mrburns2012

That's a very interesting video.

or even better - evolution kicks in and selects the strongest of the strong, giving rise to a society that sees atherosclerosis, strokes, and heart attacks as nothing more than a distractive itch.

Is fast food healthy for me? Definitely not in the long run. Is it necessary? For me, yes. Either that or stay hungry.

The OP is probably referring to open wounds in the mouth like canker sores. If that's the case, check out: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000998.htm#Complications In short, it states, "Rarely, bacterial infections such as cellulitis and Ludwig's angina may occur." From that, I guess you can get an infection, but it's rare and may not necessarily come from chicken. Common sense tells me you should avoid undercooked meat and practice good oral hygiene, but that's wise thing to do in general anyway. And don't take my comments as expert or medical advice. I'm as unfamiliar with the condition as most of everyone else.

You remind me of this guy Aubrey de Grey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey). He was on a quest just like yours, and even became the subject of the documentary film, "Do You Want to Live Forever?" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3329065877451441972&hl=en Watch it if you want to see where the road might lead you.

I would like to know how many drinks it'd take for me to learn all that cool info.

To be more accurate, glucose breakdown often refers to its conversion to some form of energy like ATP. After a meal, your blood glucose level will skyrocket, so to protect you from hyperglycemia, your body releases insulin which signals organs like muscles, fat tissues and liver to remove glucose from blood and store it. The stored glucose can be released back into blood when needed (e.g. when you're asleep) to protect you from hypoglycemia. The hormone telling the body to release stored glucose into the blood is glucagon. See this graph, if you're a visual person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Suckale08_fig3_glucose_insulin_day.jpg

Informative and reliable. Should be very useful for a lot of people. I like it!

To study human physiology, pathology, etc..., animal models are absolutely not required since we could always perform in vivo experiments directly on humans. Unfortunately, I think you would run into problems looking for volunteers . On the other hand, in vivo experiments are very important because we simply don't know enough to predict everything from in vitro experiments.

Bees experience a similar problem: sterile worker bees can't reproduce (obviously), but they're adaptive. People have done extensive studies trying to explain why sterile worker bees are adaptive. I'm not suggesting that there's an absolute answer for your assignment, but you could always extrapolate reasonable ideas from animal studies, like ones of honey bees. Another related question is why sterile grandparents (e.g. postmenopausal females, or most males, not including Hugh Hefner) might be adaptive.

meet one special couple and their bundle of joy: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/02/14/boy.baby.dad.england/index.html?eref=edition What do you think? Plausible?

You'll pretty much find any formula you might need here: http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/ To emphasize what has been said numerous times before, the difficult part isn't the memorization. It's knowing when to use them.

Simply refusing a paternity test does not suggest that the test will be positive. If the mother has recently had and affair with ten men who works for her husband, your guess will be wrong 10 out of 11 times.

All PLoS journals or specifically PLoS ONE? I like PLoS ONE, but I'm not sure of it's progress.

I worked with a faculty with assistant professor status during most of my undergrad, and I can tell you I noticed a lot of stress and frustration with grants and funding. It's unfortunate but with an economic downturn affecting all almost everything, it's not very surprising. Hopefully Obama and company can pull some tricks out of their sleeves.

How do you plan to deal with the mess? (let's say there was a complication.) Design new human waste disposal equipments?

From what I can tell, I think it's because "Venus" and "Mercury" originate from proper nouns whereas no mythical figures that I know of are named "Moon" or "Sun." Similarly, assuming there's only one rock and one guy named Happy Gilmore just as there is only one Venus (planet) and one moon: Correct: "Look at a rock." ("Look at the Sun.") Incorrect: "Look at rock." ("Look at Sun.") Correct: "I saw Happy Gilmore." ("I saw Venus.") Incorrect: "I saw a Happy Gilmore?" ("I saw the Venus.")

René Descartes exists. Therefore, I do too.

To add, rational conclusions don't always lead to correct conclusions. For instance, my conclusion from the poll that there are as many people who believe in Thor as there are those who don't is perfectly valid and rational, but is highly likely to be incorrect. Other examples include beliefs that the earth is flat, sun revolves around the earth, etc... The idea is that conclusions drawn from rationality, although unlikely, may not be any more true than one from irrationality. The reason some people are stirred up by your seemingly condescending post about god and unicorns is likely that you somehow suggested they are without a doubt wrong about their beliefs when we in fact don't know because we can neither prove nor disprove them. In fact, claiming that unicorns don't exist is also one of those science facing "the impossibility of evidence."

We are After all' date=' we invented the words, didn't we? Even without going too far, even in this very thread in fact, there posts validating whether or not some conclusions are rational.

I don't believe that paper clips created the universe because I believe that god created it. My "rationality" isn't justified by modern scientific standards, but it is a belief nonetheless. And the difference, in my opinion, is this: rationally concluded "beliefs" e.g. theories and hypothesis are justified by its predictive potential, whereas irrationally concluded ones are "justified" by faith until there is evidence to the contrary. Obviously, modern science does not consider faith sound evidence.

"Do you believe in God?" is not silly a question. We can believe in the existence of god for the same reason we don't believe in the existence of Thor. Unlike what you seemed to suggest, beliefs don't have to be rational or justified. I think the question you really wanted to ask is, "Do you have evidence to justify the existence of god?"

There are far more simplistic solutions the problem of energy and food shortage. Either increase their supply or decrease their demand. The former is challenging, but the latter isn't.

You're missing quite a few options. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fields_of_science for suggestions. Or at least have an option for "other."

Yes. How else could you explain thunder and lightning?