Genecks

I've been thinking as of late about what it would mean if Americans or simply the lowly educated class with talent were to rise against the US government and officials and simply send them to their graves.

I considered this fact because of the silliness of war spending and other spending that goes on.

As such, if America wants a war, then how about the angered Americans start war with those who spend massive amounts of money on trivial things.

I believe the educated class with talent could definitely start problems for U.S. officials and start a very technological war with them.

Afterward, the war money would be put back into America to solve the war in the country. Problem solved. Start war with your own country.

A civil war, really.

The problem with that, seems that every country wants to disable some other country from having a civil war, preventing some kind of forced neo-isolationism from occurring.

As such, they take their troops and send them to some place out of their geographical politics.

Sure, it'd be bloody. But it would obviously stop the ridiculous war spending.

There is no need to spend money on some ridiculous war in some country that is not ours.

People say, "Violence isn't the answer."

Yeah, well, how are you going to change the mind of assholes?

Really? Those people who ruin the economy want to be selfish jerks.

They are not interested in reason, and they obviously don't show it.

I'm reading about an article published in the March-April 2011 issue of the "Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology"

Seems like individuals who have the implant need the immunosuppressants to prevent rejeciton.

Afterward, they are still needed to prevent the immune system from attacking the thing (perhaps the immune system is what led to original necrosis of the first uterus).

Looks like the immunosuppressants are useful for keeping the implant and maintaining it (not out of rejection in the latter sense, but to prevent the immune system from attacking whatever markers are on the typical human uterus). So, it seems like the problem is the immune system that you have. In short, you are naturally immune to pregnancy, it would appear. Canny, really. I suspect that's an evolutionary fluke, but I keep reading that odd evolutionary adaptions keep coming about in species to prevent pregnancy. The one you have did not seem to pan out for survival and reproduction.

But, alas, modern science.

If the issue is your immune system, then you would more than likely have to be on some kind of immunosuppressants while hoping to give birth.

Which might cause problems with pregnancy or keeping the baby around 9 months, and might ruin the child's immune system.

Hmm.. Conundrum.

I wonder if you would be better off getting AIDs (destroy your immune system), getting the implant, genetically engineering your child to be resistant to AIDs (cd4 receptor knock-out, I think), giving birth to this mutant child, and then taking out your CD4 receptors also (painful procedure). You'd soon lose the utereus, though.

Probably in the process of genetically engineering the child, you would want the child to not have the same defect as you.

Hmm.

Yeah, man. It was astronautical.

Most of the time, the problem is with the driver not the pedestrian.

A good pair of brakes and eyes alleviate most problems.

My current pet peeve is with pedestrians while I'm trying to bike around them on campus.

Too many of them are on cellphones and don't look up, thus they sway along the sidewalk as I try to maneuver around them.

And then there are the people who just won't move, because they are that arrogant.

Generally, I don't care too much about this issue if I have a good pair of brakes.

My eyes are pretty good, unless it's raining.

I've taken a liking to just biking on the dirt rather than the sidewalk.

Grounds-keeps wised up and started laying pebble pathways.

Hello,

Something I've regained an interest in as of late is the extraction of aluminium from pop cans.

Typically this has been a desirable thing for the avid soda can collector. However, generally, such an individual brings the pop cans to a recycling center.

What I'm curious about is whether or not various chemical methods have been undertaken in order to separate the aluminum from the soda cans.

A kitchen chemistry kind of way that is not too expensive, perhaps catalytic, and the materials used can be retrieved with decent yield with a lost cost.

Furthermore, there would be the need for the aluminum to separate out (perhaps precipitate to the bototm), for easy collection.

If not kitchen chemistry, perhaps some kind of apparatus a person could develop in a home garage.

Is this possible?

If it is not possible yet, what would be the consequences for such a process to be developed?

If an individual developed the process without publishing or letting out such knowledge, could it be assumed that such an individual could be quickly rich by collecting bauxite and/or various objects with aluminum in them?

