It is marvelous to live in a world where a protein sequence in Dicaeum eximium's acetylome is known.

[NNadir]

Dicaeum eximium's common name is "Red branded flowerpecker," not "woodpecker," "flower pecker."



It apparently lives in the Bismarck Archipelago in the Southwest Pacific. The Bismarck Archipelago is a series of islands that don't get much attention, other than in history books relating to the Second World War, which was a nuclear war that started an oil war. It was a major area of combat for forces under Douglas MacArthur and a home to the large Japanese military base at Rabaul, a volcanic caldera that made an excellent deep water harbor, at least until - long after the war - the volcano that formed the caldera erupted, destroying the town.

Anyway, here is the sequence for Kat2a, an acetyltransferase involved in the expression of DNA (via histones) in Dicaeum eximium:

QANDACKCNGWKNPNPPTAPRMDLQQPVTNLSEPCRSCGHALGNSWGTSWAGRAGPSLGLTVAFPGTADHVSHLENVSEEEINRLLGMVVDVENLFMSVHKEEDTDTKQVYFYLFKLLRKCILQMSQPVVEGSLGSPPFEKPNIEQGVLNFVQYKFSHLPPKERQTMYELSKMFLLCLNYWKLETPSQFRQRSQNDDVATYKVNYTRWLCYCHVPQSCDSLPRYETTHVFGRSLLKSIFTVTRRQLLEKFRVEKDKLVPEKRTLILTHFPKFLSMLEEEIYGENSPIWEADFTMPAAEGAQLVSRPAAVSTVAVPTTPLFSKKLSSSSSAASLDTSTPEPLPGEKRKLPESLTLEDAKRIRVMGDIPMELVNEVMLTITDPAAMLGPETSLLSANAARDETARLEERRGIIEFHVIGNSLSQKSNKKILMWLVGLQNVFSHQLPRMPKEYITRLVFDPKHKTLALIKDGRVIGGICFRMFPTQGFTEIVFCAVTSNEQVKVREGRWAHTCAPQSLAWAGLSVAGGFSKDIKVPKSRYLGYIKDYEGATLMECELNPRIPYTELSHIIKKQKEIIKKLIERKQAQIRKVYPGLTCFKEGVRQIPIESVPGIRETGWKPLGKEKGKELKDPDQLYNMLKNLLAQIKTHPSAWPFMEPVKKSEAPDYYEIIRFPIDLKTMTERLKNRYYVTKKLFIADLQRIITNCREYNPPDSDYCKCANTLEKFFYFKLKEGGLIDK

A0A7K9KBP5 · A0A7K9KBP5_9PASE

Someone spent a lot of time and resources to find this out, even though there are very few people might actually care.

(I care about acetylomes, but frankly, I never heard of a flowerpecker until a half hour ago.)

This fills me, all the world's troubles not withstanding, with a sense of joy that someone spent a huge amount of time to produce this piece of data.

It is, has been, a beautiful world in which to live. I worry (a lot) that we'll screw it up, but the world and the humanity that finds these things out, are beautiful.

I just felt like saying that.