This self-assembly is a process called protein-folding whereby a given sequence of amino acids forms a specific three-dimensional structure: it becomes a particular protein with a precise structural or functional role. Gerald Schroeder points out that every cell in the body (other than sex and blood cells) makes two thousand proteins every second from hundreds of amino acids. This process is so complex, says Scientific American, that a supercomputer, programmed with the rules for protein folding, would take 10127years to generate the final folded form of a protein with just 100 amino acids. But what takes a supercomputer trillions of years, takes seconds for real proteins.