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Kinesin Protein (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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Always walking with happiness hormons to help if you are down

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[–] 10 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Do they move this slowly? Or is this animation in bullet time?

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This animation isn't just sped up, it's also simplified. In reality they don't take steady, purposeful steps. They spaz out with random vibrations (Brownian motion) until the "foot" clicks into place by random chance, then the other one releases and the process repeats. It's like shaking a container filled with legos until they assemble themselves. The proteins are just shaped in such a way that "walking" is the most probable outcome.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    The animation is actually slowed down. Kinesin can take something like 100 steps per second. Each step is about 8 nm, and they've been observed to move 600-1000 nm per second.

    In reality it wiggles around in Brownian motion but the equilibrium of it "clicking" into place is so attractive that it keeps happening really fast.

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