I've been looking at the process of extracting the aluminum, and it appears that a large, large amount of heat is often used to re-obtain the aluminum. I'm starting to think of this as very unnecessary. Why cannot a variety of catalysts and organic techniques be used? Surely there is a way to make organoaluminum compounds and break those down to release aluminum, right?

Calculus II, for instance.

Possibly linear algebra in the future.

I think this thread is more aimed at people who already have a college/university degree.

That's the intended audience, but others can chime in as well.

I often consider learning things in my own time, such as furthering my computer science knowledge or engineering knowledge. At the moment, I'm interested in furthering my mathematics knowledge. I'd like to further my knowledge of engineering in order to start moving toward the realm of neural engineering. That's another priority on my list of things to do.

However, I've often considered that it's better to take the math course rather than self-study. Why? Because it earns me college credit, and a grade acts as a way of saying how well I can beat an exam asking me about material that is relevant to the material taught in the course. I don't believe in the "mastery" concept.

Furthermore, it keeps a person within a time-frame, within a schedule of time required to complete the course. And as it adds to college credits, a person could eventually get another degree on the side.

What are your views on furthering self-education?

Take a class or self-study?

Why the harsh undertones? iNow simply answered your post with a likely suggestion of bias. He then proceeded to tell you how to confirm if a sex bias REALLY DID exist. He covered both bases while being polite and cordial.

The phrasing of my statement was not meant to be harsh.

People have often asked me if I have confirmation bias.

More times than not (and those times are much fewer), I'm right about what I'm observing but it's extremely hard to prove such with documentation, and people do not want such information proven.

People start noticing after a while.

But ok, iNow.

In my university (for the biology program), I keep noticing the general trend that there are many more female research assistants in the labs than male research assistants.

I've read that there is about a 1:1 ratio for male:female Ph.D graduates in US biology programs. But when I look around, I keep seeing a large number of female research assistants.

I've been around these labs plenty of times before, too.

The situation is often like this:

A professor who has more than two research assistants has more women than men.

Most of the time, it would appear to be a 4:1 female:male ratio.

I know it's not significant, but what if you see it around in the various labs around campus? A bias toward hiring/allowing females in the lab to do research?

Often when I see there being only one person working with the professor, it's a person of the same sex of the professor.

So, sometimes a professor will take on only one Ph.D student. Of those I have seen, those individuals are males when the professor is male.

I'm starting to think this is in order to prevent any possible sexual harassment charges (if but lies) that may come around from having a female graduate student around for years.

When I see the large female:male ratio, it often seems to be a male professor leading the lab. That's why I start to think it's sexist.

Of the female professors, I notice that they tend to have a 2:3 or 3:2 male:female ratio.. So, it's not perfect, but not abundant in females.

Furthermore, with the male professors, it often appears that they rotate out females and rotate back in females rather than males.

I recently went to a graduate open house where the department displayed photos of all of their grads and undergrad researchers. About 75% were female.

Again, there was a heavy bias of females in a male professor's lab.

Am I seeing sexism? Some kind of sex bias?

Is there any way I can really test this?

I see a lot more females in the labs than males.

I know that much.

Going through undergraduate years, I always had trouble getting into a research lab.

But in retrospect, I believe there may have been some kind of sexist pig mentality going on in the professors that inspired them to hire female graduate students as pretty toys to look at while doing their research. I'm unsure, but in the past few months, I've considered this to be a real possibility.

For instance, I know this one professor who has three undergraduate females in his lab. Many people have asked to do research with him, but he turns them down. Instead, he has hired females (some I know to not be the brightest students; I've had classes with them). One girl in the lab is very bright, so I give her credit. Of the males I've seen work in his lab, one worked there but for a couple of months. As did another male who was hired into the lab. Nothing was wrong with these two males, as both were decently intelligent with a decent background. Something seemed to have pushed them both out.

This professor has been known to have female graduate students in the past. I never heard of a single male graduate student getting a graduate degree under him. As such, I can't help but assume there is definitely a sex bias to this individual professor.

