Sunday: Hili dialogue

October 20, 2024 • 7:00 am

Welcome to the sabbath for goyische cats: it is Sunday, October 20, 2024, and National Chicken and Waffles Day.

I’ll be traveling to the CSICon meetings in Vegas, and then on to Utah, between next Wednesday and November 1, so posting will be light then.

I’ve never had chicken and waffles, but it sounds like a good combination: crispy, gooey, savory, and sweet. Chicago is famous for them, and here’s one good place:

It’s also International Chefs Day, World Calvados Day, National Brandied Fruit Day, National Mozarella Stick Day (?), and Office Chocolate Day.

Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the October 20 Wikipedia page.

Da Nooz:

Israel’s wars and situation are dominating the news: the death of Sinwar and speculations about what that means, the hostage situation, and the war in Lebanon. So we have 3 pieces related to the war today.

*I love the title of this piece by Phyllis Chesler on her Substack site, as it’s something I’ve been saying for a long time “Thomas Friedman Keeps Banging On” (subtitle “What continues to pass for wisdom at the New York Times”). Chesler is “an Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the City University of New York [CUNY], and the author of 20 books.”

For a year, Friedman has been the most clueless person writing about the war in Gaza in the MSM, but I’ll let Phyllis have the floor:

The man never quits his dangerous daydreams.  Just yesterday, before the IDF eliminated the evil-doer, Yahya Sinwar, Friedman suggested that Israel bow to the Obama-Biden-Harris administration’s demand that Israel declare a “cease-fire,” accept a “two-state solution, ” and allow international, UN peacekeeping forces, and “reformed West Bank Palestinian Authority (PA) to take over Gaza.”

When have international forces ever kept the peace in a war-zone? What exactly is “reformed” about the PA? What is Friedman smoking as he makes his pronouncement from the safety of his armchair? Have terrorist Jew-haters repeatedly been blowing people up on his block, stabbing or shooting people in his building, threatening to come for him? Have thousands of his relatives, friends, and neighbors been murdered and severely wounded just in the last year?

Today, 10/18, Friedman is at it again.

Although Friedman admits that Iran and Sinwar’s Hamas consistently rejected a “two state solution,” as he sees it, the real problem is “Israel’s leader and governing coalition” who are not ready to “step up to the opportunity that Sinwar’s death has created.”

I find it telling that Friedman keeps describing it as Sinwar’s “death,” as opposed to Sinwar having been eliminated by IDF forces who chose not to follow Biden’s demands that they not go into Rafah at all and, once there, to withdraw from Rafah  at once.

Remember the emphatic insistence of both Biden and Harris that Israel was not to go into Rafah? Nonsense. A bit more:

Nowhere does Friedman address the proverbial elephant in the room, namely, the necessity to de-program the Arabs on the West Bank, in Gaza, and for that matter, in every Arab country where Jew-hatred and infidel hatred is preached in every mosque, taught in every school, and featured in the Arab language media. Friedman-the-dreamer does not write about his plans for this.

Friedman returns, again and again, to Israel’s responsibility to accept “a pathway to Palestinian statehood.” (Again, he fails to mention that Israel offered Arabs a second Palestinian state many times before; these offers were always rejected. He also refuses to note that the Abraham Accords were underway when Trump was President. It is not a new initiative on the part of the Obama-Biden-Harris administration.

. . . This is what passes for wisdom at the still influential New York Times when it comes to the Middle East.

*But there is one clear thinker about the war at the paper, Bret Stephens. (Yes, some will ignore everything he says because he’s a conservative. I pity such people.) In a new piece, he argues that “Sinwar’s death is a tricky opportunity” (archived here).

What is the challenge now? Some analysts think the main issue is whether Sinwar’s demise can facilitate a deal that frees the hostages, ends the fighting and allows reconstruction in Gaza to begin.

Unlikely. Many Israelis, most of all the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, feel they’re finally winning the war; they will want to press the military initiative in Gaza and Lebanon despite the terrible risk to the remaining hostages. Whoever next takes charge of Hamas will not want to make a conciliatory move toward Israel as his first leadership act; it could easily be his last. And the next major scene of war will probably be Israel’s much-awaited retaliatory strike on Iran. We’ll see how that plays out.

