Genecks

I would think rusting would change the vector positions of the iron molecules.

I'm talking about leaving a bar of iron on my table top. Isn't there a +/- netforce acting on it at all times, and that's why it's rusting?

An object stays in uniform motion until acted upon by a non-zero net force... Ok... But there tends to be an object like air that will cause oxidation and a material to dissipate/rust over time, right? So, is that more in the realm of quantum physics or what?

Start studying academic books and punching out equations.

The reason I consider time to be the factor that makes this worthwhile is because a person with a lot of time can go find the resources to turn into biodiesel. From there, the person can start feeding it into a generator and sell back energy to the power company. Thanks for the calculations.

If you're serious about cold fusion, I think it's possible. It gets into the question of how the universe is really designed. If you take the stance that it's infinite and unlimited, then cold fusion should be possible. However, you would need to extract energy from systems that exist beyond the normal reach of man with science that we just don't have. I'm thinking using wormhole technology or stuff like that. So, you're basically moving energy from one location to another. Otherwise, the energy isn't going to be free. Lots of physics and cosmology involved. Bunch of future science. Depends on how you define cold fusion, too. That's off-topic, though, so make a thread (or search and add) for that if you're interested.

Yeah, there is stuff like that around. MIT has worked on it before. I don't feel like looking it up. I think it had to do with spinach last time I checked. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/spinach-0915.html MIT seems to be one of the schools that keeps playing around with this kind of technology. Yes, MIT has enough money to build something that may not be so worthwhile to have at the moment.

Gas of interest: Biodiesel. Alright, fair argument. Yes, the economics of scale would come into play. I would want to make a fair ROI within three years. But if biodiesel would work well enough, I could at least generate electricity for a house. Assume I have a backyard of 25 ft x 25 ft. Yeah, I came about this idea from looking at gasoline vs. diesel prices. Cost for production of biodiesel. Efficiency of biodiesel. And then I put together ideas and considered how to make it profitable for the individual (since selling homemade biodiesel can be difficult). Seems practical if a person has the money and time: I consider the time factor to be the most available thing to an individual pursuing this idea for profit.

What seems like the issue here is that you hate studying, which is totally understandable. The modern educational system is broken. Nonetheless, studying is a requirement for understanding, formulating, finding, and making knowledge, research, etc.. You'll need to study one way or another. Personally, I find classroom settings to be a passive experience. But, anyway, you'll have to learn to self-study. Not incredibly hard with the Internet communities the way they are these days. All you have to do is keep asking a bunch of questions. Go to a university or college library and start looking through a calculus book. Calculus isn't so difficult. You'll have to know your unit circle trig, but I think calculus is not incredibly difficult to study. And there are plenty of problems to work through that are immediately relevant to help you learn the subject. Also, I understand that you hate studying math, not hate math (which is kind of odd). Might want to work on your English. Best way to do that is try working on it everyday until you feel really comfortable with it. Well, yeah, in a lot of ways public education is free; so the best way to get to people before they are too late is to use the public educational system. Now, I've talked to a lot of older people... and there was a time... when it worked. It's broken now.. But there was a time it worked. And it worked because of segregation. If you implemented segregation again for the people who care and don't care, then you can really re-work the system. But then people will start complaining about that. This is a very, very intense topic with a lot of ground that could be covered. But I will at least compromise with you by saying that free, public education is the best and earliest place to give students a real education. Now... the Internet is free (per se). You can access it if you walk into a public university / college and start using their computers. And that's one main reason while so much push in the past couple of decades has been to make it a source of knowledge. Unfortunately, there aren't very decent systematic free-university online education systems. And I'm not talking about the general mainstream crap. But the idea is that if you want a better system, you would have to stratify and segregate students in public schools to make them better. It was like this many decades ago, but people complained about equality and other lies. Lots of ground to cover, not an easy topic. The segregation argument can be countered by psychological findings that if you start helping the dumb people and/or slackers rather than focusing on the smart kids, then the dumb kids start getting closer to the level of the smart kids. And people put all the smart and dumb kids together with the hopes of averaging out intelligence: making dumb kids be ambitious to compete against their smart classmates, etc.. I think America's educational system needs to be more like China's or Korea's. Get kids to bust their chops, study all the time. I would throw away summer vacation. Kids would graduate by age 16. But then you'd have to change the legal system, because you have a bunch of smart 16-year-olds who want emancipation and to be treated like legal adults. So much ground to cover. I think the reasons most adults don't care to get involved is because of... well for ME... It's the Generation W,X,Y, Z battle. Whereby I'm Generation Y. And the dudes in middle school or Z. And if W had started making things better, people like me, might have their jobs right now. But soon as the baby boomers die, W gets their jobs. So, there is fighting amongst the generations for employment. The public educational system has utility to be a great center of knowledge, learning, and skill development for economic trade. However, I believe it's not formed that way anymore (as it was many decades ago and hundreds of years ago), so that people can oppress the youth in able to take advantage of their absence in the job market. Things have been like this for a while. It's nothing new. There's a lot more to it than meets the eye. I, however, for one, believe that it would be spectacular if people could start getting highschool freshmen into academic research labs and train them to be serious researchers. Not impossible but would take some work. And it would definitely help fix some financial problems. And the kids would love it. Simply said: The K-12 system is broken, it's meant to be broken (by others), and that's so people can oppress the youth for their own gain. The fix is re-introducing trade skills into the system: Sewing, cooking, automotive technology, many schools have introduced health careers

