 A string-frequently asked question is, does distance mean anything? If you go to the string database and query for a list of proteins, you will get a protein network in which your proteins have been connected by interactions and somehow laid out in 2D. It is therefore tempting to look at the distance between proteins and ask, does it mean anything? The short answer is no. The layout is produced by a layout algorithm, which fundamentally tries to make the network look nice. This means it attempts to spread out the proteins, while making the lines short. That of course means that interacting proteins tend to be close to each other, but distance itself is meaningless. The network contains a good example of that. Highlighted in red, you see two proteins that are very close to each other in 2D space, but not connected by an interaction. There is no reason to think that these two proteins have anything in common. So focus on the lines.