It's been a while (almost 2 months) since I've published the riddles for this contest.
Recently I found out about SteemAuto service and its scheduled posting feature.
From now on, no more delays.
This contest will restart on Saturday, November 30, 2019, 20:00 ± 2 minutes UTC (the “Molecule of the month” stage, for more on this later).
-> https://time.is/UTC
UTC / Universal Time Coordinated / Coordinated Universal Time / Universal Time / Greenwich Mean Time
In a nutshell, this contest is an attempt to promote scientific knowledge among community in a fun and interesting way with the help of molecules.
Initial Introduction post can be found here
If you aren’t aware how the riddle might look like, here’s the previous riddles:
- “Identify the molecule” contest #1...
- “Identify the molecule” contest #2...
- “Identify the molecule” contest #3...
Emblem
(Myoglobin. It's the protein carrying oxygen in the muscle tissue of vertebrate. The image was created by me with the help of PyMol - open source tool for molecular visualization/exploration. PDB-file was obtained from PDB. You can see a heme at the center of the molecule)
I’d like to set Myoglobin as the emblem for this contest because
Any discussion of protein structure must necessarily begin with myoglobin, because it is where the science of protein structure began. After years of arduous work, John Kendrew and his coworkers determined the atomic structure of myoglobin, laying the foundation for an era of biological understanding.
[source]
Myoglobin is the first protein with its three-dimensional structure/atomic structure revealed in 1958 [1].
There’re some changes introduced to the contest.
"Molecule of the month"
The idea comes from The RCSB PDB Molecule of the Month initiative.
…presents short accounts on selected molecules from the Protein Data Bank
[source]
I’d like to mention that the choice of the molecule of the month is quite subjective. It doesn’t mean that the “Molecule of the month” has some advantages over/is more important than the molecules proposed for the week’s riddles.
In the context of this contest it just means that the riddle for the molecule of the month will be partially based on the information provided in the previous riddles for the molecules of the week.
So, this contest started in September. There were 3 riddles. And now, at the end of November (Saturday, November 30) there will be the “Molecule of the month” stage of the contest.
It seems logical to introduce
the “Molecule of the year” stage, right?
Well, it also seems logical to introduce
the “Molecule of the decade”
and
the “Molecule of the century”
stages (not sure we’ll survive for the last one, though (with all due respect ; ) )).
All this leads to the idea of the “Identify the molecule" league.
"Identify the molecule" league
That’s the new name for this contest.
-> league
the contest for the championship of a league
[Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press, 2010]
So, every week on Saturday (20:00 ± 2 minutes UTC) you’ll see a new riddle.
There will be 3 riddles for the “Molecule of the week“ stage, and at the end of the month you’ll see the 4th riddle for the “Molecule of the month“ stage.
I hope the following image will help you to understand the way this league it going to function:
I’d like to stress that you can participate in any week, any stage, and you’ll have a chance to get some prizes.
But it’s the winner of the week’s stage who will have a chance to compete for the bigger (month’s) prize.
And it’s the winner of the month’s stage who will have a chance to compete for the bigger (year’s) prize.
Explanation for the “(* see details below)” section of the image (bottom right)
Let’s say that you will be the winner of the upcoming stage (“Molecule of the month” stage) on Saturday.
If you are one of the winners of the previous weeks’ stages, you will get 200 STEM for the “Molecule of the month” stage.
If you weren’t the winner of the previous weeks’ stages, you’ll get a smaller prize (100 STEM), plus + you’ll get a chance to compete for the “Molecule of the month” stage of the next month.
Bonuses
As I mentioned in the previous Introduction for this contest, information/knowledge about your own organism and organisms around you should be considered as the real gold/prize here.
-> knowledge
facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject
[Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press, 2010]
Aside from STEM I’d like to add TMN tokens.
For the uninitiated, TMN is the token of TranslateMe project (it’s about combining blockchain technology (NEO in this case) with translation industry).
The reason I’m going to add this token for the prize pool of this contest is not only because I have them, but because this contest is quite scientific, and TranslateMe project might help to solve the “lost” science problem.
For more on this you can read my post regarding TranslateMe (TranslateMe (or Decentralization meets Translation industry). Part 2. The “missing puzzle piece” of scientific ecosystem. General overview) (and other posts of that series).
So, the crypto-bonuses for this league are:
“Molecule of the week” stage –
100 STEM + 200 TMN
“Molecule of the month” stage –
a) 200 STEM + 400 TMN, if you are the winner of the week’s stage for a given month.
b) 100 STEM + 200 TMN, if you weren’t the winner of the week’s stage. + You get a chance to compete for “Molecule of the month” prize of the next month.
“Molecule of the year” stage –
a) 1000 STEM + 2000 TMN, if you are the winner of the week’s stage for a given month.
b) 500 STEM + 1000 TMN, if you weren’t the winner of the week’s stage. + You get a chance to compete for “Molecule of the month” prize of the next month.
Note that the crypto-bonuses are subject to change. They will not decrease, but may increase in the future (at least I’m planning to add some STEEM).
Important
In order to get TMN, you’ll need to have NEO-wallet and provide me your public NEO-address (if you don’t have it yet, don’t worry, I’ll publish a short post in 2-3 days on how/where to get it).
If there’re no winners on any stage, the prize will be distributed equally among all users who provided any guesses for molecules.
“Identify the molecule" league web-page
Well, even though I’m an amateur JavaScript programmer, I guess I have enough knowledge to create a simple web-page for this contest one day.
That would probably also help with additional promotion of Steem ecosystem.
Rules (changed a little)
In a nutshell,
This contest lasts for 6 days.
Leave your guess (1 guess only) in the comments section of the next post.
Don’t edit your comment and don’t provide any evidence that your answer is correct.
I’ll provide the answer in the comments section of the next post (for the “Molecule of the month” stage) on the 7th day of the week’s stage.
The first user with correct answer is the winner.
Some of the clues will be provided initially in the next post.
Additional clues will be given in 2 days (I’ll update this post).
And the rest of the clues will be provided in 2 more days (I’ll update this post).
The reason is that some people might need less information to make conclusions that the others.
Additional clues will be added at the end of the "Riddle" section before the "Rules" section with "Edited" label.
You can see how this happened for the previous riddles, for example this one.
The winner will be announced on Friday, December 6, 2019, 20:00 ± 2 minutes UTC in the comments section of the next post. Plus I’ll publish a detailed review of the riddle after a while.
I’ll transfer 100/200 STEM + 200/400 TMN (if the winner provides me his/her NEO-address) to the winner on that day (December 6) and add the transaction ID in the comments section.
I’m planning to run this contest every week.
So, you should expect to see the 1 week’s riddle for December on Saturday, December 7, 2019, 20:00 ± 2 minutes UTC.
Important
This contest is the work in progress.
A lot can be changed in the future.
Any recommendations/suggestions are very welcome.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments section.
References
All images (without the license specified) are used under the doctrine known in USA as "Fair Use" (similar doctrines are used in other countries). For more information visit the US Gov website