2017年5月31日(水)
The Ballad of Franklin Bonisteel
Else? Some nice characterization and action in The Rift; the Keyser Soze story is atmospheric, even if the notion of following the exploits of an infallible, always-12-steps-of-his-opponents villain seems ... less than compelling. Verdict? Maybe. Secret Empire/Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man Title: Secret Empire/Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man Genre: Superhero Anything I Need to Know Going In? Maybe you've heard about the ? In which it's revealed that Captain America, Scion of All That Is Good And You Know American I Mean Come On It's Right There In The Dude's Name, is secretly the head of HYDRA, Marvel's resident fascist-army-Big-Bad? This preview is all set-up, but it's your chance to see what's getting so many noses out of joint for yourself. The Spider-Man preview is a return to Spidey in quippy, classic, full-bore Friendly-Neighborhood mode. Anything Else? Secret Empire artist Andrea Sorrentino serves up some striking page layouts, and Paulo Siqueira's Spidey art is big and bold. Verdict? Depends on your personal tolerance for turning heroes into Nazis for fun and profit. X-O Manowar/Bloodshot: Salvation Title: X-O Manowar/Blood Shot: Salvation Genre: Superhero/Science Fiction Anything I Need to Know Going In? This is how you do FCBD. Three tiny(!) but packed vignettes that give a clear sense of the titles in question, introducing a central tension without resolving it. Anything Else? In X-O Manowar, a time-displaced warrior fights for right. In Secret Weapons, we glimpse a world of enhanced humans — and the agency that seeks to control them. In Bloodshot: Salvation, another time-displaced warrior goes searching for secrets from his past. Granted, there's not much that's particularly novel in those premises. But what matters — in genre comics, as in anything else — is the execution, and these three mini-stories have each got a distinct style, reminding you that genre doesn't have to be generic. Verdict? Definitely. Attack on Titan Title: Attack on Titan Genre: Fantasy Anything I Need to Know Going In? The hugely successful manga series (and concomitant anime series) from Hajime Isayama — about a city of many walls, constantly attacked by grotesque giants — is an international phenomenon. This new story by Jody Houser and Emi Lenox, set in Isayama's Firm alarm cable world, looks at day-to-day life inside the city, far from the front lines. Anything Else? A quieter, sweeter, and sadder tale than the original series, which leans more in an action/suspense/horror direction, generally serves up. Verdict? Yes. The Ballad of Franklin Bonisteel Title: The Ballad of Franklin Bonisteel Genre: Crime Anything I Need to Know Going In? Fun, atmospheric, Elmore-Leonard-esque tale set in and around an LA motor court/lounge in the 70s. Nice character beats, and the black-and-white art captures the story's mood so well you can almost feel the deep-pile shag carpeting. Anything Else? Technically, this one's a sampler, as it includes a (very) brief excerpt from Murder Ballads, though it's not mentioned in the cover, and is so short it doesn't give you much to go on. There's a website listed on the back where you can hear that book's soundtrack, if that's a thing that interests you. Verdict? Yes. Betty & Veronica
2017年5月31日(水)
Might it be prejudice or the effects of a guild mentality
Why can't Murch get a hearing? Isn't science open to all comers? And even if Murch-Titus-Bode turns out to be wrong from top to bottom, doesn't it at least deserve its day in court? Might it be, Weschler invites us to wonder, that science today is too intent on policing its borders against interlopers lacking the right institutional imprimatur (however well-credentialed or highly regarded they might be in other circles) to even be able to recognize a worthwhile challenge from without? Isn't it at least possible that Murch-Titus-Bode might turn out to be right? Compare with the famous case of Alfred Wegener's 1915 theory of continental drift (also taken up in Waves in the Night). Anyone with eyes is able to notice that the continents seem to fit together; they look as if they were cut apart, sharing contours. But until fairly recently, no one had a clue what physical processes could have explained this appearance of continuity. And, anyway, Wegener was no geologist — he was an outsider — and his hypothesis of continental drift went so strongly against what every geologist thought they simply knew to be true that it wasn't until the 1960s that the hypothesis was more widely accepted. Couldn't something like that be going Alarm cable on here? Might it be prejudice or the effects of a guild mentality, or just plain old rigidity in the face of the new, that is preventing the truth from seeing the Alarm cable of day? Good questions — and they burn especially brightly nowadays, when skepticism, indeed cynicism, about science and also about so many of our establishments and institutions, is so rampant. But it's possible to put these doubts to rest, I think. Now, to be clear: I have no idea whether Murch is on to something or whether the scientific establishment is on solid ground in its rejection of Titus-Bode. But even the possibility that Bode's Law might be true — a possibility taken seriously by no living astrophysicist, so far as I can tell — doesn't give us grounds for skepticism or doubt about science or its various cultures and subcultures.
