Biochemistry

The seventh entry is a regulação alostérica, and the noun inside it is one English word standing where Portuguese keeps two. « Regulation » does both jobs at once for us. It is the process — the regulation of blood sugar, the regulation of a pathway, the thing this entry describes — and it is the written rule, which is why a laboratory complies with safety regulations and a lawyer argues about a new regulation. Only the article and the plural separate the two, and often not even those. Portuguese will not let them share a word. A regulação is the process and nothing else: a regulação alostérica, a regulação da temperatura, a regulação do mercado. The written rule is o regulamento, and the whole body of rules is a regulamentação. So « the laboratory regulations » comes out as o regulamento do laboratório, while as regulações do laboratório says nothing a reader can use. The test is quick enough to run while writing: if « rule-book » would fit the sentence, the word wanted is never regulação.