Talk:Metabolism/Draft

According to Larry's intructions on the Approval page, I am sticking this tag on behalf of Nancy ... I set the time limit to December 28th so that the Christmas' holiday does not prevent any interested editors from contributing or removing the approval. Pedro Silva 05:06, 21 December 2006 (CST)

Nancy Sculerati MD has nominated this version of this article for approval. Other editors may also sign to support approval. The Biology Workgroup is overseeing this approval. Unless this notice is removed, the article will be approved on December 28, 2006.

Dear Pedro, A nice start indeed, and an example to all the slower-moving biologists like myself. But i wonder what your plan is: To leave this article in outline format, or to turn it into a narrative like an old-fashioned encyclopedia article. I don't say that i know what is better for something like this.

The reason for a little more of a narrative is that some student looking for metabolism might start at, say, biology, which will have a sentence or two (or an outline link), referring to biochemistry, ditto, which will then refer to here. At some point along the chain he should encounter an elementary discussion of metabolism as a whole (however it may seem to you and to me, for which the topic is the proper subject of a year-long academic course.)

Another matter--how should we incorporate a metabolic map into Cz--I mean a full size complex poster. I can see how to put in a section, but it would be a formidable job doing the whole thing, even if looked at section by section. But it would make an ideal clickable map. I don't think there's a good example in WP. DavidGoodman 22:39, 31 October 2006 (CST)

Dear David,

I was thinking of providing a short narrative that would provide a framework to understand the basic outline of metabolism. I think that detailed descriptions should remain in the existing pathway-specific articles, in order to keep article size manageable. It would be nice to have a good metabolic chart, but too much detail would make in unreadable. I have made a such a chart (it is in my Metabolism pages, in www2.ufp.pt/~pedros/bq/integration.htm) but I find it somewhat unappealing: Art and drawing were never my stronger side ;-) Pedro Silva 06:00, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Nor mine. Perhaps there will be someone here who's good at this. As you say, It will take someone very good to get it to work well. DavidGoodman 16:38, 1 November 2006 (CST)

I just looked this over for the first time, prompted by a message from the "to approve" biology workshop page. I think that as it stands, there is nothing that precludes approval. I would like to come up with a paragraph aimed at the reader who thinks of "metabolism" in the whole organism sense, including multicellular animal, meaning us people [;-)] if I can come up with it. I think whoever knows how should put one of those time limit approval messages here in the talk page, you know - "unless removed this article will be approved on say 2 days from now". Nancy Sculerati MD

Thank you for your input, Nancy! I tweaked your addition a bit. I will be waiting for the approval by another editor to stick the "to approve" template: since I wrote most of it, my vote does not count :) Pedro Silva 06:36, 20 December 2006 (CST)