I have to laugh. There are few places in the visual world where copy-cat exists more than in scientific illustrations. Working on models of real and “artistic” diagrams of SP-D I can see sthis so clearly. Copy-cat as to mis-information as well as copy-cat as to color, and misnomers as labels and size of molecular elements.  All of these diagrams are hysterical tributes to our willingness NOT to question truth. NOPE not talking politics here, but science.

Some of the clearly labeled SP-D diagrams look more like conglutinin diagrams.. than SP-D, and wouldn’t you know, when looking at shadowed conglutinin (Strang et al, Biochem J, 1986) they have a look more of SP-D with obtuse and acute angles.  In fact the latter sometimes has an interesting configuration of three acute and two obtuse angles not always mirrored. SP-D seemed to be pretty regularly mirrored.

I am planning a comparison, that is, real measurements of the angular dimensions of SP-D from “TEM” images and angular dmensions of real-copy-cat measurementsof SP-D, to see how far adrift from reality we can go, even when we have reality (yes there is likely preparation and fixation artifact in the shadowed, negatively stained and AFM images- that is not new) right under our eyes.