DNA animation (2002-2014) by Drew Berry and Etsuko Uno wehi.tv #ScienceArt

I'm working on a project in malaria genetics this summer, and I was shocked to find out that the entire analysis toolkit is entirely based on math and statistics (and some non-trivial stuff too, e.g. hidden Markov models to predict CNV). Genotype likelihoods throw an extra wrench into the process, since even basic stuff like predicting allele frequencies requires a maximum likelihood estimator instead of simple counting. This whole area was quite eye-opening, and I'm still amazed that reading billions of base-pairs in DNA sequencing reliably works. Also gotta shout out to these incredible molecular animations by WEHI: ▶ this video

ATP synthase is amazing. It uses the driving force from the potential gradient (aka voltage) built by the proton pump in the first video to spin at ~21,000 rpm and crank out ATP. I read that your body creates (and then consumes) about its own weight in ATP every day. This channel has a ton of great videos: link Here's one on kinetichore and mitosis (which also shows kinesin and dynein which are comically odd) - link There's a collection of their DNA ones here: ▶ this video Here's another view of the ATP synthesis process that shows the chaos a bit more: link When I think of these systematically I just wonder what the intermediate steps were. The proton pump uses energy to create the potential gradient that ATP synthase runs on. You can't have a proton gradient without the proton pump, and without the proton gradient you don't have ATP. So these two exquisitely complex machines depend on each other and had to evolve together. It boggles my mind. Edit: Ah! Was looking for this one, sodium potassium pump - link This is how our neurons propagate signals. They are driven by ATP.

The thing that drove this home for me were the biovisions animations which got me to go back and basically learn high school biology. Seeing the mechanical nature of gene transciption and chemical signaling blew my mind. ▶ this video link On the other hand, I don't buy his thing about wishing his high school teacher had presented it differently. No on else can make you interested in this stuff. The best they can do is provide resources like the ones above.

Some other good ones: ▶ this video link The GP is right in that our intuitions aren't cutting it down at the bottom. All these animations tend to edit out the water molecules so that the audience can understand better. The proteins aren't colored blobs at all. At these scales you'd clearly see individual atoms instead of blobs. But watching a bunch of really detailed atomic ball-stick models would be confusing. And not only are the H2Os battering everything like TIE fighters in the Hoth asteroid field [0], there are ions in there too (Na, K, Cl, etc) that really effect the cell. The membranes are also edited, as many cells are porcupined with receptors like an over crowded wave pool [1]. In addition to the water/saline being edited out, most of the other proteins, vesicles, and interior membranes are also gone for the sake of clarity. There is nearly no free 'space' in the cell, think of a really crammed subway car [2], with the air being like the water/saline. But only much much tighter. The cell is more like a frantically efficient liquidy crystaly thingy than a wonky wobbly blobby poofed-up juice box. And each one is utterly deeply profoundly fascinating. [0] link [1] link [2] link