Area54

Presumably the "assassin molecule" is not itself involved in Huntington's disease, or could be restricted to the target tumour. On a more general point I find these reports of potential cancer cures poignant. Practical applications are typically many years, even decades away, yet the individuals to whom they are likely to be of intense interest do not have years.

Well, I for one just said it was. It is a novel application of materials and objects to take advantage of an observation with scientific overtones. That seems, to me, a fair defintion of an invention.(And as long as it is in quotation marks I'd say I was a "scholar". :))

The distinction between discovery and invention can be blurred in some circumstances, but I think your interpretation misses the mark. It would, I think, be more accurate to state that the Chinese discovered that certain metal objects pointed in a consistent direction. They then invented an instrument to make use of this discovery. I don't think Swansont said it had nothing to do with physics. He asked which aspect of physics you wished to discuss (since this is a discussion forum :)).

If someone claims it's because that's how God made Adam, it's a hoax. If someone claims it's to do with gentics, it's a hox.

I think this point merits repetition and expansion, NimrodTheGoat. I have the impression that you perceive bacteria as all being much of a muchness. After all, they are only single celled and merely prokaryotes at that. In fact the bacteria, by one current system of nomenclature, represent two of the six biological Kingdoms (Plants, Fungi, Animals, Protists Archaea and Bacteria.) They exist in far wider range of environments than any of the others and consequently their diversity is greater. It is difficult, therefore to see how they represent, in toto, the norm. I suggest the norm, if is existed, was LUCA, the Last Common Ancestor of all life. Everything currently extant and everything that has existed since then is an aberration, in the terms of this thread.

Chimpanzees! You mean those dirty, smelly, violent, deceptive, confrontational animals were outperformed by a chimpanzee!

What worked for me was living through half a century. I can now do an excellent impression, in public, of a confident, self-assured, out-going individual. It's so good I fool myself almost all the time. While perhaps therapy would be indicated and valuable for some, I recommend the carpe diem approach of Horace, or in the 'official' words of Admiral Farragut, in the Battle of Mobile Bay, "Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes".

Firstly, I did not ask you to prove anything. I asked you to state what evidence you had to support your general assertion. The evidence" you have provided appears to consist of two parts: I did not ask you about any potential genetic link related to schizophrenia, so your comments on statistical genetic analysis are irrelevant. Strident agenda driven rhetoric does not constitute evidence. Most intelligent people understand that launching into such emotionally charged rhetoric, where bold assertions and wild accussations are used to cover up the lack of substance, are not the way to convince ones audience. I therefore conclude you are most likely trolling.

I had forgotten that!

I am sympathetic to the view that some behaviours described as mental illness are nothing more than part of the natural spread of behaviour. However, what evidence do you have that schizophrenia is nothing more than a linguistic tool of those nasty capitalists?

Some observations, in no particular order: It is an interesting essay, but as StringJunk said, and? It might work better as a blog. Your suggestion that insitutions in mature societies have reached agreement appears valid only if you ignore the facts. A single example will suffice: the Exuctive branch and the Judicial branch do not seem to be in agreement in the US. You stated that "Society is concerned with the concrete, not the abstract". This is nonsense. If this is the case we would not have museums, concert orchestras, poetry and similar. You stated that "Culture is the raison d'etre for human intelligence". Surely you have misspoken! You seriously mean that human intelligence arose in order to generate culture? You stated that "History has shown Civilisation's seminal progress when isolated cultures merge. In both genetic and cultural encounters and new structures emerge." Unfortunately, in most instance, the cultures don't merge, but one overwhelms and practically destroys the weaker.

Interesting. I've recently started revisiting Classical music. I'm not a fan of Wagner, but I recall fondness for Bruckner symphonies. I'll have look at his works.

You are most welcome. It is a commonly held belief - I'm not sure how it arose. Thinking out loud, if no one has written a popular science book on The Ten Most Common Misunderstandings About Science, then someone ought to.

With respect you appear to be allowing emotion to overrule comprehension skills. On that basis I'm out.

Eise appears to say that "you" must conclude the daily use of 'seeing', in the sense of 'seeing houses, cars and apples' is the wrong meaning. He does not say that he concludes this.

You have missed the point. The meaning of an expression is contingent upon ones interpretation of the meaning and interrelationship of its components. When ambiguity as to these meanings exists contrary interpretations are possible. The inherent awkwardness/peculiarity of my phrase, can we feel touch, was there to provide an alternative example. It either works for the reader, or it doesn't.

I haven't read the entire thread, but I incline to CharonY's remark that this is a semantic debate. That made me wonder, can we feel touch? If you reflect on what that means - and i haven't figured it out - it might lead you to a similar conclusion. If it does nothing for you please excuse the interruption.

It seems unlikely. Blastemas are only one component that is required for regeneration to occur. i.e. blastemas are necessary, but not sufficient. For example In the case of severed limbs an Apical Epithelial Cap forms from the injured epidermis and appears to play a key role in mediating the process. When macrophages were eliminated from salamanders there injuries healed, but regeneration did not occur. Caveat: I'm not a biologist.

The BBC report on the long term orbital behaviour of Musk's Tesla, launched by the Falcon Heavy last week. Here is an extract: The Tesla car that Elon Musk launched into space is likely to stay there for tens of millions of years before crashing into the Earth or Venus. That's the conclusion of an analysis by Czech and Canadian researchers. They calculated that the roadster has a 6% chance of colliding with Earth and a 2.5% probability of hitting Venus over the next million years. But there's no cause for concern: if it eventually returns to Earth, most of the vehicle will burn up. The team's computer simulations suggest there is a very slim chance of the vehicle colliding with the Sun, but little to no chance of the car hitting Mars. The results have been published on the Arxiv.org pre-print server.