2017年5月27日(土)
If you are in the middle of a House of Cards binge
Takes On Netflix's Streaming Deal With Comcast
Netflix cut a deal with Comcast on Sunday to help boost streaming performance. If you are in the middle of a House of Cards binge, the news from Netflix over the weekend is good — video streaming quality will improve. After reports of declining performance in recent months, Netflix — which accounts for — cut a deal with Comcast to pay the RCA audio video cable provider for direct access to its systems. The implications of this deal are complicated and wildly different, depending on whom you ask. We rounded up a few ways to look at the deal, which allows a broadband giant to charge Internet companies for direct access to consumers: 1) Paying for access could become a norm that could stifle opportunities for startup Internet services. Existing companies with deep pockets can afford to pay fees to broadband giants for simply delivering Internet service, but what about the next generation of Internet-based services? Public-interest groups are worried that "such deals could normalize an environment" in which broadband providers can charge fees for delivering content, . With its dominant market power, Comcast could, for instance, charge prohibitive fees to stifle upstarts. 2) Payments for access have always happened. Now they're just going to different parties, since the "middleman" was cut out of this deal. Netflix has been paying fees for access to Comcast and other servers — it paid content distribution networks, which are third-party middlemen. Now, Netflix will pay Comcast directly for access, instead of the content distribution RCA audio video cable networks. Streaming industry blogger Dan Rayburn excoriated traditional media outlets for writing that consumers may have to foot the bill for Netflix's deal with Comcast: <blockquote class="edTag"> "This could not be further from the truth. Those stating this have no clue how Netflix delivers their content today or what costs they already incur. If they did, they would know this is not a new cost to Netflix, it's simply paying a different provider, and it should be at a lower cost. It should actually be cheaper for Netflix to buy direct from Comcast." </blockquote> 3) The deal transforms the "net neutrality" debate. The Federal Communications Commission , though it's writing a new framework now. For the feds to ensure a level playing field and no haves and have nots in terms of Internet speeds, net neutrality advocates assumed residential Internet service providers receive the Internet from RCA audio video cable one big pipe, and net neutrality rules could prohibit the creation of "fast lanes" and "slow lanes." But if Netflix can connect directly to the service providers, every company would have its own pipe, making policing those a really thorny problem. "Cutting out the middleman might make the Internet more efficient, but it will also make it less competitive," . "Cogent [a third-party content distribution network] has many competitors. Verizon's FiOS service does not. If companies like Cogent are squeezed out of business, it will make these already powerful network owners even more powerful." 4) It affects the way federal regulators will view the proposed Comcast-Time Warner mega-merger. The FCC may have recently lost the fight to regulate Internet provider interconnection, but regulators were inevitably going to look at those issues in the proposed merger between the two Speaker Cable giants. Via : <blockquote class="edTag"> "If ISPs did begin charging for access, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings vowed to fight such a move in Washington. [Bernstein Research analyst Carlos] Kirjner said he wouldn't be surprised if Sunday's agreement was conditional on an agreement by Netflix not to lobby regulators to add IP-interconnection to its Time Warner Speaker Cable merger review." </blockquote> Lee at The Post, however, , saying "the growing power of residential broadband providers will put growing pressure on the FCC to do something to prevent the abuse of that power."
