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Glossary of Molecular Reality jargon

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Words coined or used in a special sense by Molecular Reality Corporation
See also: Glossary of nanopore terms and List of Molecular Reality Corporation puns

This glossary defines the words that Molecular Reality Corporation coined, or uses in a sense of its own, in its games, member software, essays and plans. Many name problems the company has not solved, or devices and models it has not built, and it labels those as plans. Others are a unit of time, a form of address and the controls of a game console. Where a word has its own article, the entry links to it. General terms of the science, such as current blockade and translocation, are in the glossary of nanopore terms.

The company's founder, Kent Kemmish, describes himself as "a verbal anarchist".[1] Many of the words below are his.

A

AEST
"Accelerationist-Equivalent-Subjective-Time". A post of 2026 dates the first slide deck of demonpore, inc. to "several thousand years ago in AEST", "i.e., around 2015".[2]
Analytically universal single device (A.U.S.D.)
An instrument that could measure and identify any molecule, cell or particle on its own, without a separate test for each target. Members were once offered a quest worth 1,000 experience points to discuss one: "Imagine an analytical universal single device! Let's discuss."[3]

B

Biology Is Just Beginning
The tagline set under the company's double-helix wordmark, with a small trademark sign, in every colorway of the mark.
Biopopulism
The movement the company hopes to build, in which ordinary people own molecular sensors and do biology once confined to laboratories and hospitals. "We view this as a movement first, and a corporation second."[4]
BioSingularity TELETHON
The name under which live sessions with the founder are announced in the member software, by a ticker reading "BioSingularity TELETHON live NOW click to join".[3]
The brain
Company shorthand for the companies that build large artificial intelligence models for science, such as Isomorphic Labs and Lila Sciences. The company calls itself the eye. See brain lab.
The brainbot
A chatbot planned in 2022 for the control panel of Maxine's Quest.

C

Church of Sequence Space
A cultural side project devoted to DNA and other "aperiodic polymers", molecules whose order of units carries information; in the company's lore the founder started it in 2013.
Clay TV
A television set modeled in pink clay in a corner of Maxine's Quest, meant to show the live current through the company's pore. In the standard version of the game it shows a flat line.
Condiment trials
Tests that run kitchen condiments past the pore of the company's live stream, beginning with a ketchup, a salsa and a mustard in 2026. The field guide's reason: "The road to the small end runs through the big end, and the big end loves ketchup."[5]
CoronaPore
The 2020 project to launch the Molecular Aquarium early, as a response to COVID-19.
Corpspeople
The form of address that The Quartermaster uses for members of the Molecular Streaming Corps: "Corpspeople, stand at attention!"[6]

D

Daemon Pore
The working name of the MR1 Nanopore Reader until a commit of October 18, 2026, which renamed it.
Data TV
A screen in the 2022 design of Maxine's Quest that "shows live current data from the amplifier, and can also be switched to different channels that show various real-time data analytics, such as 2D histograms".[7]
demonpore
The company's name from its incorporation in 2018 until 2021, taken from Maxwell's demon. See demonpore, inc.
demonpore 64
The prototype nanopore reader of 2020 and 2021, built in the shape of a 1980s game console.
Dumb problems
The founder's term for the routine obstacles between a solid-state nanopore experiment and its first useful data. "The biggest, ugliest, dumbest one is: how do you get water through the pore?"[8]

E

Epic Quest Bio (EQBio)
The role-playing game through which the company organizes its work and its volunteers, formerly called Epic Quest Biotechnology.
EQBio-OS
The member software, an inbox with tabs for EQBio-OS, the Molecular Streaming Corps and Minds of Maxine.
Everybody's racing to build the brain
The company's slogan, in full "everybody's racing to build the brain, we're building the eye.", the only sentence on its homepage from August 19 to October 25, 2026.
Experigaming
Experiments run as video games, in which the player's controls operate a real laboratory instrument and the events of the game are made from its measurements. The word appears in the company's December 2022 overview.[7]
The eye
The company's name for itself and its sensors. Its emblem, The Seeing Eye, is an eye with a protein emerging from the pupil.

G

The Golden Blueprint
The design that would answer the Golden Question: the drawings and manufacturing details of a cheap sensor that needs no reagents made for a particular target.
The Golden Question
The first question the company asks of its research, in the words of its member software's tour: "how do we build cheap, [...], label-free, high-throughput, analytically universal molecular sensing devices?"[9]

H

Holey Grail
Reading DNA base by base with a solid-state pore, which no laboratory has published, priced at 9,900,000 experience points on the company's quest board. With an asterisk, the Holey Grail* is the same feat done with chemical labels on the DNA, "where the asterisk is 'required labels but it's a damn good start.'"[10]
The Hole Enchilada
A section of the founder's 2025 essay on Epic Quest Bio, retelling the invention of the Coulter counter.
The Hole World
The company's online atlas of molecular-sensing research groups, published in September 2026.