Actually, I think it would be great if you explored alternatives to the petri dish.

I think that would be novel.

Another thing is attempt to test the effectiveness of antimicrobial surface materials in order to grow microbes.

Maybe make some kind of culturing apparatus out of those materials and test effectiveness.

Doing something on kitchen microbiology, basically creating a microbiological laboratory at home, for a low cost would be something interesting to do for a master's degree.

If you could really put a lot of detail into biohacking and genetic engineering for an at-home, low-budget microbiology lab, I suspect that would get a lot of praise.

In other words, if you could find a way to describe how to do a lot of modern microbiology for a low-cost at home without buying a lot of scientific equipment from an equipment vendor, then it would be a novel master's thesis.

Also, inclusion of sterile techniques to prevent home contamination would be a nice read.

At best, I've considered a person needs about $200 USD for a good, at-home microbiology laboratory.

I'm not sure how many people have done that for a master's degree.

I find that most problems in a microbiology lab are due to stupid people contaminating things.

I cannot understand why people cannot grasp the concept of contamination.

I think people are lazy, and lazy people think they can use shortcuts that are ok.

That may work in a chemistry class when yield is not so important.

But that does not work well in a microbiology class.

Most of the time, the way to prevent contamination is the use the burner to sterilize tools, ensuring that agar is not contaminated by flakes of hair, and using proper streak technique by preventing air contaminants from reaching the agar.

It's really easy to prevent contamination most of the time. People need to just think about contamination as they do things.

Now, if a person seriously is being preventive, there is a serious air issue.

As such, you probably want to put some agar plates out and see what falls on them, culture it, and maybe spray some Lysol around if there is a lot of germ growth.

Now if only I could sterilize the use of "plz" during serious discussions.

As long as the consequences are few or not severe, immoral people tend to come out ahead.

Interestingly, moral individuals who have generated many social connections and then later turn corrupt make impressively good corrupt individuals, because they've acquired access to useful resources.

As a modern scientist, I'd have to say immorality does not exist, but consequentialism exists.

An individual hogging resources will eventually compete against someone who wants those resources, thus the problem of the immoral individual balances out.

Such is found with the corruption of national government against other national governments.

These often leads to a stalemate or a bloody competition for the resources, which just becomes natural.

Since the concept of morality has become increasingly removed from society, a way to judge and punish and individual for an immoral act has increasingly become more toward the economic side, such as hitting an individual's wallet. Done properly, this can cripple the socio-economic status of an individual and make them part of the slum of the world, the bottom bracket. And, interestingly, done properly, decreasing an individuals socio-economic status will put them into submission such that they become of the poor and lazy of the world OR they have much more difficulty trying to increase their wealth and status once more.

The problem with China and America is that Americans are stupid.

And the consequence for being stupid and being burned by the fire over and over again.

China wouldn't easily be able to build their economy unless other people supported them and brought money into that country.

Americans fail to realize that spending their money on foreign goods rather than national/local goods has brought money out of the country.

There is also the issue that foods are imported, simple foods, such as onions or oranges.

Although local geography is a different matter and may be more sensible in order to provide increased national defense.

Another thing to chew on:

There are still a lot of parts of the East to exploit. English language schools are an example.

Then again, I suspect people around England could just as well teach Asians English rather than Americans.

One last thing

There are places in this world where you can legally go around killing people. The problem is that you are also allowed to be killed. I'm not talking about war. I'm talking about parts of the world that have laws put on them so that people can express whatever religious ideas they have, even if that includes murder. I'd suggest not going to these parts of the world unless you want an island for yourself.

After a re-reading of my post, I can see how it's faulty.

My main point is that I think it's irrational to pursue sex with younger women, because there more than likely is not going to be a pleasurable experience, the amount of time needed to pursue a receptive young female under the age of 16 would be difficult (at least, I would think you would be reported a couple of times), and that attempting to use this younger individual for future sexual experiences may not be fruitful if leading toward increased socio-economic status (unless a person wants to grow up the individual).

