A Copy of a Copy of a Copy

liquidnight: Karen O & The Kids “Hidaway” From Where The...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:59:39 -0600

Karen O & The Kids

“Hidaway”

From Where The Wild Things Are (Motion Picture Soundtrack)

breakingnews: Turkish ‘standing man’ inspires silent vigil in...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:23:10 -0600

Turkish ‘standing man’ inspires silent vigil in restive square

Reuters: A Turkish man held an 8-hour silent vigil on Monday in Istanbul’s restive Taksim Square.

Erdem Gunduz decided to start his silent protest as a form of peaceful demonstration against violent police disruption of protests in the square over the last two weeks.

Gunduz stood on his own unnoticed before pictures of his protest went viral. By the time police cleared the square at 2 a.m. local time, about 300 others had joined him.

Follow the latest on the protests in Turkey at Breaking News.

Photo: Erdem Gunduz stood for several hours unnoticed before his presence on the flashpoint square went viral on the social network Twitter. (Marco Longari/AFP - Getty Images)

atomicallena: Hemoglobin: Binding O2 — Cooperation Makes It...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:22:58 -0600

atomicallena:

Hemoglobin: Binding O₂— Cooperation Makes It Easier

I’m pretty sure I’m the only one in my biochemistry class that is so excited about how incredible the binding of oxygen to hemoglobin is that I’m losing sleep over it. Anyway, the gorgeous and colourful animination above, from the Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics Protein Data Bank (RCSB PDB), illustrates the conformational change upon oxygen binding to hemoglobin.

What is hemoglobin? Hemoglobin is a remarkable metalloprotein (a protein that contains a metal ion), found in red blood cells, that plays an important role in oxygen transport. Hemoglobin is a heterotetramer consisting of 2 α subunits (light pink and the other one can’t be seen) and 2 β subunits (light purple and light blue), arranged in 2 αβ subunits (2 sets of dimers). Each subunit contains one heme group (red) — a protoporphyrin ring with Fe²⁺ in the ring centre — resulting in four heme groups in total.²

How does hemoglobin bind O₂? Interestingly, hemoglobin binds O₂ (teal) cooperatively: when one heme group binds to O₂, it increases the other heme groups’ affinity (ability to bind) for O₂. This is a type of allosteric interaction — the change in shape of a protein that results from binding of a molecule at the allosteric site (a site other than the active site).²

Why does this happen? When O₂ is not bound (deoxy), Fe²⁺ lies a little outside of the protoporphyrin ring. When O₂ is bound (oxy), Fe²⁺ ”pops” into the ring, pulling with it a histidine (yellow), His, residue. Also attached to His is an α-helix (orange), which also shifts. All of this movement disrupts and forms new interactions between the α₁β₁-α₂β₂ interface.³ It is this conformational change that increases the other hemes’ ability to bind to O₂. Noticeably, as more O₂ binds to hemoglobin, the α₁β₁ dimer will rotate 15° relative to the α₂β₂ dimer, which can be observed in the animation.²

More on this topic:

Animations and movies illustrating conformational changes upon oxygen binding to hemoglobin (Janet Iwasa)

YouTube video about hemoglobin-oxygen dynamics (ThePenguinProf)

Ribbon structure of hemoglobin (The Full Wiki)

Sources used:
1. Hemoglobin animation: RCSB PDB
2. Krisinger, M. BIOC 202 Lecture on Protein Function. Presented at the University of British Columbia. May 27, 2013.
3. RCSB PDB. Hemoglobin. http://www.pdb.org/pdb/101/motm.do?momID=41 (accessed May 27, 2013)

bbook: Get Even More Excited for David Lynch’s ‘The Big Dream’...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:21:12 -0600

bbook:

Get Even More Excited for David Lynch’s ‘The Big Dream’ With New Details

"Later, when Superman joins the fray, the movie turns into an orgy of gratuitous building-battering..."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:19:15 -0600

“Later, when Superman joins the fray, the movie turns into an orgy of gratuitous building-battering as Zod and Superman punch each other through several giant high-rises. It recalls a similar Metropolis fight between those two characters in 1980’s Superman II, only there, when Superman knocks a baddie into a building — an act that sends the skyscraper’s spire tumbling towards a crowd of people on the ground — Superman actually halts the fight to grab that spire before it lands, a quaint moment that still reminds us that the lives of innocent citizens are at stake. In Man of Steel, however, the superhero seems mostly unfazed by the people of Metropolis who are surely collateral damage to his big battle; similarly, director Zack Snyder seems to have waved it off. There is no acknowledgement that all of the buildings that are being destroyed might have people in them. It’s a bloodless massacre of concrete, 9/11 imagery erased of its most haunting factor: the loss of life.”

