REPOST: EXPELLED EXPOSED: Actin Networks


This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that!

I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as 'directors cut' posts ;)

I was going to drop this. I was going to drop this, because I thought Premise had dropped it. But they finally served papers to XVIVO (I probably wouldnt have done that if Yoko/EMI were suing me, but Im not drunk on Jesus Juice, so there you go), so I am going to rip Premise a new asshole for making an argument as stupid as "BUT ALLZ TEH CELLS LUK LIKE DAT IN DEH INSIDES!! BEHEZ HAS MICROSCOPES AN SEES ITS!". Its a great learning opportunity for all you readers out there too, so YAY!


Well shit.

I was going to save these posts until after EXPELLED was released, but now there is no point in waiting. After the Discovery Institutes blatant theft of a small animation companys work, three out of four of Papa-TARDs remaining functional neurons must have died after working so hard to drip out 'But all deh cells looks dey sames!' as a defense... only to have their massive effort ruined when Megalomania-TARD bravely screamed 'LEEEEEEEEROOOOOOY JENKINS!'-- admitting the DI stole XVIVO/Harvards damn animation.

Right on the internet.

For everyone to read.

Including Harvard law.

*blink*

But I might as well put this series of posts up so you gentle readers can critique the stolen animation for your friends, if they should still be under the impression that the Discovery Institute Fellows are somehow 'honest' or 'intelligent'.

EXPELLED EXPOSED: ACTIN NETWORKS
Actin is one of those pesky proteins Creationists wish didnt exist. You see, humans got several different kinds of actin out of that impossible evolutionary mechanism of gene duplication and divergence. But bad news for Creationists is good news for you! Youve got different kinds of actin that have their own special duties. For instance, you probably remember 'actin' from high school bio, when you talked about muscle contractions-- Actin, myosin, etc. Thats 'alpha' actin.

The actin at the beginning of 'Inner Life' is 'beta' actin. Beta actin forms the cytoskeletal network at the cell membrane surface, and can quickly change shape when a cell wants to move. But this actin network is never static, and it does not change shape by itself. Beebopping around the network are proteins that stabilize the structures, and ones that destabilize it. Here is a short list of the little actin-altering dudes floating around.

Changes within the actin network at the cell membrane surface is an integral part of the 'Inner Life' plot. I mean, the whole story is about how a lymphocyte moves to a site of infection, and the cell wouldnt move at all if it werent for changes in the actin network. But XVIVO chose to omit all of the actin binding proteins for simplicitys sake:
Whats important to note here too, is that in addition to the static actin network structure, in addition to the absence of actin binding proteins, notice how 'Inner Life's actin network forms a nice, pseudo-diamond crystal, horizontal sides differing from the vertical component in size, general shape/structure, and color.

This is what an actin network looks like through a microscope:
Hat tip and thank you to The Daily Transcript for the pic (and go read the rest of that post on actin!).

So, knowing what you know now, gentle readers, can anyone explain the EXPELLED rip-off video as anything other than a rip-off?
Same diamond crystal structure. Same vertical/horizontal component size/structure/color differences. Same absence of same proteins.

Its just a shittier version of 'Inner Life'. The horizontal 'actin' looks like it belongs in 'Two Girls, One Cup', not a fucking professional bioanimation.

More to come.

More like this

Guess you all have heard by now Yoko lost (EMIs suit is still pending). Ah well, Yoko is appealing, this will go on forever, but this case reminded me of another part of Yellow 'Inner Life' that I wanted to blog about. See, what I found odd about EXPELLEDs use of 'Imagine' is that it is completely…
This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that! I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as '…
This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that! I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as '…
This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that! I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as '…

The "Two Girls, One Cup" similie was perfect.

Short list she says...

I seem to have missed that link last time I read this piece.

There's plenty on the list to show that the life of Actin in a cell has plenty going on that's not covered by the animation and the photo shows how chaotic things really are.

Since the topic is somewhat back up from this repost, is there any more information about the legal situation of Expelled using the XVIVO animation and then switching to a bastardized version of it? Last I heard one side had filed against the other for something, but the details have kinda been lost since I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but I am curious now as to what happened with all of it.

By Felstatsu (not verified) on 29 May 2008 #permalink

I can't believe you just compared actin to 2G1C! That's hilarious!
Love the blog btw, I'll need to go back through your old blogger posts to catch up on what I missed.

By Chou Chou (not verified) on 29 May 2008 #permalink

Two Girls, One Cup

I said "?" and googled it. I found the Wikipedia entry explaining what it is.

Just the description made me want to wash my brain out with bleach.

Excuse me, I'm going to go and shudder some more...

Eric Saveau:

Now aren't you glad Wikipedia has such a dominant PageRank? I mean, in theory it's a malfunction for any search result ranking function to put an article about a piece of content above the content itself... But, y'know.

You could even see it as a sort of symbiotic defense mechanism... Wikipedia protecting the internet denizens which feed it from stumbling right onto shock sites...