Pursuing a younger woman would involve asking many, many younger women for sex and/or relationships. That would definitely lead to being turned down a lot, given that the person is not affiliated with the younger person in some kind of social environment (school/work). Thus, the pursuer can expect to waste a large amount of time (thus, me saying why waste such large amounts of time? that seems like a bad decision).

But given complete fruitfulness of the situation, say an individual is lucky in accessing younger women, there still is the fact that the sexual experiences may not be rewarding. I suspect if someone finds sex with a virgin to be entertaining, they'll have that experience one time unless they find another young individual to have sex with. If it's an issue of beauty in youth, then sexual experiences with an individual make more sense, as the person finds pleasure in sexual experiences with an aesthetic being that cannot be found in older individuals.

Anyway, I'm claiming situations under which I would find it irrational.

I'm mostly done with the thread. Hopefully my re-iteration of what I'm saying has provided clarification.

Having sex with a younger individual for reproduction, however, would be a very different story.

It's not ok to have sex with children. It's ok to have sex with adults.

Children are those I am defining as individuals within a state of immaturity, naievety, and mis-understanding of their world.

Adults are those who I am defining as individuals with a sense of maturity, understanding of society, and level of comprehension to adapt to worldly situations on their own.

In general, I do think 14 being the minimum age for sex to be considerate, but today's cultures tend to keep children immature, naieve, etc... in order to socio-economically suppress them.

As such, the modern 14-year-old is much more immature than the 14-year-old of the 1930s or earlier, who had to deal with unpredictable economic, social, and environmental shifts.

Could I see myself having sex with a 14-year-old out of lust? Uh, no.

Personally, I don't find that attractive.

Anyway, I don't think people of long ago found it attractive.

I think finding the young to be attractive is a perverse behavior that has developed out of the 20th century due to eradication and destruction of various conservative/chivalrous belief systems.

IMO, sex is extremely time consuming, and even the process of finding the opposite (for heterosexuals) sex can also be time consuming, despite the information age.

I would suspect finding a younger individual would be even more time consuming, so why even bother?

And to even take in that younger individual and attempt marriage and enhancing socio-economic status with that person?

I'd think that'd be doubly time-consuming. Which is why people tend to just date people of similar socio-economic status.

I think trying to have sex with younger people in this day and age is just stupid and irrational.

What kind of enjoyment could be found with the sexually inexperienced young? Really?

In my experience with women, differing ages, enjoyment is a mixed bag.

Of the younger women I've dated, I've found more annoyances; thus, leading to my preference in older women (who aren't paranoid).

So, I think it's kind of irrational and time wasting to pursue younger women.

That's my argument.

As such, I claim such individuals mentally insane. Book closed.

I think Jobs would have brought us more crap that was made in China.

If Einstein had lived longer, I suspect he would have tried to disprove his own theories.

If Alexander would have lived longer, I suspect he would have become extremely dissatisfied with the amount of peace he generated in the world and then killed himself.

Lol, they went to the mansions.

There are many wet techniques to test for specific functionalities. However mass spec and NMR are usually required top draw definitive conclusions about structure. What kind of equipment do you have access to? any good handbook of analytical chemistry would be super beneficial. I do lots of spectroscopy (its kind of inherently the nature of my work) so Im probably not the best person to ask. John Cuthber seems to be knowledgeable of many wet techniques, perhaps he will chime in here.

In reply to your question, I have no personal access to any materials at the moment. A lot of this is arm-chair thinking and to quench my curiosity about a topic I have been thinking about for a little over a month.

As I read that IR spectroscopy machines can cost over $20,000 USD, I am not particularly interested in buying one for personal usage. I'd be more inclined to be an electrophysiology rig or laser electrode puller with that kind of cash.

Hmm, perhaps I'm wrong about the cost of these IR machines.

