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Daniel Asarnow

@dabiophysicist.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.1K following 880 posts

Postdoctoral scholar in Veesler Lab @ UWa. Former UCSF Biophysics & SFSU & UCSC Biochemistry student & Exploratorium Explainer. He/him. I take tiny pictures, in 2 & 3 dimensions. https://github.com/asarnow

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · Dec 30

Apoferritin on the rocks ❄️🧊🔬

Cryo-EM image of apoferritin particles partly overshadowed by two nanoscale crystals of cubic ice. Some ApoF particles are strikingly visible even through the "ice cubes."

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 3h

Can it live on LB?

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 3h

But the door doesn't open for anybody

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 19h

Another good pair for discussion (this one is perhaps not so apparently ambiguous as MAVS)

www.nature.com/articles/nat...

www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Structure of promoter-bound TFIID and model of human pre-initiation complex assembly - Nature

A sub-nanometre resolution cryo-EM structure of human TFIID bound to TFIIA and core promoter DNA and a model of the TFIID-based pre-initiation complex.

www.nature.com

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 19h

Also: doubling down on Env
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Reply to Subramaniam, van Heel, and Henderson: Validity of the cryo-electron microscopy structures of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein complex | PNAS

Reply to Subramaniam, van Heel, and Henderson: Validity of the cryo-electron microscopy structures of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein complex

www.pnas.org

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 19h

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

elifesciences.org/articles/01489

elifesciences.org/articles/04969

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 19h

It is infamous! But the more interesting case study is the MAVS filament controversy which is great for discussion b/c both papers have merit (better biochemistry not necessarily leading to a more reliable structure) - and one was in eLife so we can see the review process leading to the correction

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 20h

He should move to Santa Clara, you can drink on Caltrain

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 21h

On the bright side, they do oscillate around zero

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 21h

Except in this case each "lane" has such extraordinary positive externalities as to justify construction by themselves - and the primary purpose is nice too! Whereas for a literal highway, it's the opposite: strong negative externalities and dubious purpose given alternatives

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 21h

The truly limiting resource must be PhDs (stipend funding, number and size)

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Good point, but that's just where I propose building 216 JWSTs (for the projected program cost of the F-35) 🤣

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Hmm, might be to make it overlay a predetermined model better - sort of a reverse Env trimer situation. I actually half expected to see something like that in one of the main text figures

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

(Fyi your read is overly literal here, mine was simply a glib reply that if 90% of the work can't be done, then we clearly need ten times the capacity)

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Indeed - and that's *exactly because* resources are limited. Science is so dominated by scarcity and triage we have difficulty even conceiving of what might be, if all these awesome instruments were built, and 90% of proposals were not discarded

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

It was 😱

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

That sounds ominous

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Bizarre - but at least the most conservative one is still there

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Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Fyi the scientist who coined the term "FSC" says GS actually stands for "golden stardust"

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Not yet anyway, but I remembered reading about this likelier seeming hypothesis

academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

With more resources it might not be unique!

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Sounds like we need 9 more JWSTs

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Sounds like we need 9 more JWSTs

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

It appears the oil share of GDP in Texas is ~3-5 times less than the other two (~6% vs ~20% for Rus and ~30% for SA). For comparison, Canada's is ~5-8% (of $2.25T) and Norway ~17% (~$0.5T), while in truly diversified California the number is ~0.3% (~$4.2T).

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Perhaps the original F-14 air data computer, arguably the first microprocessor, which was in use about 2 years before the Intel 4004 (with ~30x fewer transistors) was released. Conversely it was totally outdated by the time it was declassified 30 years later.

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

Lol

Screen cap of paper information. Received, 6 May, 2020. Accepted, 6 September, 2021.

Daniel Asarnow @dabiophysicist.bsky.social · 1d

I still sign the way it looked on a DMV pad that was showing its age in 2005