I am beginning to think I’ll lose my bet with Lou Jost: I bet him that by early January, Hamas will have surrendered and given up the hostages. Hamas shows no signs of doing that, and seems more determined than ever, appointing Sinwar’s brother to be in charge.  But what is the opportunity?

But the opportunity in Sinwar’s death and Hamas’s military evisceration is that it begins to open a space for young Gazans like Mohammed to openly and assertively reject Hamas’s brand of maximalist, fanatical, Islamist politics. Sinwar once told an Israeli intelligence officer that he would willingly lose 100,000 Palestinian civilians for the sake of freeing 100 Palestinian security prisoners. He clearly meant it and fought his side of the war accordingly. But after the last year of agony, ordinary Gazans seem less likely to be willing, if they ever were, to serve as Hamas’s human sacrifices in its quest to annihilate Israel.

. . . The trick lies in finding a way between two competing imperatives: the need to continue to destroy Hamas as a force that can rule Gaza, but to do so in a way that doesn’t justify, among many Palestinians, its status as a legitimate “resistance” movement.

This could be done in various ways. Indefinite Israeli control of Gaza’s border with Egypt will help stop Hamas from rearming and give Israelis greater assurance that the territory will not again become a mortal threat. An offer of safe passage out of Gaza for Hamas fighters and their families can thin the group’s ranks. Creating well-supplied humanitarian safe zones (perhaps administered by NATO security forces) for Gazan women, children, the elderly and men who have passed a security screening can further safeguard civilians and separate them from potential combatants.

Finally, an Arab mandate for Palestine, which I first proposed back in March, could provide a long-term answer for all sides: a credible Arab-led security force in Gaza; European-led economic reconstruction; a long-term path toward a politically moderate, economically prosperous Palestinian state; closer ties between Israel and friendly Arab states. It’s always a mistake to speak of “solutions” in the Middle East, but plausible grounds for optimism can do a lot to dissolve the allure of fanaticism.

But, as Stephens note, all of these solutions will take a while.  Hamas don’t seem keen to get safe passage out of Gaza, and though I really like the idea of an Arab mandate, the Palestinians will almost certainly refuse it.

*Finally, the NYT details Sinwar’s final moments (archived here). It wasn’t as much of an accident as the media lets on.

I have been haunted by the video below, taken by an IDF drone right before Sinwar was killed. What an ignominious end: a severely wounded man, apparently missing a hand, shot in the leg (you can’t see that), and covered with dust, reduced to tossing a stick at the drone. He must have known the end was imminent.  The NYT details are below the video:

The stare-down lasted some 20 seconds, then the man limply but defiantly hurled a broken piece of wood toward the drone. Not long afterward, officials say, an Israeli soldier shot him in the head, and a tank shell flattened part of the building.

So ended the long hunt for one of the world’s most wanted men. It began hours after the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that Mr. Sinwar helped orchestrate, and concluded amid the destruction of a Rafah neighborhood resembling so many parts of Gaza, leveled by the Israeli military in the year since.

The manhunt involved Israeli commandos and spies, as well as a special unit established inside the headquarters of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, and at the Central Intelligence Agency. It used a sophisticated electronic surveillance dragnet and ground-penetrating radar provided by the United States.

New details about Mr. Sinwar’s movements over the past year have emerged since his death, including the fact that Israeli intelligence officers had seen mounting evidence since August that Mr. Sinwar, or possibly other top Hamas leaders, might be in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood.

They observed people there moving about with their faces covered, sometimes apparently surrounded by guards, suggesting that they were senior Hamas officials or hostages. And in September, they found Mr. Sinwar’s DNA in urine collected from a tunnel.

In the end, Mr. Sinwar was discovered and killed in Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan neighborhood somewhat by happenstance, by a group of troops on a routine patrol. But Israeli forces had spent weeks scouring the neighborhood based on the intelligence that senior Hamas officials were hiding there, possibly with Israeli hostages.

. . . The man hurled a stick at the drone, according to the footage. Israeli officials said a sniper then shot the man in the head, and a tank fired at the building.

The story is quite a bit longer than this, but read it for yourself; it’s archived here.

