Collagen
File sealed
The detectives are still writing this one up. The poster and the facts are below; the film and the interrogation room open soon.
Booking photographs
The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, ruled every 0.5 nm. A full-length collagen molecule would stand about 30 times taller.
Rap sheet
- Answers to
- Collagen: Greek for “glue maker.”
- Height
- 9.4 nm as drawn: a short lab-made stand-in. The real one is 300 nm.
- Weight
- About 500 zeptograms, full length.
- Build
- Three strands twisted into a rope. Every third link is glycine.
- Habits
- Holds you together. A third of all the protein in your body.
- Marks
- Boiled, it unwinds into gelatin. Cooled, the strands rewind and the dessert sets.
- Weakness
- As gelatin, melts below body temperature. Fresh pineapple chews it up.
- Last seen
- A 5 mL tube marked GELATIN in the fridge at HQ.
of them in a 1/4 oz envelope of plain gelatin, unwound and broken up.
You’ve never seen one.
The poster on the street
This is the photocopied wanted poster for Collagen, No. 36. They were made for noticeboards around Boston, Cambridge and the rest of the east coast.
Found one? Scan its QR code with your phone. If you're a signed-in player, the sighting goes on your record with +1 XP.
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