Hogwarts: Dumbledore reigned over the wizarding world.

Chapter 347 Magic and Science

The sounds blended together, creating a viscous, unsettling image that felt like stepping into a swamp of flesh and blood.

Worse still, it wasn't an illusion!

The next second, the darkness was suddenly pierced by a beam of light as intense as the sun.

The light waves swept in like a tsunami.

They brought out horrifying images:

Poor Aracle was enveloped by a bizarre polyhedron that kept turning, causing his exoskeleton, the striated muscles attached to it, blood vessels, hemolymph, nerves—all the external and internal body tissues to turn as well.

Hermione finally understood why Aracle was so terrified, and why he was so terrified yet still dared not resist.

Because this is a method that transcends ordinary people's understanding!

But Hermione had to admit that as the polyhedron flipped and the light waves were transmitted, everything about Aracleef's body was presented to her eyes in perfect detail and transmitted into her mind.

Almost the instant she received the light wave and the information it carried, a multispectral "anatomical diagram" of the eight-eyed giant spider automatically formed in her mind.

Moreover, this "map" is not just macroscopic.

As Warn continued to adjust the light source, the "resolution" of the light became higher and higher, enough to continuously magnify the "anatomical diagram".

Soon, the bloody and mangled scene faded, and a magnificent world filled with red, yellow, blue, and purple slowly unfolded before her eyes.

Although she had already read about this scene in Vaughn's notes.

But that's still not as good as seeing it with your own eyes.

It was a view like the starry sky. Hermione realized for the first time that the terrifying flesh and blood inside a living being could be so beautiful!

She saw the cell membrane rise from the boundless darkness like a veil, and the various proteins that glowed with ultraviolet light were like nebulae adorning it.

Upon seeing the light spot representing protein, Hermione, who was captivated by the beauty of biological mysteries, immediately snapped out of her daze.

She always manages to force rationality back when she's overwhelmed with emotion.

Hermione, whose vision was filled with seemingly endless waves of light, couldn't see Vaughn, but that didn't stop her from asking, "Vaughn, are these the membrane channels you mentioned in the notebook?"

"Yes."

Vaughn's reply came to my ears.

Membrane channels.

As the name suggests, it is a channel on the cell membrane responsible for the transport of substances inside and outside the cell.

Also called channel protein.

According to what Vaughn briefly mentioned in his notebook, when a living organism ingests food, the nutrients produced after the food is broken down are transported into the cells through these channels.

Of course, waste is also transported out through them.

Looking at the "huge" surface of the cell membrane, with the light spots constantly lighting up and then going out, Hermione could hardly imagine what kind of intricate engineering it was.

Perhaps sensing her probing thoughts, she soon felt Vaughn press his wand against her forehead again.

He manipulated the Multispectral Vision Charm he had placed on her, directing her vision toward the nebula.

In the high-energy ultraviolet and self-emitting infrared spectrum, she finally saw many nutrients that she couldn't recognize, excited by light and turning into various colors, approaching the cells. Then, the channel proteins took over the work, forming cylindrical and porous "mouths" that used different mechanisms to filter and capture the substances they were specifically assigned to.

Everything seemed complicated and chaotic, yet paradoxically, it was all in perfect order.

Hermione was dazzled by what she saw.

However, Vaughn's spell was clearly not meant to show her such an "ordinary" scene.

"The circulatory exchange in any organism follows a similar operating mechanism, only differing slightly in specific manifestations. You can observe this gradually after you learn the Multispectral Horizon Spell. Our target today is not these ordinary channel proteins."

The voice that came to my ears was very calm.

As he spoke, Hermione found her vision continuing to "closer" and expand, with "nebulae" passing by her.

Ultimately, her vision settled on a patch of "darkness".

The reason it's in quotes is because its appearance is quite abrupt. Due to the diffusion of ultraviolet and infrared light, its surroundings are shimmering with a faint glow from the cell membrane, like a veil. Although very weak, it's not truly pitch black.

This makes the darkness stand out, like a still black hole.

"this----"

Hermione hesitated, about to ask something.

Then Vaughn said, "Shh—watch closely."