Rarity is normally defined on a percentage, or per capita basis. Yes, in your pessimistic case there are many billions of planets where life has evolved, but only one planet out hundreds of billions in any one galaxy has life. I think by any reasonable definition of "rare" that is "rare", if not "extremely rare". And with only one per galaxy we aren't going to have much of a conversation. For all presently discernible practical purposes rare might as well be equivalent to non-existent.

The Article The linked article is unconvincing. I object to it on two grounds: Either the author's understanding of the Kardashev civilisations categories is deficient, or they have deliberately twisted and adapted the definitions without acknowledgement. Neither action encourages me to take their observations seriously. The author makes a couple of absolute statements without justification. I am no fan of absolute statements. (In my more whimsical moments I would say I am completely against them.) They can be a uesful rhetorical device, but they rarely have any place in a serious science discussion. For the record, Kardashev's original concept was based exclusively on the power usage of a civilisation. It gave no consideration whatsoever as to how that power was then used, or the nature of the society using it. A Type 1 civilisation could be a Golden Utopia of the type that Bahadir seems to favour, or a dark, malevolent hell where a few elite subjugate the enslaved masses. This wikipedia link is a good starting point for those unfamiliar with the concept. AI Conquest I have serious reservations about your "battle plan". Despite your confident belief that AIs currently exist, you have presented no meaningful evidence that there are currently any bona fide AIs on the planet. I agree that it is likely that sometime, probably in this century, perhaps in the next one or two decades one or more may exist. However, there are experts in the field who dispute that they are even possible. It might be acceptable to say "If AIs are created in the future then they could prove the means towards becoming a Type 1 civilisation. Here is how it could work". That is acceptable because it contains three qualifications that leave open the acknowledged possibility that you may be wrong. What is not acceptable is saying "AIs already exist and they will enable us to become a Type 1 civilisation." That is not acceptable because it contains two unqualified, unjustified absolutes. If AIs "conquered" the world, for what reason would they bother to allow humans to continue? Might they not develp the view that silicon based life is superior to carbon based life? Unless you can provide justification for the belief that this would not occur then you are simply voicing an unsupported opinion. That is not science.

This may be useful to you. When I was evolving a business or sales strategy, before exposing it to other members of the team I played a little game. I took the draft propsal and imagined it was written by someone I detested, my worst enemy; an individual who was lazy, incompetent and foolish. Now was my chance to demonstrate how ineffective they were by dismembering this proposal, identifying all of its weakenesses, ferreting out the factual errors, highlighting the failures of logic. Then I got stuck into that heap of garbage with relish, ripping it to shreds. Consequently, I subjected it to more intense scrutiny and scepticism than was likely to come from the team and could now restructure it, remove the errors, consolidate the argument and produce a work I could not only be proud of, but be confident that others would approve of it too. You might want to try a similar approach.

Bahadir you have an imagination. This can be a good thing, indeed a great thing. Imagination is important in science, in business, in art, in life in general. However, unfettered, undisciplined imagination is a liability and - at present - your imagination is profoundly undisciplined. Your OP is filled with opinion, unfounded assertion, unsubstantiated beliefs, many of them easily dismissed by logic, or evidence. Yet you persist with beliefs whose only merit appears to be that you believe them to be true. This is not a sensible, objective, rational approach. I do wish you would change your thinking. It wouldn't hurt too much and would produce major long term benefits.

There is a 2004 study in Italy into the origin of black wolves. Occurrence of black wolves in the Northern Apennines, Italy . (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03192528) Unfortunately the article itself is behind a paywall, but here is the abstract: The occurrence of black-coated individuals in wolfCanis lupus Linnaeus, 1758 populations is not surprising itself, but their presence in populations recovering from a severe numerical decline has been considered a possible sign of crossbreeding with the domestic dog. In the northern Apennines (Italy), black wolves occur at a non-negligible frequency. In a 3300 km2 area, 22% of wolves observed and 23% of all dead wolves found were represented by animals with a completely black coat. One ‘black’ wolf belonging to the studied population was analysed by a set of microsatellite loci, and no trace of hybridization was found in its ancestry. This result induced us to consider the occurrence of a black phenotype in this area possibly derived from a natural combination of wolf alleles in coat colour determining genes, and not necessarily as the result of crossbreeding with the domestic form. And this may be the study that Moontanman was aware of through the documentary. "Molecular and Evolutionary History of Melanism in North American Gray Wolves" And the good news is that the complete article is freely available. In the meantime here is the abstract. Morphological diversity within closely related species is an essential aspect of evolution and adaptation. Mutations in the Melanocortin 1 receptor (Mc1r) gene contribute to pigmentary diversity in natural populations of fish, birds, and many mammals. However, melanism in the gray wolf, Canis lupus, is caused by a different melanocortin pathway component, the K locus, that encodes a beta-defensin protein that acts as an alternative ligand for Mc1r. We show that the melanistic K locus mutation in North American wolves derives from past hybridization with domestic dogs, has risen to high frequency in forested habitats, and exhibits a molecular signature of positive selection. The same mutation also causes melanism in the coyote, Canis latrans, and in Italian gray wolves, and hence our results demonstrate how traits selected in domesticated species can influence the morphological diversity of their wild relatives. Note that the conclusion here (black wolves arose from interbreeding with dogs) contrasts with the conclusion in Italy (the black colouration arose independently).

As a long term active member who has made many positive contributions to the forum Studiot is well placed and fully entitled to state his opinion.