I'm looking at this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Perkin-Elmer-Spectrum-RX-FT-IR-Infrared-Spectrometer-/370547984682?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item564661892a

Are machines like this simple enough to do the chemical work I'm interested in? It looks decently affordable for an up-start chemist. $300 USD is non-significant compared to 25k. I'm not sure what the benefits and consequences of getting a machine like that is. Nor am I aware of why people would want to buy more up-to-date expensive models that cost well over $5000 USD.

From what I can recall, these machines use various kinds of materials to pass the light through, such as diamond or some other prism. As diamonds can be mighty expensive depending on the quality, I can see why the materials used can reflect the cost of the IR machine.

Input on these thoughts?

As I have some organic chemistry knowledge, I've become interested in the synthesis of a variety of chemical compounds, primarily because I'm interested in their usage to observed behavioral outputs from deliberate input of a drug into an animal system (aka I want to make drugs for experimental purposes). However, I do not readily have the resources to buy an infrared spectroscopy machine. I suspect it would not be too difficult to setup some kind of thin-layer chromatography setup to analyze whether or not I have obtained the particular substance I am interested in. However, even then, I would be unsure about the results unless I had an IR and some kind of way of analyzing the purity of what I have generated.

As such, I have the following questions:

1) What are inexpensive alternatives to identifying a molecule without the usage of an IR spectroscopy machine?

2) Say that I was interested in generating modafinil or similar drugs with its pharmocological attributes, how do I test whether or not I have generated the drug I desire (assume I already have a tablet of modafinil on me).

On a related note, something in the back of my mind tells me that this goes into the realm of analytical chemistry, of which there are particular substances that can be generated to bind to particular domains of a molecule in order to signify that the desired product has been generated. Furthermore, such analytical techniques could be used to separate the impurities from the desired molecule. Is this right? How practical is such a thing in the realm of organic chemistry? In the realm of inorganic chemistry, I'm familiar with the idea of simply decanting a solution and further refining the obtained products for a greater yield of the desired product.

Also, let's assume I'm not working in an academic lab and working with invertebrate species (completely legal). I could be working with mice, but a variety of neuroscientists have become interested in invertebrates because of the myriad of chemical receptors they have (they are slightly entertaining to tease apart and research).

I really don't believe peace is the answer anymore when it comes to issues like this. But it's also the fact that the rich have a way of keeping knowledge of their assets secret. I take my views from Alexander the Great who did use violence to change the world and revolutionize it.

Blowing up Wall St. would make more sense, as it would cause the rich to spend their money rather than save it out of worry of a 0% national interest rate. All people have to do is start destroying the property of the rich. It'll force them to spend their money. Do a lot of damage, I mean a lot, and if the rich spend their money, it'll start fixing the economy and bringing back jobs. Blow up their cars, too. And their million dollar mansions.. Lots of destruction would just fix all of this stuff. At least, it would bring back construction jobs... And the money would just trickle down.

In relation to the idea of making us all equal:

There is also the consequence that if we're all equal, no one is rich; and it really seems like we're all poor because of the level of wealth generated by equality. But I'd surely have to say the rich have amassed too much wealth, and there needs to be a greater distribution of wealth than there already is. I believe in working for what you earn; unfortunately, some business owners have been getting away with under-compensating their employees. That's unfair.

Personally, I'm really sick of elitist America.

Anytime someone really tries to organize, the government or organizations setup to kill the organizers.

Bunch of mobocracy.

People really need to stop watching TV, learn some economics, take note of world economics, and notice how much they've been getting screwed.

I find a lot of current economics due to people trying to equal out the level of poverty around the world and bring up the standard of living and educational level of foreign countries: something people have been attempting to do for a long time. Unfortunately, the consequence of that is giving foreign countries the jobs. But the underlying problem is the ridiculous population density found in foreign countries. That's why I consider it unethical to bring the jobs over there. The people were stupid enough to keep their population that big, they should have been allowed to fail rather than give the people education and jobs to maintain their massive populations.