Hey, Lately I've been wondering if it would be profitable for a person to start making biofuel in their back yard, throw it into an electricity generator, and then pour that back toward the electric power companies. Would this be a profitable venture?

That was my first idea, but let's say that idea is out, too. The tree is on a slant. I could attempt to climb it, but I wouldn't want to climb it with a chain saw. Doesn't sound too safe nor appeal to me.

There is this tree in my yard that I want rid of. The thing is, if it touches the city sidewalk, then there is a problem. It's between a fence and the city street. The trunk is about 19 feet tall, the branches probably extend upward about 10 feet. It seems like maybe it's got a 6-foot diameter. I've got a few ideas, but even if poison were used to kill it, it might fall on the fence. I don't want it to fall on the fence. So, what I'm wondering is if there are any good ways to really weaken it so that when it's cut down, it isn't as heavy to haul off. Other things I'm wondering about are good ways to take it down without it causing too much heavy debris to move onto the city sidewalk. I suspect I can get it off the sidewalk fast enough, but if it weighs 1000 lbs. I will not be able to move that. I could move 200 lbs. at a time, but definitely not 1000 lbs. I've considered taking it down part by part, but again, I consider even taking off all the branches will weigh about 100 lbs. Burning is not an option at all. Ideas?

Hmm.... Well, it opens a branch of research toward examining suicidal individuals with the infection. But then again, it could be involved with other stuff. Let's say a female is one of those bipolar, over-emotional cat ladies by her natural neurobiology. She's kind of suicidal, but not so much. She gets infected by the parasite and it brings her overboard. I would not say the infection is a main cause, but it might be considerable to say it lowers suicide inhibitions. I suspect it would be prime for a DOD grant. My view seems to relate to this article: J Nerv Ment Dis. 2009 Dec;197(12):905-8. Toxoplasma gondii antibody titers and history of suicide attempts in patients with recurrent mood disorders.

If you find out, let me know. I don't know of any other parts in the body that generate cardiac muscle unless it's a freak cell mutation. I know that there are cells similar to cardiac muscle, such as neurons. Other than that, I'm not aware of any other place in the body that has cardiac muscle cells. Some thought is itching at my mind saying that it may be on a main artery or vein, but I'm not sure about that.

I'm reading a lot of posts lately where the experts seem to just be giving antics, troll-like comments, and messing around. What is up with that? You guys on strike?

Nice article. Well, with the human race, IQ keeps increasing every decade or so.... whatever IQ is. Consider it could be applied to gorillas, and things start making sense: The gorillas are getting smarter, too, every couple of generations or so.

