links 5/12/26: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/05-12-2026

• • https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/pancreatic-cancer-just-met-its-match Ruxandra Tesloianu on daraxonrasib, the new drug that Actually Works on pancreatic cancer.
  • • it targets RAS, which is an old familiar oncogene, but what i hadn't realized is it's "undruggable" in the traditional sense; no pockets!
    • cryo-EM mapping of the protein let them come up with a "molecular glue" drug that attaches RAS to another molecule, cyclophilin A, rendering it inactive. i always wondered if structural biology actually had medical applicability, but here's an example of it being essential and useful -- we wouldn't have had this drug but for a precise molecular map of the target molecule!
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirpan Sikhs are religiously obliged to carry a dagger; "The tenth and final guru, Guru Gobind Singh formally included the kirpan as a mandatory article of faith for all baptised Sikhs, making it a duty for Sikhs to be able to defend the needy, suppressed ones, to defend righteousness and the freedom of expression."
  • https://altdotbinaries.com/2026/05/11/metis-vs-techne/ this is a thoughtful essay about James C. Scott, but I am an exception to the rule, apparently, because I like High Modernism and legibility; i see myself in the position of someone who would like to analyze data or someone who will be out of the loop unless it is made legible to me, more often than I see myself in the position of someone trying to escape the Powers that Be by being confusing.
  • • the other side of "if i am legible, i will be oversimplified, flattened, and controlled" is "if you are illegible, I cannot make head or tail of you; I am forever an outsider, a novice, a non-initiate; you have made your world inaccessible, except to your cronies who know the secret handshake; I cannot help you, I cannot win your trust; I cannot learn anything, I cannot get anything done; you have stalled my progress, mired me in endless inconvenience, presented unfriendly barriers; you have blocked and thwarted me out of spite, even at cost to yourself; and you say it is because you are "truly human" and I am not! you say I am ignorant because I want to know, that I can never understand you because I want to understand you, that I am a machine because I use machines! I can't even express the perversion that is not wanting to share information, not wanting to get things done, not wanting transparency and efficiency; it's backwards, it's the opposite of being an agent, it's something any child would naturally chafe against, it's the dead hand of stasis and corruption, it's letting fear get the best of you, it's despair of cooperation being possible, it's against goals and wants and will itself..."