I

Iridian
A gallery of 197 animated images, "197 Views of the Seeing Eye", in most of which an eye opens and a molecular structure emerges from its pupil. It has been online since July 24, 2026.

J

Journey to Angstromia
A section of the same essay, and the company's name for its plan of working from large pores toward small ones. The field guide: "we are walking it from the big end toward the small."[5]
Juxtapore
"A juxtapore is a pore formed by two surfaces sliding alongside each other, their edges close enough to form the sensing gap."[5] The guide calls it "our own word, chosen because it says precisely what the thing does".

K

Kardashev level
A measure of a civilization's command of energy, after the Kardashev scale. Company copy of February 2026 calls the volunteer network "a virtual machine that we could not build monolithically at our Kardashev level."[4]
Keltar
The company's mascot, a green felt puppet with one eye, who describes himself as "a puppet with a processor".[5]
Kemmishtree
The online name of the founder, and his byline in the member software.

L

Ludician
The character class of game designers, from the Latin ludus, "game".

M

Keltar-fresh
An item on the member software's list of provisions: "It costs us a few cents to make, smells like mint chocolate, and will let you display your allegiance to the mission in a delicious smelling way. ETA: March 2026". The estimate had not been changed by October 2026.[3]
Mambapore
The founder's name for the method of a 2025 paper that sorts nanopore signals with a Mamba neural network. The paper's authors did not use it.[1]
Maxine
The company's cartoon of Maxwell's demon, a red clay imp.
Minds of Maxine
A tab of the member software in Maxine's voice, described as an "AI-human Society of Minds".[2]
Molecular Aquarium
A silicon chip, begun in January 2020, on which one plate of pores slides over arrays of others "like a vernier caliper". Its arrays have not been tested.
Molecular Gaming Console
The company's description of the demonpore 64, "the world's first 'Molecular Gaming Console'", usually with a trademark sign.[3]
Molecular Self-Play (MSP)
A pore that catches a single molecule, measures it many times and lets it go, guided by its own measurements. Tag line: "TRAP · SENSE · RELEASE · REPEAT".[11]
Molecular streaming
Detecting molecules with small sensors and sending the measurements live over the internet. The founder gave two reasons for the name: molecules stream through the detectors, and the data streams to people.[12]
Molecular Streaming Corps (MSC)
The company's volunteer community, founded in 2024 as the Molecular Streaming Services Corps. The old initials, M.S.S.C., are still on the paper sign of Keltar's mug.
Molecular tomography
A proposed way to identify one molecule by measuring it in a pore under many conditions and combining the results, as a CT scanner combines X-ray projections.
Molecular TV (MTV)
The company's homepage in the first half of 2025, a channel of texteracts.
Molecupedia
The encyclopedia in which this glossary appears, "The Encyclopedia of Very Small Things".

N

Nanopore printing
An unrealized plan of 2022 to make pores inside the console's cartridges with pulses of electricity.
The Nanopore World Model
"a planned public domain model, trained on our streamed data, that learns what signal producing events look like in a pore". The field guide introduces it, with RLMF, as one of two proposals.[5]

P

Planetary Bioshield
The defensive half of utility-scale molecular sensing: a worldwide network of sensors that would give early warning of pandemics.
Player Scientist
The title of a volunteer who plays Epic Quest Bio, often written with a trademark sign.
Potion platter
A control in the 2022 design of Maxine's Quest for telling the system which reagents had been added to the sample.[7]
Pre-Wright Brothers Flights
The caption under which the company's video catalog lists a recording of one of its first sliding-occlusion experiments, of about 2015 or 2016.

R

Radical openness
The policy that the company's designs, protocols, data and models should be public: "We want to be radically open".[4]
Rain of blood
The experiment of late 2018 in which the founder bled into a flow cell, the first sample of any kind put through one of the company's adjustable pores.
RLMF
"Reinforcement Learning with Molecular Feedback", a proposal to train artificial intelligence with rewards measured by molecular sensors instead of human ratings.[13]

S

Sciencer
The original name of the Scientist character class. The essay that introduced it says that the name "anthimeriates 'science' full circle, from noun to verb and back to noun" (see anthimeria).[14]
Sliding occlusion
"one surface or pore slides over another, occluding a path for ions, thus changing the effective cross-section of the pore".[7] The founding idea of the company.
Speeding bullet problem
The fact that DNA crosses a bare solid-state pore too fast for its bases to be read one at a time; in the help file, "DNA moves too fast".[15]
Spyke Hunter
The first game the company coded, in 2020 or 2021, whose targets were the spikes made by knots in a nylon filament pulled through a hole about 2 mm wide. The founder calls it "the unfortunately named 'Spyke Hunter'", after the arcade game Spy Hunter.[16]

