Had a great time on the What the Tech podcast back at my old computer science department! We got into app design, science, education, and AI.

A snapshot of the molecular machines that enable thought

The purple orbs are synaptic vesicles filled with neurotransmitters, which are the chemical messages neurons use to communicate with each other. I've been playing with new interactions and visual style. I like the vibe, feels cozy

WIP: modelled the synaptophysin-VAMP2 complex for our synaptic vesicle. This complex is involved in vesicle fusion. SYP forms a hexamer with 12 copies of VAMP2, a key part of the fusion machinery. Each hexamer pre-clusters 12 VAMP2 molecules so they're ready to assemble into SNARE complexes when the vesicle docks. For the VAMP2 cytoplasmic SNARE domains I did some randomized rigid body transforms, and took a bit of license to spread out the dangly bits (disorganized regions from the AlphaFold prediction). The synaptophysin disordered regions have misleading C6 symmetry from the AlphaFold prediction, so I'll do something with those too. Almost there. I need to double check principal axes and offsets, tweak some things, add a membrane.

Lazy morning building a synaptic vesicle from scratch. Super WIP and not correct at the moment. Much to do. But it has the coolest guys imho: - Amber: Vesicular glutamate transporter (VGluT) - Red: V-ATPase Glutamate charging works like this: The ATPase uses ATP to create a proton gradient, and VGluT uses the gradient to exchange protons inside the vesicle for glutamate outside. It's really quite cool how they work together. #ScreenshotSaturday #screenshotsunday