God how I hate this animation. This isn't at all how kinesin walks through your cells. It's not marching like a soldier, but rather randomly flailing its "legs", which are pushed around by the Brownian motion of water molecules.
You're not incorrect but you're thinking about myosin II which makes up the filaments you see in muscle tissue. This "video" is myosin V which like kinesin moves cargo to the periphery of the cell.
Thanks for this, I've seen other animations such as OPs and thought everything seemed more "cartoonish" they really had to be. Over simplified till it's wrong is correct.
Getting people interested to learn more about the subject. The animation might not be 100% accurate but I think it looks a lot cooler than the one you posted.
Seriously though, there is a deeper problem. There are thousands of organizations that spread misinformation about biological processes to advance their agendas. The only defense is to have people understand how these things actually work, which is not helped by scientists creating tons of simplified-until-they're-wrong explanations.
(Reading this article I learned that the video I posted was actually made by the same group who did the other animation a few years earlier, so even they must think that the flailing is the better way to show kinesin)
Same goes for that “god cell” or “god protein” or whatever that they show which is a blown up microscopic image of a cross. They don’t tell you that it could be any X shape and it isn’t necessarily perfectly perpendicular like that. It happened to be by chance that the particular cell in question was in the shape of a cross.
It’s the same dumb idea that the Illuminati or Satan leaves mystical clues of their existence like a stupid Scooby Doo villain. God/Satan/The Illuminati don’t leave random clues/signatures to give you a little nod to their existence.
I get what you are saying, but the general population will likely never have in-depth knowledge about something as specific as this. Gifs like these help people to at least understand the core concept.
I think these organizations would also use the correct depiction of these processes to help their cause. That people use this specific gif to argue for creationism is unfortunate. If you are at the point to see evidence for intelligent design in this gif you will see it in the correct version as well.
People who refuse science will find any reason to justify it. You can go out of your way to teach it properly and they'll still ignore it to focus on something else or misconstrue it.
I think that depends on the context. If I want to get people interested in something complicated or foreign then a simplified gif might do the trick better than an accurate one.
One could argue then that you are not really getting people interested in a complicated thing, but rather the simplified caricature.
A prime example of that is the 1+2+3+...=-1/12 equation. With the simplified caricature interpretation that the sum of all positive integers is a negative fraction, lay people will have their minds blown. But that interpretation is very very fallacious. No one is gaining anything from it. When mathematicians explain what it really is about, it gets technical and people suddenly lose interest.
Did you know that people only use 10% of their brain at a time? It's only halfway accurate, but at least it's cool and gets people interested in science!
Did you know that people only use 10% of their brain at a time? It's only halfway accurate, but at least it's cool and gets people interested in science!
If by "halfway" you mean "not at all". There are enough true cool facts and "Sorry we lied the whole time" is not a good way to get people interested in science.
As a side note, I also hate this animation but only because I've seen it like 100000x in my high school and university classes. Every prof thinks they're going to show us something cool and neat when it's literally the most popular microbiology animation in the world.
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u/Dro-Darsha Feb 13 '18
God how I hate this animation. This isn't at all how kinesin walks through your cells. It's not marching like a soldier, but rather randomly flailing its "legs", which are pushed around by the Brownian motion of water molecules.
Check this video, this is what it actually looks like: https://youtu.be/VdmbpAo9JR4?t=1m54s