*I used to like Justin Trudeau, but haven’t followed him so much, though I know Canada has gone part way down the Woke Road to Crazytown. But I didn’t know so many Canadians were disaffected with their PM, at least as the Wall Street Journal tells it:

Justin Trudeau reinvented Canadian politics when he was elected prime minister at the age of 43 in 2015, with a brand built around his good looks and energy.

Almost a decade later, Trudeau is fighting for political survival. About two-thirds of the public disapproves of his performance. His Liberal Party is losing once-safe seats, and some members of his caucus say Trudeau needs to go. And the Trudeau brand is now stubbornly unpopular as Canadians say they are simply tired of him.

“He was youthful, sexy, and you know, Mr. Selfie,” said Andrew Perez, a strategic-communications adviser and Liberal Party supporter. “Now there’s a disdain for Trudeau, even among very progressive people.”

After nine years in the political wilderness, Canada’s opposition parties see a unique opportunity to deal Trudeau a resounding defeat, much like what Britain’s Conservatives sustained earlier this year. An election must be held by October next year but could be called sooner if Trudeau’s government loses a no-confidence vote.

“The biggest issue is voter fatigue,” said Lori Turnbull, a politics professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. “It’s kind of the benefit cost of investing the whole brand of the Liberal Party in Trudeau. Because when the person becomes unlikable, that’s it. It’s very hard to pivot.”

Trudeau’s drop in popularity was years in the making, political analysts and pollsters say, due in part to an accumulation of scandals and a failure to connect with voters on so-called kitchen table issues.

A few of the issues:

The country’s ethics watchdog ruled in 2019 that Trudeau broke conflict-of-interest laws by trying to steer the attorney general away from criminally prosecuting a Montreal company. During an election later that year, images emerged of him wearing blackface and brownface, damaging his reputation as a progressive champion of diversity. Trudeau apologized. His Liberals won re-election in 2019 and again in 2021, but each time returning with minority governments and a smaller share of the popular vote.

Trudeau’s big bet on immigration to spur economic growth has backfired, policy analysts and economists say, as it led to higher housing costs and imposed a strain on social services and infrastructure. Environics Institute, which has polled Canadians about immigration since 1977, said Thursday that nearly 60% believe the country accepts too many immigrants, or the highest share in a quarter-century. Public opinion on immigration “has effectively flipped from being acceptable, if not valuable, to problematic,” Environics said.

There were also larger forces at play. Trudeau is among the incumbents across the Western world who face angry electorates in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and its accompanying social restrictions.

I am woefully ignorant of Canadian politics, so I don’t know who would replace Trudeau, though Canadian readers have told me the Conservative PM will be dire. But I will let Canadian readers weigh in below.

*I learned of this paper about fertilization of eggs from the AP, and the results are very nice, using the new AI program AlphaFold. First from the AP:

How a sperm and an egg fuse together has long been a mystery.

New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.

“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.

The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.

Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.

It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.

Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.

Here’s the Cell paper; click on title to access the text, or download the pdf here.  Note that the work was done in zebrafish and mice, but if it’s the same system for those two species, it’ll be the same in humans.

The abstract:

Fertilization, the basis for sexual reproduction, culminates in the binding and fusion of sperm and egg. Although several proteins are known to be crucial for this process in vertebrates, the molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Using an AlphaFold-Multimer screen, we identified the protein Tmem81 as part of a conserved trimeric sperm complex with the essential fertilization factors Izumo1 and Spaca6. We demonstrate that Tmem81 is essential for male fertility in zebrafish and mice. In line with trimer formation, we show that Izumo1, Spaca6, and Tmem81 interact in zebrafish sperm and that the human orthologs interact in vitro. Notably, complex formation creates the binding site for the egg fertilization factor Bouncer in zebrafish. Together, our work presents a comprehensive model for fertilization across vertebrates, where a conserved sperm complex binds to divergent egg proteins—Bouncer in fish and JUNO in mammals—to mediate sperm-egg interaction.

From the paper’s short video, here’s a screenshot of the four-protein multimer involved in fertilization in three species (caption from paper); the interaction involves predictions from AlphaFole. One protein is in the egg and the other three in the sperm. Click to enlarge.