The new world will have to deal with these facts peacefully or simply learn to keep wars going. Maybe the trick is just to send tons of academics to these foreign lands with free housing... Perhaps give them free education while going for their bachelors in order to spend two years in a foreign country. Then maybe the stupid people would stop having so many children.

Americans have been forced to compensate for the ridiculous world peace and world economy various business owners are attempting to generate. This involves America (not as large a population) to have a decreased birth rate, too. Americans have been compensating in order to make other countries rich, and I don't really agree with it.

It could all be a scheme by the super-rich to setup countries that are more liveable than America in order to have a plutocracy, due to American's dislike of the stratified rich class in America. AKA: Exit plan.

Kick out the foreigners. Re-setup neo-isolationism. Heavily tax imports. Watch America win again while the rest of the world fails. If you can do that without having a guilty conscious, welcome back to America that was.

Otherwise, I am really starting to believe that the real trick is to not spend money on foreign goods. Then each individual becomes a neo-isolationist in his/her own right and allows the economics of situations to go in his/her favor.

And he could of spent all of that money in order to become a cyborg... an i-Cyborg....

Of the few books I keep around are some chemistry books and some math books (algebra/stats), because I might need a refresher on those topics in order to solve some problems, and I find the Internet to be inadequate.

But as of late, I've considered just tossing all of my books to save space around my place. Anyway, I know where to retrieve similar books if ever necessary.

What do some of you do with your college books after passing a class?

Sell? Toss? Keep? Reasons?

No, I don't, as I have four college semesters of Spanish behind me.

Attention posters:

If you plan on speaking a foreign language in a thread in an academic manner, you need to provide a translation.

What I am really interested in, is whether or not I am viable candidate for 1) neuroscience (cell molecular concentration) or 2) neurobiology programs given that I have a lack of science coursework.

Yeah, you're fine. I don't know if you're a viable sperm candidate for a prestigious graduate program, though.

People who get that kind of GPA and have a decent background make me wonder what their issue is. Perhaps they've been so busy with coursework they haven't had time to find their interests. I suggest if you plan on putting in 5+ years of your life, you think really fast within less than a year (if you don't want to waste too much time) about what you want to focus on (or at least a general idea and find an institution that covers a spectrum of that idea and focuses in and out).

Anyway, what is missing here is a well-described representation of the kind of graduate research you want to focus on. Once you get that down, you'll be able to narrow what kind of professors you want to work with and what kind of research you want to do.

I know plenty of graduate students who just get into neuroscience research without really having a feeling for what they wanted to research in the first place. Maybe that's just my institution. Perhaps these are people who are drifters who met the GPA requirements and unsure of their next step in life.

If you really focus on studying biochemistry, you can get involved with the molecular side of stuff. I suggest going to graduate school and then saying you want to get involved with the neurochemistry of things and gain biochemical skills.

Personally, I think not caring about the psychology side of neuroscience is simply doing cytological research. You'd probably be better off researching developmental neurobiology at that rate, as there is a lot involved with genetics, proteins, and cellular development in that realm.

My primary interests are between brain repair/regen and its relation to memory and cognition. Thus, combining outward behavior with mechanics that are occurring inside an individual (bug, human, rat/mouse, w/e).

But I think it's seriously important to get involved with a research institution that covers a variety of research interests that you have, rather than a place that does neuroscience research but none that really interests you. Because I'm at a place that has a limited range of neuroscience research that I'm interested in. Personally, I think UCLA is a lot more interesting than UIUC or Northwestern. I'm sure Northwestern has some interesting stuff, but I've looked and found few things of interest besides prestige. Why? Lack of brain repair/regen research. Ugh.

Personally, I would like to take the world's neuroscientists and focus them on nervous system repair and regeneration. We get that puzzle cracked, and there is a lot of goodies inside.

I've taken some neuroscience classes with graduate students. Personally, I think many of those classes are absolute B.S..

Reason?