- Over at Vulture, Kyle Buchanan talks back to the major post-9/11 blockbuster trend of using massive, violent destruction of cities and faceless, nameless innocent bystanders as backdrop for superhero, action and various other Michael Bay-esque films. It’s a great takedown of the casual nature of the approach to destruction, where collateral damage is common and rarely fully acknowledged (how much of NYC died in The Avengers? how many died in the last Star Trek?). The connection to 9/11 imagery and the cheapening of the fear that accompanies the images of crumbling buildings in a terror-struck metropolitan setting is important, too.

(The point is not fully “ugh, violence in movies” although there’s that. It’s more about the fact the violence is actually largely ignored, unacknowledged and has surprisingly little long-term impact on plot. Once over, Earth or wherever usually seems to be restored. Just minus a few thousand or more people.)

explore-blog: How to Make a Ricky Board – a creative exercise...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:18:07 -0600

explore-blog:

How to Make a Ricky Board – a creative exercise from David Lynch

Photo

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:16:37 -0600

America Feeds the Rich

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:15:41 -0600

America Feeds the Rich:

The Farm Bill that is expected to pass the U.S. House this week explains income inequality in America.

The Republican-sponsored proposal slashes food stamps for poor children and pads farm subsidies for wealthy agri-businessmen.

This comes just a week after Senate Republicans refused to protect the poorest students from doubled college loan interest rates because that required closing tax loopholes that benefit big corporations. It comes just weeks after a new study showed the Walmart heirs, among the richest people in the world, pay their workers so little that taxpayers fork over billions to subsidize Walmart’s payroll through programs like — food stamps.

This all violates America’s cherished ideal of equal opportunity. Americans strive to achieve believing they have the same chance at success as everyone else and, more importantly, that the egalitarian American system will provide their children with a level playing field on which to attain their full potential. Americans believe their government should maintain that level field. But it does not. Not when poor students are denied access to low-interest college loans while Washington charges Wall Street virtually no interest. Not when the House farm bill feeds the rich and starves the poor.

buzzfeed: What do these books have in common? They’re all the...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:14:05 -0600

buzzfeed:

What do these books have in common? They’re all the literary equivalent of one hit wonders.

"…for all too many working-class Americans—and a lot of them aren’t members of minority groups—U.S...."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:13:27 -0600

“…for all too many working-class Americans—and a lot of them aren’t members of minority groups—U.S. society is less of a launchpad than a glue trap.”

- John Cassidy argues for affirmative action, which the Supreme Court will soon issue a ruling on: http://nyr.kr/1ap6jST (via newyorker)

huffpostcomedy: Leonardo DiCaprio Character Matrix: Why ‘Wolf...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:12:50 -0600

huffpostcomedy:

Leonardo DiCaprio Character Matrix: Why ‘Wolf Of Wall Street’ Seems So Familiar

americanguide: GALVESTON, TEXAS Texas, it’s been said, is rich...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:11:58 -0600

americanguide:

GALVESTON, TEXAS

Texas, it’s been said, is rich in unredeemed dreams. If only in that respect, Galveston is perhaps richer than most places.

Possessing one of the long, flat Texas coast’s few openings to the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston’s promise as an economic center was obvious—it had been designated a provisional port of entry in 1825 by the Mexican government and was incorporated by the Republic of Texas in 1839, six years before Texas joined the Union. No less an authority than Stephen F. Austin declared Galveston the “best natural harbor the colony of Texas has to offer.”

By the end of the 19th century, Galveston was the world’s leading port for cotton exports and the third-busiest port overall in the United States. A description of the port, observed and documented several decades later in the WPA Guide to Texas, gives some sense of the humming activity:

Seen from the wharves, the harbor, protected by artificial moles, is alive with traffic from a hundred ports; grimy tramp steamers, sluggish, wallowing oil tankers, trim passenger ships crowd the docks; bustling, self-important tugs nose among the larger vessels, thrusting a fruit ship out to sea, edging a steamer gingerly to dock. Here is one of the largest cotton ports in the world, where thousands of men are employed to load cotton for foreign destinations, and to handle the yellow cargoes of sulfur and grain which compose a large proportion of the exports. Heavy imports of bananas from the tropics, jute bagging from India, raw sugar from Cuba and elsewhere for refining in Texas, find their way into the harbor. More than half a hundred coastwise and foreign ship companies make Galveston a regular port of call. — Texas, A Guide To the Lone Star State (WPA, 1940)

Opulent new hotels along the waterfront, opera houses and other monuments to the island’s newfound prosperity were being erected. Galveston became the first place in Texas with working electricity and telephone service. The city of 37,000, in short, looked ready to become the Southwest’s gateway to the world, and no end to its potential. But on Sept. 8, 1900, Galveston’s course changed forever. On that day, a hurricane of exceptional ferocity made landfall, killing more than 6,000 people—possibly as many as 12,000—in what is still the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Sixteen-foot high stormwaters washed over the island, most of which was just above sea level, destroying 3,600 homes. Isaac Cline, the U.S. Weather Service’s top meteorologist in Galveston who rode across the beach on horseback warning of the coming calamity only to be ignored by residents, wrote in his memoirs, “In reality, there was no island, just the ocean with houses standing out of the waves which rolled between them.”