T

Team Basic Sanity
From the founder's 2025 essay: "We're all on Team Basic Sanity."[14]
Teamonpore
The founder's name for the staff of demonpore, "most of teamonpore" having watched the rain of blood.
Texteract
An animated tesseract made from a piece of writing.
Theranos Derangement Syndrome
A condition named in the same essay for readers who doubt the company: "Don't worry, just take 15 milligrams of Epic Quest Bio™ for a complete recovery."[14]
Tulpa
A being brought into existence by thought. Keltar is "personal tulpa to Kemmishtree".[3]

U

Ultra-Device
A thought experiment of 2022, one instrument with several thousand independently controllable channels. The volunteers and their instruments are meant to add up to a "Virtual Ultra-Device".
Unidentified Signal Producing Event (USPE)
"a unique molecular fingerprint or electrical signature generated by an uncharacterized substance passing through the nanopore", in the help file.[17]
Universal Molecular Streaming (UMS)
The founder's shorter name for the company's long-range goal: "I came up with Universal Molecular Streaming because it's fewer syllables."[18]
Universe wrapper
The art, story and scoring of one game laid over the company's instrument software, in which spikes in the current spawn monsters.
Utility-scale molecular sensing
"Molecular sensing with the scale, economics, and universal adoption of electricity, running water, and internet."[19]

V

The Very Big Question
"How do we build compact cheap passive durable single devices that can 'see' any molecule without affinity labels?"[2]

W

Whisper in a thunderstorm problem
The difference in current between two DNA bases is smaller than the noise of a measurement fast enough to see it; in the help file, "signals are too faint".[15]
World Particle Project (WPP)
A planned catalog of the signals of particles from water, soil, air and breath, "indexed by biological source and, with environmental samples, GPS-tagging".[7]

X

XP
Experience points, the game points of Epic Quest Bio, earned for quests that range from reporting a bug to the Holey Grail.

Z

Zapper stick
A red-handled control that "applies a brief spike of maximum voltage" across the pore. See the zapper.[7]
Zeptoliter
10−21 liter, a cube 10 nm on a side. The founder headed a message "Zeptoliter is My Favorite Unit of Measurement".[20]

References

  1. ^ a b Kemmishtree (March 29, 2026). "Mambapore". EQBio-OS.
  2. ^ a b c Kemmishtree (March 28, 2026). "Welcome to my Minds". EQBio-OS.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Company records". Molecular Reality Corporation. October 2026.
  4. ^ a b c "Molecular Reality Corporation (website)". Molecular Reality Corporation. February 26, 2026.
  5. ^ a b c d e "Keltar's Field Guide to Molecular Reality". Molecular Reality Corporation. August 2026.
  6. ^ Quartermaster (March 29, 2026). "The Line". EQBio-OS.
  7. ^ a b c d e f "Scientific and technical overview". Molecular Reality Corporation. December 2022.
  8. ^ Kemmishtree (March 29, 2026). "Focused Ion Beam pore". EQBio-OS.
  9. ^ "EQBio-OS tour". Molecular Reality Corporation. 2026.
  10. ^ Kemmishtree (March 29, 2026). "Magic with labels". EQBio-OS.
  11. ^ "Molecular Self-Play". Molecular Reality Corporation. July 2026.
  12. ^ Kemmishtree (March 28, 2026). "Marching orders". EQBio-OS.
  13. ^ "RLMF". molecularreality.com. Molecular Reality Corporation. June 29, 2026.
  14. ^ a b c Kemmishtree (2025). "Epic Quest Bio". Molecular Reality Corporation.
  15. ^ a b "Frequently asked questions". EQBio-OS. Molecular Reality Corporation. 2026.
  16. ^ Kemmishtree (March 29, 2026). "Sequencing a string". EQBio-OS.
  17. ^ "EQBio-OS help: Data, AI & Community Ecosystem". Molecular Reality Corporation. 2026.
  18. ^ Kemmishtree (March 28, 2026). "Big Picture". EQBio-OS.
  19. ^ "Our North Star: Utility-Scale Molecular Sensing". Molecular Reality Corporation. 2022.
  20. ^ Kemmishtree (March 29, 2026). "Zeptoliter Nanobridge". EQBio-OS.
Retrieved from "https://molecularreality.com/wiki/Glossary_of_Molecular_Reality_jargon"
Last edited 1 hour ago by Debye Length Enjoyer