As soon as the words were spoken, an even stronger beam of ultraviolet light shone down. The darkness remained darkness, but under the intense ultraviolet light, the surrounding light became even brighter, making it even clearer.

Hermione then realized that the darkness was not still.

It also resembles a cylindrical channel. Although it may absorb ultraviolet light or not react with ultraviolet light, making it difficult to see details, it is unknown whether it "opens and closes" like other membrane channels.

But Hermione noticed something strange inside the cylindrical passage, something like a pin that kept bouncing around.

return.

It seems to be capturing or transporting something!

Based on what she had seen before, Hermione had a sudden realization.

At the same time, she heard Vaughn whisper in her ear: "This is the result of my continuous observation of Aracleed these past few days. Magic channel protein, an invisible, magically encoded special protein that specifically transports essential magical factors into the cells of magical creatures!"

'

Hermione was speechless for a moment, not knowing what to say.

This was somewhat of a shock to her, even though she had seen Vaughn's notes on this thing in his notebook before.

Because the first lesson all young wizards learn in school is the emptiness of magic.

It truly exists, but it is invisible, intangible, and cannot be directly observed (it can be indirectly felt), nor can it be quantified.

Not to mention her, even Vaughn almost agreed with the magical world's view before developing the Multispectral Vision Charm, believing that magic was a kind of ethereal objective existence originating from the soul, rather than an objective entity.

The reason he persisted in searching for magic was twofold: firstly, the existence of magical organs in wondrous creatures proved that magic must have a material basis.

The other is the system's calculation of his magic power scale, which proves that magic power has quantifiable units, although quantifiability does not necessarily mean that it exists as an objective entity.

But magic is not an abstract expression like a subjective feeling or a number; it is a real energy source that can drive magic to complete the conversion of energy or matter into energy.

Like the Gamp principle of transfiguration, the essence of matter and energy cannot be created out of nothing, nor can it disappear out of thin air.

Even if magic originates from the mysterious realm of the soul, or a higher dimension, when it appears in reality, it must have a tangible form of existence.

It's just that this form of existence is difficult to observe.

Speaking of which, Vaughn was somewhat relieved: "Fortunately, this thing isn't as troublesome as dark matter or dark energy."

Those two old men did not interact with electromagnetic waves at all. In the physics community of my previous life, there were frequent laments about the existence of these two things, such as "the theory of gravity is about to collapse" and "the Standard Model is on the verge of doomsday".

Hermione didn't quite understand what dark matter and dark energy were; all she could hear in Vaughn's cheerful tone was that he was being cheerful.

She felt happy about it, but she still had many questions in her mind.

Looking at the magical channel protein and the pin "before my eyes" that constantly "projected" moving shadows under the strong ultraviolet light.

Hermione asked curiously, "Are you planning to turn this magical protein into a protein robot to capture and carry the properties of the potion?"

"Of course not."

To her surprise, Vaughn gave a negative answer: "The magic system inside the eight-eyed giant spider is completely different from that of magical plants. Moreover, according to my observation, there are several kinds of this magical protein on the cells of the eight-eyed giant spider. This means that there should also be several kinds of basic elements that constitute magic. Some of them enter the mitochondria to participate in the reaction like normal substances, while others enter the cell nucleus through the nuclear pore complex—the specific mechanism is not yet clear, and direct transport is useless."

"Huh?" Hermione was taken aback, a little anxious. "Then—what should we do?"

Upon hearing this, Vaughn smiled slightly: "Don't rush. For me, the discovery of the magical protein itself is more significant than how magic is synthesized. It involves a unique property of proteins."

"The peculiar properties of proteins?"

"Yes—I'm sending you a piece of my memory."

As she spoke, Hermione sensed that Vaughn's wand, which had been pressed against her forehead, was inputting an image similar to a memory into her brain.

Vaughn's memory magic was exceptional; the memories he processed were as clear as if they were being seen with his own eyes right now.

The image must have come from Vaughn's imagination; it was a moving image, a—no, it should be said—a strange, ball-of-your-mouth-like thing, twisting, rolling, and constantly changing shape in the image.