After the flood, everything had to be razed 15 blocks from the coast. The buildings that survived were mostly the ones placed as far inland as the island’s narrow geography permitted. Bodies not swept out to sea were gathered for burning on immense pyres, which continued for weeks after the storm.

Many left Galveston permanently after the hurricane, but not everyone. Those that remained set about rebuilding the city, and one of the first tasks was constructing protection from future storms. A 3.3-mile concrete seawall was finished by 1904 and extended years later:

Viewed from the air above the Gulf of Mexico, rippling waves wash a smooth, wide, sandy beach, above which looms a solid gray wall of tremendous proportions, grimly guarding the city against its old enemy, the sea. — Texas, A Guide To the Lone Star State (WPA, 1940)

Nonetheless, Galveston sustained damage more serious and permanent than even its physical destruction. Fifty miles inland, Houston’s businessmen and civic leaders saw an opportunity in Galveston’s misfortune and successfully agitated to dredge a deepwater channel that would open Houston to the massive container ships that had previously stopped in Galveston. Snaking through mainland Texas for miles, the channel would offer far more protection from the weather than Galveston could, and it was completed in 1914. Houston became America’s busiest port and the wealth of a city blossomed around it.

It may be naïve to think that, were it not for the hurricane, Galveston today would have Houston’s money and influence. The island is only 27 miles long and no more than three miles wide at its thickest, necessarily capping its growth potential. With Houston’s emergence as a major port, tourism—and for a period in the early 20th century, vice—became Galveston’s main industry.

The city never fully recovered from the storm of 1900. A walk cross the sleepy island today reveals many gleaming new homes and hotels along the waterfront, but also many derelict buildings eaten away by the salty sea air and neglect. It is hard to imagine these ruins standing for long in a more prosperous place.

Still, one senses no small amount of pride in Galveston. It has been bloodied, but it survives. Plaques in buildings throughout the city mark a line where the water level crested during the last major storm, Hurricane Ike in 2008. It’s hard not to feel a certain awe for the residents, since those markers are an unspoken reminder of the thousands of determined hours spent gutting, rehabilitating and restoring the city.

Among those who stayed after the great storm of 1900 a century ago, the attitude was much the same:

As Maj. Robert Lowe, manager of the Galveston Daily News, responded to a suggestion by a Dallas journalist to print the paper in Houston, “You would, would you? Well I won’t,” he shouted. “You never lived here. You don’t know — and you would ask me to desert? No, no, no. This paper lives or dies with this town. We’ll build it again and The News will help.” The newspaper did not miss an issue. — Galveston by David G. McComb (2000)

* * *

Michael Marchio is a State Guide to Texas. (Photographs by Anne Herman.)

thedailywhat: Novelty Twitter Account of the Day: Feminist...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:11:03 -0600

thedailywhat:

Novelty Twitter Account of the Day: Feminist Taylor Swift

Check out @FeministTaylorSwift, the latest viral novelty Twitter account that parodies the songs lyrics of the pop idol singer with a feminist undertone. Since its launch by college senior and blogger Clara Beyer on June 12th, the feed has gained more than 78,000 followers after a plenty of blog and news media coverage over the weekend. For more info, check out the Know Your Meme entry.

theavc: We have been given a gift today, and that gift is the...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:10:28 -0600

theavc:

We have been given a gift today, and that gift is the Periodic Table of Muppets. It is best paired with Street Smart Cyclists’ Pastor Of Muppets EP and fuzzy childhood memories.

Photo

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 10:07:43 -0600

criminalwisdom: “The Decline Of Western Civilization” by Dave...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:50:04 -0600

criminalwisdom:

“The Decline Of Western Civilization” by Dave MacDowell

Photo

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 19:44:56 -0600

Photo

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:08:38 -0600

chromeography: Rover P4 75 (by Grant Hutchinson)

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:07:27 -0600

chromeography:

Rover P4 75 (by Grant Hutchinson)

gregrutter: randyliedtke: I spent 2 months and $100 planning...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:06:05 -0600

gregrutter:

randyliedtke:

I spent 2 months and $100 planning this

Worth every penny