- #1
- 2,486
- 9,719
- TL;DR Summary
- Great pictures of the corona virus compiled in a NY Times article
Here is a Carl Zimmer article in the NY Times showing some fantastic images of the corona virus.
These are mostly computer generated images (pretty common these days) based on cryo-EM (Electron Microscopy) and biochemical/molecular biology type data.
They are very well rendered, down to the level of atoms:
Some are movies that show the manner in which particular molecules vibrate, thereby accessing a larger volume of nearby space, in search of a promising ligand.
Some videos match up the the actual data with models rendered to match.
Some show which parts of molecules could be hidden from antibodies by sugars.
Such an awareness of the molecules shapes and spatial relationships is used in planning vaccines, designing pharmaceuticals, and generally understanding how the virus makes its living.
This is a nice little article, which informed me of some novel corona virus things I was not aware of.
From a different point of view, as a visual thinking kind of person, I can quickly learn a lot from pictures.
I suppose there are a lot of similarly endowed people who could also do that.
I feel images, like these, will be excellent tools for demonstrating how the shapes and relationships among molecules, biochemistry, and cellular components, in and between cells, affect biological processes.
The relationships between components of different layers in the structural hierarchy of biological structure (atoms/molecules/cellular components) in 3-D-ish space can be clearly shown.
Today, there are programs you can get to make these images, by using available online structural data for many molecules, a talented individual might make many teaching friendly diagrams for rapid interpersonal transfer of these kinds of concepts.
I am aware of one that runs on the 3D movie making program Maya (used in Hollywood), providing the data about the molecules, I presume).
Maya is not a simple program, but once you've used it a bit, the basic things are pretty straightforward.
There may be other programs that can also this.
I am not current on these programs, but if anyone is, I would be interested in hearing about it.
In the long run, the simpler the program (to use), the better for getting a lot of people to use it, thus promoting a better understanding of the basis of biological function.
It would be great if it could run on a laptop! But probably a desktop.
These are mostly computer generated images (pretty common these days) based on cryo-EM (Electron Microscopy) and biochemical/molecular biology type data.
They are very well rendered, down to the level of atoms:
Some are movies that show the manner in which particular molecules vibrate, thereby accessing a larger volume of nearby space, in search of a promising ligand.
Some videos match up the the actual data with models rendered to match.
Some show which parts of molecules could be hidden from antibodies by sugars.
Such an awareness of the molecules shapes and spatial relationships is used in planning vaccines, designing pharmaceuticals, and generally understanding how the virus makes its living.
This is a nice little article, which informed me of some novel corona virus things I was not aware of.
From a different point of view, as a visual thinking kind of person, I can quickly learn a lot from pictures.
I suppose there are a lot of similarly endowed people who could also do that.
I feel images, like these, will be excellent tools for demonstrating how the shapes and relationships among molecules, biochemistry, and cellular components, in and between cells, affect biological processes.
The relationships between components of different layers in the structural hierarchy of biological structure (atoms/molecules/cellular components) in 3-D-ish space can be clearly shown.
Today, there are programs you can get to make these images, by using available online structural data for many molecules, a talented individual might make many teaching friendly diagrams for rapid interpersonal transfer of these kinds of concepts.
I am aware of one that runs on the 3D movie making program Maya (used in Hollywood), providing the data about the molecules, I presume).
Maya is not a simple program, but once you've used it a bit, the basic things are pretty straightforward.
There may be other programs that can also this.
I am not current on these programs, but if anyone is, I would be interested in hearing about it.
In the long run, the simpler the program (to use), the better for getting a lot of people to use it, thus promoting a better understanding of the basis of biological function.
It would be great if it could run on a laptop! But probably a desktop.