AlphaFold-Multimer-predicted structural models of the tetrameric complex linking sperm and egg membranes in zebrafish, mice, and humans, related to Figure 4 In zebrafish (left), the complex is composed of the egg factor Bouncer (light blue) and the sperm factors Izumo1 (yellow), Spaca6 (blue), and Tmem81 (red). In mice (center) and humans (right), the complex is composed of the egg factor JUNO (purple) and the sperm factors IZUMO1 (yellow), SPACA6 (blue), and TMEM81 (red). Shown are the ectodomains of the proteins lacking the transmembrane domains and signal peptide sequences.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s having a bad dream:

Hili: I’m waking up from a nightmare.
A: So open your eyes.
Hili: No, because I’m waiting for a happy ending.
In Polish:
Hili: Budzę się z koszmarnego snu.
Ja: To otwórz oczy.
Hili: Nie, bo czekam na happy end.

*******************

From Science Humor:

From Jesus of the Day, a critique of creationism:

From America’s Cultural Decline Into Idiocy:

Masih’s pinned tweet, showing her riding a bicycle with the wind in her hair. She loves her life despite being stalked by Iranian agents who want to kill her:

From Bryan; which is the axis of this figure’s rotation?   Here’s a video that gives the answer.

Larry the Cat, who feels superannuated, protests on behalf of a cat who has been made “redundant”. But you’ll be happy to learn that Defib the cat was saved from eviction three days ago. (from Simon)

From Malgorzata; an IDF soldier show us Hezbollah’s tunnels in Lebanon that are not only illegal under UN restrictions, but are ignored by UN forces in that country. The UN actually wants its solders to be human shields against the IDF. Why do you think?

From my feed:

From the Auschwitz Memorial, one that I retweeted:

Two tweets from Dr. Cobb. For the first one he commented, “Poor seal!”

. . . and this one gets his “Awww!”  Watch it all with sound up:

26 thoughts on “Sunday: Hili dialogue”

  1. Interesting video about the tunnels in Lebanon. It seems like no one can operate in Lebanon without coordinating with Hezbollah or in Gaza without coordinating with Hamas. This includes the UN. So the only way to prevent attacks on Israel is for Israel to take over the territories adjacent to itself.

      1. Okay, pal, give me the proof of the debunking. I’m waiting.

        As for your rude second sentence, YOU should know better. Did you read the posting rules before you rudely bulled your way over here?

  2. As promised, friends and fellow WEITers, from my column. This was done on a tight (editor imposed) deadline so isn’t the usual lawyerly argument I could stew over for a while. So it is more literary if you will.

    https://themoderatevoice.com/the-last-moments-of-sinwar/

    It is in TheModerateVoice first but also Democracy Chronicles, the Jewish News and probably JihadWatch later. (I’m well syndicated these days, satisfyingly so.)

    Robert Spencer of JihadWatch is an “Islamophobe” apparently, according to CNN and the New Woke Times, presumably because he is honest about what much/most of the Islamosphere is about. Islamophobia is a nonsense, incoherent Iranian invention “made up by fascists for cowards to manipulate morons” – Christopher Hitchens.

    Not all, obviously, but especially with “the assassin’s veto” militant, fundamentalist Islam is the only game in town. Because in religious countries god trumps all – a concept we in the secular west just can NOT get our heads around. Haven’t you noticed?

    All other ideas are shot or beheaded – not good for Socratic dialogue or pluralistic argument I’m sure you’ll agree.

    Don’t forget that meta-factor: the assassin’s veto. It matters in this context. Victims of Islam, particularly Muslims, can’t vote on, decide or even debate these issues like you and I can.

    Salaam! ٱلسَّلَامُ and onwards Israeli heroes.

    D.A.
    NYC

  3. “Each man’s death diminishes me” wrote John Donne. However I find that Sinwar’s death has only diminished my despair for Israel.

    As for Trudeau, I can’t wait to vote him out. PP isn’t my cup of tea, but true to my principles, I vote to remove tired and corrupt incumbents, rather than in the false hope that voting for someone will mean they don’t disappoint me in their turn. I voted Harper out, and now I’ll vote Trudeau out. If I’m around, I’ll vote out PP when the time comes.