Alright, +1 post for me. So, classes like this are definitely something to fear. One of the first things you should do is make connections right away and ask other students how to prepare for that class and its exams. That will surely give you head's up you desire if talking to the professor about how to prepare is not adequate. I definitely think that style of examination is fascist and generates a barrier to entry in the profession, but it's what you have to deal with: So learn to deal with it. You need to make connections, as I'm sure your competitors will be doing so. Perhaps immediately finding a tutor who has dealt with the situation would be valuable, even if you have to fork over some cash for the information and guidance. If you can't find a tutor for free, quickly advertise or ask around. If you're shy about this, expect to get slammed in the course. There's no time to be shy or insecure about asking for help here. Next would be considerate and constant review for the exams. I think for ochem II I had three exams. And the trick to doing well was constant review each day. Staying on-top of everything is a must. The work ethic must be there or you will be doomed (do not take this lightly at all; get ready for a lack of sleep).

I think at a fundamental level, finding some school's biology curriculum, figuring out the biology relevant courses, and then figuring out what books are used for those courses is a good start. If those books have problems in them, that's excellent. Work through the problems. Perhaps buy cheap, older editions on half.com or whatnot (you're money smart, so you'll figure it out). Work through the problems. As long as a book has a fair amount of problems for you to work on and solve, that's pretty darn good to a course. Like Introduction to Genetic Analysis. I used that book before and it had a couple typos, but if you work through something three times and think it's a typo, then start asking about it. Exams are but ... uhh... bull#@$% in my opinion for most parts. I really think schools could get away with not giving people exams and instead relying on cumulative homework, but the problem is collaboration by individuals (exams are a cheating repellant and to weed out parties of individuals who attempt to "work the system" by grouping together on most course assignments). When the exam comes rolling around, it's each individual for themselves. School is but an examination center. I held this belief as a freshman, and I still hold this belief. You get an easy-A for walking into the class having mastered the knowledge; an A if you can master the course knowledge before the course has ended. With that said, I see that as the major reason exams exist in educational systems. I do not believe they are a course learning time-setter by which particular amounts of information should be learned by a particular time: The same thing could be handled by cumulative homework. As such, working book problems would be useful. When it comes to something like organic chemistry, though, I've found that the book I used, Atkins I think, didn't have the best problems requesting a person to practice reaction mechanisms. But you could easily talk to chemists and get referred to books that will test reaction mechanism knowledge. The main difference is the need for recall, which would be useful in an examination setting and is required in a course such as organic chemistry. It is very much possible to build one's own curriculum by looking through a school's curriculum, finding the syllabi (emailing professors and asking for it, if needed), grabbing the books, and working through the problems. Sure, an instructor might teach or assign work differently from a book: But going through most books will offer at least 60% of the knowledge you should be getting. And considerable review and understanding (knowledge and possible abstraction) of the concepts rather than relying on recall of an answer to a question will provide you with the most help when being an autodidact in such a situation. If you can't find the syllabus, find another from a different school covering the same/similar topic. Yeah, I totally get you on that science night course thing. I suspect there is a level of elitism involved with people fighting for their 9-5 positions and a lack of others willing to teach during such times, along with the economics of the students working night jobs (or supposedly). The educational system should teach at night while students studying during the day (I find lectures to be a passive experience). /endrant Also, you can't learn all things (plural; rather than the singular anything) online. This becomes very true when doing active research with knowledge that has not yet been published.

... Wow... quality of posts since I've been gone. Alright, so you would need to have research ideas. Idea for research. And if you don't have those, your advisor would clue you in or someone who wants to put you to work for him/her at low pay. That's simple enough for economics. But if you don't have your own research ideas that sucks for you. You want a Ph.D and want to do research. What do you want to research? Well, if you know that, you've already got yourself grounded. The next is knowing what tools and methods to use to go about generating the next building block on that research (and considering possible time constraints).

Jokes aside, it depends on what you plan on doing with that B.S. in Biology. I don't know why the other members decided to troll real fast. Perhaps they've become clicky as of late. Maybe they expected me to pop-up. I don't know. If you plan on becoming a researcher, then you'll want an M.S. or Ph.D and then getting paid low ($15k to $30k as a Ph.D student; jack for a M.S. student unless you get a paid research position). From there, you struggle, bite, and fight for a post-doc position, which may eventually lead to more positions, such as teaching or research, which may get you to a tenure position (or not). Learning to be sociable, kind, and make lots of connections helps in moving up the ladder. Don't forget being creative, intelligent, and determined. Or you could have enough biological knowledge background to move into a health-related field, such as registered nurse, physician's assistant, medical doctor, or whatnot. Albeit, it's becoming more common for people to not have a hard science background when applying to medical school and simply taking pre-med prerequisites while being a liberal artists (some love the liberal arts, while others want a high GPA and ability to do other stuff for increased acceptance competitiveness). You could also do other things, such as become a zookeeper or work in some outdoors biology-related stuff, perhaps be an environmental worker. Another option is military, such as becoming a NBC officer (I believe it's called for the U.S. Military's Army). They take care of nuclear, biological, and chemical disasters and potential disasters. You could also be a lab-tech, although a B.S. in Biology is not always required to get involved in a lab and be paid (but it helps to have more education). I suspect these are some of the main things you can do with a B.S. in Biology. It's not spectacular if you stop at a B.S. in Biology unless you are able to get a job targeted at only having a B.S. degree or B.S. Biology degree. Example: Accounting.