Well, I can recall the general overview neuroscience courses I took. These acted more like the professors advertising their research to the students. This absolutely p'd me off, because I did not care for a review course. I wanted to have some specialized, focused knowledge of neurobiology. Instead, it was miscellaneous information about neurobiology from different professors. Personally, I think a neuroanatomy course would be more valuable than someone talking about T1, T2, T3 aspects of the thoracic cavity and then moving onto some aspect of sensation and perception. Bah!

Other aspects were doing research similar to what other professors were doing. BORRRING! I had no care to do snail research and hear the dude defend the dying paradigm of his snail research, although I've gained an appreciation of invertebrate neurobiology from it all: This is a valuable paradigm in terms of understanding neurobiology networks and evolutionary aspects of organisms: Prime game for a person interested in mapping all that stuff out and looking at the intracies of how neurobiology networks are similar amongst species and then abstracting these aspects to other species, such as humans.

I personally would have been more interested in the synaptic plasticity of lamprey, because their anatomy is more close to human anatomy. I didn't get to do that.

If you know what you want to focus on, can find a graduate program that offers such focus, then go for it.

Personally, as of late, I've had this whole "the American educational system is broken; I'm thinking about going for the money because the guardians have turned corrupt" mentality.

You're fine. Programs will let you in. They'll teach you and bias you to think like them. But make sure you choose topics and professors of whose biases and knowledge you want to keep with you as a researcher.

Personally, I think that is what education is about and finding one's path as an academic/researcher. For some odd reason, the system is setup to prevent people from doing that the majority of the time.

Also, unless you were in labs that made you memorize/know the rxn mechs for bunches of organic reactions and in a lab that had you going through the machinery involved with cell signal transduction pathways, you don't know the bio or chem yet. I think orgo is worthless unless related to biochem. But the signal transduction stuff is seriously important and fundamental: You would get plenty of such in a developmental biology course.

Also, if you can, avoid organic... It's just mindless B.S. that will give you PTSD. I've not been given a chance to really use the majority (like over 90%) of the organic chemistry knowledge I gained in two semesters of organic chemistry. I think joining a biochem lab would be a lot more entertaining and useful, but if you tell people you won't be around longer than a year, they more than likely won't want you there. Biochemistry>Organic.

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Additional info:

Of the graduate students I have come across, some do not have the biological background of a biologist. As such, it is often requested of them to take a course, such as cellular biology.

Essential Cell Biology by Alberts (most recent ed) should give you a general idea of the cellular biology involved. A genetics class is more logic and math based. I don't have a background of proteomics knowledge, so I can't really discuss what that's all about. But many cellular aspects are based on protein-gene interactions, and epigenetics is becoming a topic of increased discussion.

I don't think taking a year of organic chemistry is worthwhile. I think a semester of organic chemistry may be valuable in order to understand stereochemistry, nomenclature, and be schooled in thinking about pathways and flow-chart logic (rxn mechs). But first semester orgo is a bit of a shock to the system.

If you're willing to put in the time and effort, I'm thinking the graduate school would either just give you the graduate classes and tell you to do research and/or do that and make you take some undergraduate classes. There are also graduate level cellular biology classes if you're game for something like that. I suspect they are more intense... and that's probably not going to be too much fun (but practical to beat if you put in the time, visualization, and effort).

 

 

I haven't yet taken general chem, organic chem, physics, calculus, genetics, cell/molecular bio, or biochem.

 

I am currently enrolled in physics I, gen chem I, and precalculus, so I will have physics II, gen chem II, and calculus finished by next summer (i.e. before I hope to start a program).

 

Physics would more than likely be useful if you have a strong foundation in physics, thus modelling complex aspects of something, such as neural injury and how the brain changes on impact of some object.... Gen chem... everyone should have a year of that. But... I think it still involves a lot of inorganic molecules.... but the physical aspects of the chemistry describes can be applied to biological systems quite well. Calculus is useful for understanding the biophysics of signal transduction. There is a whole realm of biophysics to explore.