    1. I’ll be voting against Trudeau’s economic policies. I sort of take the corruption for granted because it includes the whole political and news ecosystem. The SNC Lavalin scandal really clarified for me the priorities of media and elites in Canada: it pitted the handsome white male PM trying to save a giant engineering company in his home town against his female indigenous Attorney General who wanted to prosecute them for corruption. And the media backed him instead of her, I think because the CBC and other orgs know where their next meal is coming from.
      thehub.ca/2024/07/09/trust-in-canadian-news-erodes-with-government-funding-five-key-takeaways-from-the-hubs-exclusive-polling-on-trust-in-canadian-media
      http://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/funding/local-journalism-initiative.html
      http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/federal-budget-cbc-funding-1.7175927

      damn I edit out the leading text in the urls and I still get links 🙁 fortunately not sent into moderation limbo

      spoke too soon – moderation 🙁

      1. Precisely: the treatment of Jody Wilson-Raybould gives the lie to any putative sincerity in Trudeau’s many apologies to the “first nations.” But what else would I expect from a drama teacher who didn’t have the wit to say “I was playing Othello” when discovered in blackface (again)?

        1. Canada is better off without a (part-)indigenous Justice Minister and Attorney General who styles the Canadian Crown, to which she pledged loyalty as a Cabinet Minister, as an illegitimate occupying state needing to be undermined at every opportunity. Trudeau appointed her to the post in part because she would direct her lawyers to “defend incompetently” our country against indigenous land claims and other alleged calumnies against us, which suited his dilettantish predilections at the time. However when push came to shove over his real priorities—the “public interest” represented by Quebec generally and his own Montreal riding where SNC-Lavalin is headquartered—he knew he had to give her the boot. Holding a teddy bear in front of imaginary graves of imaginary children is more his Mr. Dressup style.

          JW-R wasn’t fired over SNC-Lavalin. He shuffled her out of Justice/AG when she wouldn’t take direction and offered her another portfolio, as is his privilege as PM. He hoped not to have to fire Canada’s first (part-)indigenous Cabinet Minister. When she refused, that’s when he had to boot her, as any Prime Minister would.

  4. That is a beautiful paper about sperm and egg docking proteins!

    But I predict that the termites will find objections. One being that the interaction is described as being like a lock (egg side) and key (sperm side). That has the whiff of toxic masculinity like so much of our other terminology in science. Also, saying that the proteins are conserved is also problematical, since clearly the etymology is related to political and social conservatism. That particular science term has not yet been attacked, to my knowledge, but it will be since there isn’t much left. This sort of ideological attackery is commonly about pretending to do good, and to be seen doing it.

    1. Ha yes quite problematic. What might save the study from cancellation is that the conserved sperm protein attaches to completely different egg proteins: Bouncer in fish eggs is a plasminogen activator receptor; Juno in mammal eggs is a folate receptor and about 4 times larger than Bouncer. This seems to happen a lot – animals swap proteins in and out of their fertilization repertoire. That seems quite progressive?

      edit to say: AlphaFold is really incredible

  5. The story about Herrn und Frau Soupolos and their neighbors is certainly funny, but also fishy and old: It was published previously in the July 27, 1978 issue of Jet magazine, p26, according to discussion site LessWrong. Two comments there even link to a scan on Google books, and that shows that the recent recirculation did a copy-and-paste job of the entire typeset magazine article next to a nice picture of the supposed Frau Maus in a bikini. The font in the modern piece certainly looked out-of-place for our decade.

    From elsewhere I learned that the story may well have been concocted as a question on a tort law exam.

    1. I’m also a little puzzled over why a story that purports to have taken place in Germany was posted on a site called America’s Cultural Decline Into Idiocy. Seems a bit idiotic to me.

  6. This is the voice of the new, “reformed,” Palestinian Authority:

    “The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) expresses its condolences to the Palestinian people and all national factions on the martyrdom of the great national leader Yahya Sinwar, head of the political bureau of Hamas.”*

    * https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/palestinian-territories/artc-abbas-s-plo-eulogizes-martyr-sinwar-as-a-great-national-leader

    1. I would imagine there are many here who peruse the Arabic and Jewish press. Did others see the interview with a neighbor in the aftermath of Sinwar’s death? The young father said he’d watched the drone photos of Sinwar (in the chair, throwing the stick at the drone) 30 times and was making his boys watch it every night and he intended to do the same with his grandchildren. He told them this is how a true martyr dies.

