Congratulations, Ivar!

There is a tradeoff between mobility and affinity. Increasing length reduces binding cooperativity (for fixed valence) which initially aids mobility until entanglement kicks in.

I agree with your speculation of a publication bias. When developing our paper, I spoke to several groups sitting on unpublished negative results. We even changed the pitch of our paper to emphasize the (limited) regimes of acceleration, when the real message is about retardation.

Put simply: high concentrations facilitate reactions because you get more molecular collisions. However, molecules don't move well (or collide) when they are stuck together:
journals.aps.org/pre/abstract...

Not sure I have advice to give, but I will offer congratulations on the life/career achievement!

I don't know if I'm more relieved to hear that my cultural references aren't as old as I feared, or more concerned that the same bad idea emerged from independent sources.

It seems your coach was unable to tell the difference between a cartoon and an instructional video on coaching pedagogy

This was a running joke in a South Park episode. But, if there is one thing we have learned since it aired, there is a significant part of the population that is incapable of telling the difference between satire and reality.

A lot of complexity comes from thinking in terms of two-phase dilute/dense equilibrium. A three-state monomer/oligomer/dense framework is much easier. The monomer/oligomer and monomer/dense equilibria are easy to understand (and calculate) and the oligomer/dense comes along for free. 7/7

We show how to subtract oligomer effects from experimental data in order to reveal the solubility product phase boundary. The deviations from power law can then be used to understand the dense phase energy landscape. 6/7

Second, unlike salts, biomolecular condensates do not have strict stoichiometries. Variable stoichiometry in the dense phase bends the power law phase boundary, resulting in a larger two-phase region. 5/7

First, the solubility product describes the relationship between the dense phase and free monomers. But the dilute phase concentration measured by experiments usually includes oligomers. Oligomers cause "re-entrant" and "magic number" effects, both of which shrink the two-phase region. 4/7

Biomolecular phase diagrams rarely show power law boundaries. We show that the solubility product power law still works, but it is hidden by two opposing effects. 3/7

Multi-component condensation has a lot in common with salts, which have simple power-law phase boundaries. The exponent in the power law comes from the salt’s dissociation constant, the so-called “solubility product”. 2/7