"—What is this?"

"The unfolded state of the protein."

"Unfolded status?"

Hermione's understanding of Muggle biological science is still at a relatively basic level, so she naturally doesn't know the various stages of protein synthesis.

However, she came here today to learn, keeping in mind Vaughn's advice: think more, ask more, and do less.

So she asked directly.

Vaughn explained, "Yes, this is what proteins look like when they've just been assembled by ribosomes. In Muggle biology, it's called a soft chain or a 'newborn peptide chain,' meaning it's just been created and doesn't yet possess the biological functions of a protein."

Another unfamiliar term.

This time, Hermione didn't ask. She didn't want to waste her time on questions that could be answered by books. Instead, she memorized the words and prepared to write to her father when she got back, asking him to buy her a few more Muggle biology books.

Her attention was mainly focused on "newly assembled" and "biological functions".

Why do proteins sometimes lack biological functions after they are created?

Does this mean that, in addition to the "unfolded state," there is another state that determines the function of a protein?

A spark of thought ignited in the girl's mind.

Vaughn, who had been pressing his wand against her forehead, immediately sensed it, and soon Hermione heard Vaughn's cheerful voice: "Excellent thinking, my dear. Yes, there is a folded state corresponding to the unfolded state. Only when the protein is folded does it have various functions. This is a rather complex and profound question. To understand it, you must first understand the true structure of proteins."

As she spoke, the tangled mess of threads in Hermione's mind began to magnify rapidly.

Pulling a corner of the ball of yarn, it grows from a thin thread to the thickness of a rope, and then continues to grow as thick as an iron chain—gradually, its structure is no longer "smooth," but is covered with regular bumps and ridges.

It was then that Hermione noticed that the so-called peptide chain was not a solid "thread" but rather a combination of tiny lumps.

"This is the basic unit that makes up a peptide chain, the amino acid unit. A peptide chain usually has tens to hundreds of amino acid units, which are linked together by peptide bonds — look, this is what it really looks like."

The image continued to magnify in Hermione's mind; the so-called amino acid units, under the extremely high resolution of the display, looked increasingly bizarre—

Those are two "planar" parts (because they are atomic structures, they are planar), something in the middle that is hard to describe in terms of shape but looks like a joint, and something that extends from the sides and looks even stranger, like floating threads.

It consists of three completely different components.

"The two planes on both sides are peptide bonds, which are the key components that allow amino acid units to connect together. They are also the templates that all amino acid units use. The middle is the unit hub. Your imagination is very accurate. It is indeed the joint of the amino acid unit. In order to ensure the connection, the peptide bond is very rigid and cannot be twisted. The hub in the middle plays the role of twisting the direction like a joint."

"The last one is called the side chain, which is the most critical component. In the folded protein, the side chains on which amino acid units are exposed, and their spatial distribution throughout the protein sphere, determine the function of the protein."

"Now that you know the structure of proteins, let's go back to folding. Folding is the process by which the polypeptide chains of a protein curl up, and the joints of each amino acid unit rotate at unique angles in a specific pattern, exposing or hiding side chains and giving the side chains a certain spatial distribution."

"Hermione, consider this: suppose a protein has a single peptide chain with 30 amino acid units, and each amino acid unit has at least 10 spatial orientations (which can be understood as rotation angles). How many possibilities does it have when folding?"

'

""

Upon hearing this question, Hermione's mind even paused for a moment.

If it were Harry and Ron, those two academic underachievers, they might have tried to calculate it by counting on their fingers, but Hermione, who is good at math, didn't even need to think to know that it was a number so huge it was despair-inducing.

Sure enough, Vaughn then gave the answer: "The answer is approximately 10 to the power of 30—10 followed by 30 zeros, an astronomical number that has lost its statistical significance. We can usually say that this number represents infinity."

"So, theoretically speaking, a protein with 30 amino acid units can fold into countless three-dimensional conformations, each conformation representing a function. Therefore, it can be said that this protein has the potential to evolve into countless functions—Muggle biosciences find this very troublesome because it means that the simple method has lost its shortcut."

r—fox