Netflix cut a deal with Comcast on Sunday to help boost streaming performance. If you are in the middle of a House of Cards binge, the news from Netflix over the weekend is good — video streaming quality will improve. After reports of declining performance in recent months, Netflix — which accounts for — cut a deal with Comcast to pay the RCA audio video cable provider for direct access to its systems. The implications of this deal are complicated and wildly different, depending on whom you ask. We rounded up a few ways to look at the deal, which allows a broadband giant to charge Internet companies for direct access to consumers: 1) Paying for access could become a norm that could stifle opportunities for startup Internet services. Existing companies with deep pockets can afford to pay fees to broadband giants for simply delivering Internet service, but what about the next generation of Internet-based services? Public-interest groups are worried that "such deals could normalize an environment" in which broadband providers can charge fees for delivering content, . With its dominant market power, Comcast could, for instance, charge prohibitive fees to stifle upstarts. 2) Payments for access have always happened. Now they're just going to different parties, since the "middleman" was cut out of this deal. Netflix has been paying fees for access to Comcast and other servers — it paid content distribution networks, which are third-party middlemen. Now, Netflix will pay Comcast directly for access, instead of the content distribution RCA audio video cable networks. Streaming industry blogger Dan Rayburn excoriated traditional media outlets for writing that consumers may have to foot the bill for Netflix's deal with Comcast: <blockquote class="edTag"> "This could not be further from the truth. Those stating this have no clue how Netflix delivers their content today or what costs they already incur. If they did, they would know this is not a new cost to Netflix, it's simply paying a different provider, and it should be at a lower cost. It should actually be cheaper for Netflix to buy direct from Comcast." </blockquote> 3) The deal transforms the "net neutrality" debate. The Federal Communications Commission , though it's writing a new framework now. For the feds to ensure a level playing field and no haves and have nots in terms of Internet speeds, net neutrality advocates assumed residential Internet service providers receive the Internet from RCA audio video cable one big pipe, and net neutrality rules could prohibit the creation of "fast lanes" and "slow lanes." But if Netflix can connect directly to the service providers, every company would have its own pipe, making policing those a really thorny problem. "Cutting out the middleman might make the Internet more efficient, but it will also make it less competitive," . "Cogent [a third-party content distribution network] has many competitors. Verizon's FiOS service does not. If companies like Cogent are squeezed out of business, it will make these already powerful network owners even more powerful." 4) It affects the way federal regulators will view the proposed Comcast-Time Warner mega-merger. The FCC may have recently lost the fight to regulate Internet provider interconnection, but regulators were inevitably going to look at those issues in the proposed merger between the two Speaker Cable giants. Via : <blockquote class="edTag"> "If ISPs did begin charging for access, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings vowed to fight such a move in Washington. [Bernstein Research analyst Carlos] Kirjner said he wouldn't be surprised if Sunday's agreement was conditional on an agreement by Netflix not to lobby regulators to add IP-interconnection to its Time Warner Speaker Cable merger review." </blockquote> Lee at The Post, however, , saying "the growing power of residential broadband providers will put growing pressure on the FCC to do something to prevent the abuse of that power."
2017年5月26日(金)
In the absence of a high-resolution structure
Our ELDOR experiments on YF1 H22P with inverted signal response revealed a drastically altered LOV photosensor dimer interface. The N-terminal A’α helices that in the original YF1 are embraced by the two LOV photosensors (Fig. 1A) and that play important roles in signal propagation and modulation19, 20 are displaced and possibly unstructured in H22P. As unequivocally demonstrated by ELDOR distance measurements on photo-induced NSQ radicals of the FMN chromophores, the two LOV photosensors in H22P are much closer in distance than in the original YF1. The observed distance between the two NSQ perfectly agrees with a flush packing of the LOV domains against another via their β sheets. Strikingly, this altered quaternary structure largely corresponds to the arrangement in an earlier structure of the isolated BsYtvA LOV domain that entirely lacked the A’α helices. Given its completely altered dimer interface, it is perplexing that the H22P variant still transduces LED Filament Bulbsignals, and even more so, in inverted manner.
In the absence of a high-resolution structure of the H22P variant, we modelled LED Filament Bulb-induced structural transitions on the basis of the N-terminally truncated BsYtvA LOV structure. Due to this approximation, it is challenging to extract reliable quantitative data, and the results should be considered qualitative in nature. Nonetheless, structural modelling constrained by the ELDOR data implied that the two LOV photosensors undergo a light-induced rotation and concomitant displacement of the Jα attachment sites that resemble the molecular response to light in YF1, even though the overall structure of the H22P variant is quite different from that of YF1. However, in marked difference to YF1, in the H22P variant LED Filament Bulbabsorption led to an approach of the Jα anchor sites rather than a separation, consistent with the inverted signal response. Despite different initial structure and conformational transitions of YF1 and the H22P variant, similar forces are exerted on the Jα coiled coil and give rise to a common mode of signal propagation, albeit with inverted signal polarity. These findings exemplify the remarkable malleability and robustness of signal receptors which arguably promote rapid adaption to novel stimuli and rewiring of signalling pathways during evolution. Notably, the convergence of signal mechanisms appears to be a recurring theme in sensor histidine kinases19, 36, 37: For different sensor modules signal-induced responses as diverse as pivot, piston, rotation and association reactions have been identified, yet the regulation of histidine kinase activity could well follow a unifying mechanism38.