      1. Didn’t see it, but it sounds awful. The father is doing his part to make sure that the next generation of Gazans has lives that are as sad and miserable as those of the current generation.

  7. Chicken & waffles: As a kid, before discovering cream gravy (with crumbs of sausage) & biscuits, chicken gravy over pancakes was one of my favorite breakfasts. It only happened after my mother made fried chicken, which I’ve come to learn is known as “Maryland Fried Chicken” – flour and water are involved, no deep-frying.

    Biden & Israel: I suspect that there’s a good amount of lip-service in his pronouncements. Were he to voice all-in support, it would energize the “progressives” further and split the party, giving more advantage to the other side.

    Sinwar: It seems reasonable to assume that the figure who was covered under a blanket when leaving that house together with two armed Hamas guys just before it was fired on was one of the hostages, but I haven’t seen any speculation on that.

    Fertilization: This is cool. Haven’t read the paper yet and by the time I have a chance this post will be old, but it appears to be another case of two proteins finding each other, with “random coil” segments of one or each finding a partner in the other to interact with via hydrogen, ionic and/or hydrophobic interactions to form a segment of ordered secondary structure (alpha helix or beta-strand) and associate into a stable, heteromeric complex. (In many functional proteins composed of different subunits you find “alpha helical bundles” or “beta barrels” formed from helices or beta strands from two different subunits.)

  8. Trudeau was initially elected by Liberal Party on a popularity contest. In it he was running against, of all people, Marc Garneau, the first Canadian astronaut. This proved to me, once and for all, that in elections competence, leadership skills, being a diplomat, statesmanship, are unimportant. Name recognition is all that matters. UNLESS there are huge scandals, that’s when incumbent goes. The raise of wokism may be such a scandal – if the general public notices, which is not a given.

    I will, as per usual, vote Green, because I am not interested in playing one set of fools against another, but simply worried about long-term survival of the species. Of course, the Canadian electoral system ensures that 10% popular support for them translates into one or two seats in the Parliament. So I have no illusions about chances of success – it’s a resignation of a convict voting against his own execution.

    1. I get it about not voting for the fools. It’s terrible that we have so few good political choices. But I don’t vote Greens because they are dysfunctional. They hounded the national leader Annamie Paul (a black Jewish woman) out of the party for not hating Israel enough, and that was two years before the October 7th attacks. Paul’s replacement was a they-them enby and pansexual (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amita_Kuttner) who forced the party president to resign for misgendering her on a zoom call. I had the privilege of not voting for Kuttner in the 2019 federal election when she parachuted into my electoral district from her astrophysics postdoc in California. Naturally she identifies as a theatre kid (amitakuttner.com).

  9. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper won the chemistry Nobel for the ability of their computer program to calculate the most likely tertiary structure as output from the primary structure as input better than any other competing program in, e.g. CASP competitions.

    AFAIK It was not for the docking of input experimental tertiary structures to other input experimental tertiary structures to produce output quaternary or oligomeric structure in silico.

    Docking is a different problem – i.e. it’s name is AlphaFold, not AlphaDock. I’m not surprised AlphaFold is yet another docking program – as AlphaFold is trained on all known experimental protein structures – but evaluation of its results in this work as a program would be to compare it to other docking programs.

    The great experimental in vitro results are the gold standard here, but it is unclear why only AlphaFold was used as a program (AFAIK). The experimental results seem to favor or even promote AlphaFold as a superior program – ok, but how good of a program is it for docking?

  10. The housing crisis resulting from Trudeau’s immigration policy is severe, at least in Vancouver and Victoria, BC.

    I sold my modest one-bedroom condo in a not fancy suburb of Victoria last year for $400K, way more than I paid for it. A wealthy man bought it for his son—all cash.

    The real estate agent told this is the ONLY way most young people can afford to buy anything.

    But even RENT is through the roof and young people—even married couples—are stuck living with parents.

    That’s just one reason (a big one) many will be voting against Trudeau (including me).

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