As of late, I've been reading a lot about the Playstation 2. I have a Playstation 2, and I've been using the PCSX2 emulator as of late. I got quickly annoyed by my situation to not play Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition when the emulator did not quickly play the game. I figured that my computer processor and the graphics card is much better than the graphics card and the CPU in the Sony Playstation 2. So far, I've learned that Playstation 2 has a graphics synthesizer that appears to process the graphics much better than some modern graphics cards. I haven't been able to understand this. But I believe the reason for this is because of the architecture of the Playstation 2 mother board. For instance, the GPU and CPU and put on the motherboard closely together and this is different than the usual PCI architecture found on many modern computer. I suspect that's one main aspect that may be allowing the PS2 to have such high speed. This is about the most technical thing I could find on the Internet about the Playstation 2 technology. I haven't been able to find much more information: http://arstechnica.com/features/2000/04/ps2vspc/

Lack of firmware control. /end Furthermore, I think it would be nice if people made Linux drivers/firmware for hardware, but at the same time, Microsoft Windows could find a way to employ that code into the MS Windows operating system, thus leading to grand efficiency either way. Windows still beats Linux-based OSs for the most part on the client side. Linux OSs make great servers unlike Windows server systems. The problem with Linux over and over has been hardware control with software/firmware. The next problem has to do with developers making things for Linux-based operating systems. I suspect much of this has to do with piracy, as a person with enough Linux-based knowledge and coding knowledge could pirate sold software made for the Linux OS, because Linux provides a nice level of transparency that is not easily found with Microsoft Windows, except with reverse engineering. Then again, as most marketers do not have access to the underlying technology and code of Microsoft Windows, they must make things that work ontop of the code. Still, possible to rip stuff from Microsoft Windows. However, exceptions come about, because there are sometimes unique identifiers that software attaches to in refererence to the hardware that's recognized and setup by MS Windows. As such, it's difficult to pirate some software on Windows. But in the Linux world, you could mask and trick tons of stuff into thinking one system is the same as another, so it's not appealing to people to make software for Linux.

I agree. Also, a history of high emotional reactivity could lead to more situations with high emotional reactivity. Becomes a positive feedback cycle that spirals out of control. I think women are more prone to carrying around "baggage." As such, they may take things more personally. An individual with less baggage will take things less personally. Anecdotal time... From the women I've known... women who have low self-esteem (it can take time to notice this in some women) tend to take comments quite personally. This can be from performance, lifestyle, to looks. Commenting on their mentality or way of life furthermore upsets them. The best thing to do is be nice or say nothing at all. Really, that is a life lesson. I think a person who stays nice most of the time but makes one sharp comment can find themselves with an angry woman who becomes unforgiving. Surely, finding out if the woman has esteem issues is critical before ever making such comments (but really they are best held within). As the baggage I find in a woman increases, my avoidance level increases. Positive correlation. r = 0.88. Yes, I'm being a nerd. Men tend to care less about their looks but do care about their performance in life. They can have much of the same problems as women. I feel that men are more willing to take hits and shake it off than women. I'm sure there are more serious social science studies on your topic, Athena.

I wouldn't be sure. It would take an individual from the forum and off the forum to analyze what they think of my SFN personality and offline personality. In general, I agree with swansont and feel about the same way. I try to keep things semi-professional unless I'm in the lounge.

Well, for one, I don't have much money until payday. I'm broke. And I figure I want them clean. So, I want to make sure they are nice to wear, and I figure the autoclave would be a good way to make sure they are at least clean.