Ringer

There are two 'gates' on neuron's sodium channels. One is closed at ~50mV and one closes at ~-70mV (IIRC) so it would depend on which one you wouldn't allow to close. If neither could close then after the firing of one action potential the membrane potential couldn't be reestablished even with the K+ channels opening because Na+ would constantly be leaking through and the Na+/K+ pump would just keep pumping to no avail. The electrochemical gradient would reach equilibrium and the neuron would end up dying. Also, Ek and Ena are probably used to represent the potential of K+ and potential of Na+

I'll try to find some papers later, but from what I remember handedness seems to be largely environmental (eg genetic correlations tend to be very weak). Being left handed is a pain in the @$$, the world is backwards (power tools always want to kill you), so it would be interesting that handedness isn't genetic.

http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/us-government-shuts-down-access-to-online-courses-from-syria-sudan-iran-and-cuba In a time when education is one of the most important things one can have the US government has screwed over people trying to better themselves. I have no idea how this move makes sense, nothing taught in university courses is a big secret. Anybody have any other feelings on this than disgust?

Why wouldn't there ever be an increase in their surface area or volume? Bacteria eat things and can grow . . .

I have no problem helping people that are seeking clarification or answer genuine questions when people are trying to learn, but to just ask what is essentially the same question over and over is ridiculous. If you are truly interested here's a book that can answer the majority of the questions you have brought up: Anatomy of the Vertebrates (9th ed) – Kent & Carr

I was more talking about to the quote about convergent locomotion. Well, I can't find my Gaining Ground by Jennifer Clack (where I thought I read that) or my anatomy of chordates book that I also thought had that in it. The 9th edition of Vertebrate Life says that the earliest tetrapods evolved in shallow marine or estuarine environments, in other words it appears I was mistaken.

The cure for aging is death, it's completely natural

There are only so many ranges of motion when your axial muscles only allow for lateral undulation. So it's not surprising that that lateral movement would be the primitive motion before specialized muscle groups developed. But terrestrial ancestors where sarchopterygians (lobe finned fishes) not chondrichthyes, so there were probably differences in the specifics of their movements. IIRC early amphibians evolved in swamps or some other freshwater habitat without a strong current.

I apparently completely missed the word 'never' in the text I quoted. I feel this is probably part of the reason I should never try to read a speech.

Wait, the image in the link is supposed to look 2-dimensional? It looks 3-dimensional to me.

The question doesn't make sense. There are salamanders with external gills and there are some with internal gills. Vertebral columns, lungs, 3-part brain, bones, paired lateral appendages, jaws, etc, etc. synapsid skull, four chambered heart, fur, lack of gills, bones/hard cartilage lung support, mammory glands, etc, etc, etc. No, neotenic states are juvenile states retained into adulthood. Besides, neither of those examples = lack of skin. I don't know of any chordate that doesn't have skin. If you want well formed answers try to ask questions that don't read like you are typing every word that pops into your head. It makes everything disjointed and very difficult to follow

I do the exact opposite. I may have bullets or slides with a little bit on them to remind me what to cover, but I never have an actual speech. As long as I feel like I know what I'm talking about I will just look at whatever point or topic I want to mention and talk about it. I feel like I come off more naturally and I'm far more comfortable just talking about the things I know. Whenever I've had a script I have to follow I think more about if I'm reciting my script correctly and less about whatever topic I'm trying to cover. To the OP, my advise would be to be as comfortable with your topic as you can. The more comfortable with your topic the more comfortable you will be talking about that topic. I also try to not think about talking to a large group of people, I look at one person and act like I'm talking to them for a short period then look at one other person. It makes it feel like I'm having a discussion instead of speaking in front of a lot of people.

Then fundamentalism is still wrong Then fundamentalism is still wrong and ridiculous.

How do you explain Van der Waals interactions if electrons are stuck to a nucleus?

But that's a just a tautology, so it doesn't work as a logical argument. Also, with that logic we could say that every religion and non-religion is the word of god, so the term 'word of god' becomes meaningless. To the OP, we can validly assume the bible isn't the word of god because of various lines of evidence. First is the fact that the books of the bible were written by several different authors; accounts of events, rules, and teachings are self contradictory; historical inaccuracies; etc. So unless the god whose word is written as the bible isn't the all powerful/knowing (or unless this god is prone to gross exaggeration) it's safe to assume that the bible wasn't written by god.

For doing research on the metabolic/cellular scale I would say do a minor in biochem. There are some researchers in neurophysics, but I don't think it's a very promising field with what we have/know today. Then again, I'm barely passingly familiar with what that research entails other than the speculative papers I've happen to come across. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

You're argument is equivalent to me saying biology isn't a science because MDs aren't scientists. Therapy is only a very, very small fraction of psychology. I don't even know what this means.

Everything that happens is related to physics, from the way muscles are formed and used to specific wavelengths of light making molecules in photoreceptors isomerize. There's no way to really separate the two (except biologists ignore less ).

What do you mean by artificial nerve stimulation? What kind of movement do you mean? Is all sensory input non-funtional? If there is absolutely no sensory input muscles could contract, but there would be no way for them to contract as functional, purposeful movements.

Women have higher neuronal density than men, so on average the number of neurons stay the same. So the interesting speculation here is, did you actually think about why men have larger brains (hint: men tend to be larger in general) or did you just squawk off a statistic to show a non-existent point?

Yes, it's called artificial selection.

I've had many debates with many Creationists (yay Bible belt) and the vast majority are pretty useless, but there have been a few that I actually had them thinking critically about the creation/evolution 'debate'. It's sort of like winning a lottery, it's pretty unlikely but sometimes you just have to show them ways to analyse their ideas in ways they may have never attempted. On the other hand, I gave up actually getting somewhere with Creationists a long time ago. I mainly use the arguments I do have with them (especially during the wonderful family times during the holidays) to help my own critical thinking skills, communication skills, and hope someone who may be listening may think about the conversion critically. Just like on the forums, you don't necessarily write a response to cranks to get the cranks to admit they are wrong, but to show someone that isn't familiar with the ideas that those ideas are bunk.

SlavicWolf mentioned one claims to have a PhD in genetics. Given this seems incredible, but I have personally had a genetics professor who used to work in a fairly prestigious medical college that was a Creationist (he has a PhD in genetics). Part of the Creationist playbook is to sound scientific enough to fool laymen. If you have the scientific background, training, or have studied it enough their arguments are obviously word vomit, but to most people the use of jargon is enough to convince them the argument is science. Watch or read any advertisement for alternative medicine, herbal supplements, or damn near everything and you'll hear sciencey sounding jargon that doesn't really mean much of anything, but it sounds good enough to fool a lot of people.

To add to what was said above, one must also take into account what species is being talked about. If no species is mentioned you should probably think about the relative importance of visual systems vs. chemical receptor systems in early evolutionary development. Specifically even some of the most primitive organisms have chemoreceptors that can be used to accurately detect specific compounds, while vision is an 'overview' of what something contains without specificity. Also, chemical receptors are used both internally and externally (though very specialized in olfactory systems) it was probably a very early and relatively easy adaptation to go from internal chemical receptors to external chemical receptors.

Alright, I posted a over 100 studies with data about GMOs and I reassert his call for evidence. So where is the evidence of actual harm and danger that is solely due to GMOs?