Conclusion
In the absence of a high-resolution structure of the H22P variant, we modelled LED Filament Bulb-induced structural transitions on the basis of the N-terminally truncated BsYtvA LOV structure. Due to this approximation, it is challenging to extract reliable quantitative data, and the results should be considered qualitative in nature. Nonetheless, structural modelling constrained by the ELDOR data implied that the two LOV photosensors undergo a light-induced rotation and concomitant displacement of the Jα attachment sites that resemble the molecular response to light in YF1, even though the overall structure of the H22P variant is quite different from that of YF1. However, in marked difference to YF1, in the H22P variant LED Filament Bulbabsorption led to an approach of the Jα anchor sites rather than a separation, consistent with the inverted signal response. Despite different initial structure and conformational transitions of YF1 and the H22P variant, similar forces are exerted on the Jα coiled coil and give rise to a common mode of signal propagation, albeit with inverted signal polarity. These findings exemplify the remarkable malleability and robustness of signal receptors which arguably promote rapid adaption to novel stimuli and rewiring of signalling pathways during evolution. Notably, the convergence of signal mechanisms appears to be a recurring theme in sensor histidine kinases19, 36, 37: For different sensor modules signal-induced responses as diverse as pivot, piston, rotation and association reactions have been identified, yet the regulation of histidine kinase activity could well follow a unifying mechanism38.
Conclusion
2017年5月26日(金)
To determine interatomic distances
To determine interatomic distances between the labelled positions in YF1, we first recorded ELDOR traces on dark-adapted samples. The time evolution signal of all variants showed clear modulations indicative of two spatially close, interacting spin species (Suppl. Fig. S2). Following background correction (Suppl. Fig. S3), distance probability distributions p(r) were determined by Tikhonov regularisation (Fig. 2A). For positions Q44C, E55C and N84C situated in the upper half of the LOV photosensor dimer (cf. Fig. 1), the p(r) distributions showed single dominant, fairly narrow distance peaks centred at 2.8 nm (Q44C), 5.0 nm (E55C) and 6.1 nm (N84C), respectively (Fig. 2A, blue lines). The two remaining positions within the upper half of the LOV photosensor dimer featured broader distance distributions, centred at around 2.7 nm for P87C and with several distance contributions between 2.0 nm and 5.0 nm for D115C. Positions within the lower half of the LOV photosensor dimer also showed narrow distance distributions centred at 4.7 nm for D71C, 6.2 nm for D76C, 2.7 nm for Q93C and 3.6 nm for M101C. Of the positions within the coiled-coil linker, Q130C alone showed good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) but a rather broad probability distribution of distances between 1.5 nm and 4.2 nm. By contrast, both A134C and V144C had very low SNR and were heavily affected by spurious distance contributions arising from proton and deuteron artefacts (Fig. 2A, shaded grey). Nonetheless, dominant distances of 3.7 nm (Q130C), 3.8 nm (A134C) and 3.7 nm (V144C) could be identified.
Figure 2
Figure 2
ELDOR-based structural model of light-induced transitions in YF1. (A) Distance distributions of dark-adapted (blue) and LED Candle Lights-adapted (red) states derived from ELDOR experiments (Suppl. Figs S2 and S3). Areas shaded gray indicate artefacts arising from proton and deuteron modulations. Labels positioned near the A’α helices (Q44C, E55C) and in the linker (Q130C, A134C and V144C) showed no change upon illumination, others showed shifts to larger distances. (B) Transition from dark-adapted (blue) to light-adapted (yellow) state as modelled by ENM including the P87C constraint. Predominant structural changes are marked by green arrows, and the attachment sites for the Jα linker are indicated by red spheres.
Full size image
Figure 2
Figure 2
ELDOR-based structural model of light-induced transitions in YF1. (A) Distance distributions of dark-adapted (blue) and LED Candle Lights-adapted (red) states derived from ELDOR experiments (Suppl. Figs S2 and S3). Areas shaded gray indicate artefacts arising from proton and deuteron modulations. Labels positioned near the A’α helices (Q44C, E55C) and in the linker (Q130C, A134C and V144C) showed no change upon illumination, others showed shifts to larger distances. (B) Transition from dark-adapted (blue) to light-adapted (yellow) state as modelled by ENM including the P87C constraint. Predominant structural changes are marked by green arrows, and the attachment sites for the Jα linker are indicated by red spheres.
Full size image