Genecks

Generally, people become biology majors, go to graduate school, and then do field work if possible.

You should be able to get a decent amount of research experience doing ecological research.

Make sure you have a strong background in statistics. Some knowledge of psychology might help, along with sociology.

Yeah, I do agree that the biology major does suck for a person primarily interested in ecology/environment, though: Most of such a curriculum is not applicable to what an ecologist is getting involved in.

Yeah, evolutionary comparisons have been studies. Plenty of people are attempting to make computational models of various species. There is a how evolutionary aspects of the nervous system to be discovered.

C. elegans has few neurons.

Rotifers are simple, too.

evolutionary discussion of the nervous system: Science 325:24-26 (2009)

exc use the typos, i'm tired.

Snails are pretty simple to care for. I suspect there is a colonization paper on them somewhere.

Your major issue would be housing space.

I would have to say that one of the top primary biologists was Watson.

But I believe he isn't really practicing anymore.

So... I don't know who a major revolutionary is these days.

Biology is broken into many fields.

And there are top players in those fields and subfields.

University of Chicago is a well-known school, and they have a lot of tech for doing science experiments, for sure.

Long ago, prior to the 1980s, people who were driven academics didn't have as large a problem of getting into the school as academics do now.

These days, there is a large egg-head competition to get in there. Furthermore, UofC has large grade deflation, so it doesn't make it the best undergraduate school. And you might not get research right away unless you walk in with maybe a senior-level knowledge of physics; as such, I doubt they'll let you in. That's just the way that place is.

Personally, I have a large distaste for the amount of power, money, and resources some universities have been allowed to amass without attempting to use most of it for intended purposes (aka science).

Also, I figure anyone who did have a university/college senior-level knowledge of physics would also have a serious consideration of other universities besides UofC: Such a person might know of other schools covering topics he/she wants to pursue for the next 5 years.

But I'll say this: Go to the best school you can within reasonable cost. If the in-state private that costs maybe a couple of grand more is better than the in-state public, go the private.

Regenerative medicine.

I believe if you read more about regenerative medicine, then you will find your answers.

Regenerative medicine has become more popular since the early-2000s are more people are taking it more serious than before, because people have been able to make regenerative science work.

Please note that regeneration is different from repair.

Recent advances in regenerative medicine include emphasis on using computer interfaces with the body.

1. Grosse-Wentrup M, Mattia D, Oweiss K. Using brain–computer interfaces to induce neural plasticity and restore function. J. Neural Eng. 2011;8(2):025004.

First I would like to say hello to everyone, i have been reading on this site for a few days so i decided to join and i really enjoy the feedback that you guys give out, so I'm hoping someone could help me out

 

so i am a little confused as to waht to do. right now i am goin to school to be a surgical tech. I am in my third term and my gpa is a 3.67. The more i go through school the more i feel like i want to become a surgeon. I still want to be a surgical tech, but I fell like I don't want to be one forever. I have started looking at what classes i have to take to get into med school (like chemistry, physics, calc,etc). Right now i am attending a business & technology school, and i know a 4 year college wont accept all my credits i get from this school if any.

 

i was thinking about taking my prereq classes at a community college while still attending the school i am at now, then transfer to a university. I believe i have the time because i have nothing to(i pretty much don't have a social life because i choose not to i feel its important to get my school work done then have fun later in life) when i am home so i study and when i am at work i study.

 

Is it a good idea to go to both schools at once? should I just wait until i get my degree as a surgical tech? should i just switch and stop pursuing my degree as a surgical tech and go ahead and be on my way the become a surgeon?

 

sorry if this is a little confusing

 

i am open to all opinions and suggestions

 

thanks in advance

Yeah, keep doing the surgical tech thing. Then get a job as a surgical tech. From there, shadow a surgeon. Furthermore, attempt to do clinical volunteer work. After working for a while, maybe a year or two, go pre-med, get good grades, and apply to med school. You should be set.

Surgical techs tend to be put in hospital settings, so you will have an advantage for doing volunteer work and being able to get shadowing experience from a doctor. Furthermore, if you shadow a surgeon, it might make you a better surgical tech (thus put you in higher demand).

In revival of this thread, I recently read something in relation to medical doctors vs. physician assistants.

M.D.s doing residency are starting to be hired more than PAs, because these resident MDs can be paid less.

However, an MD having done residency might not be more worthwhile to hire than a PA because of the cost involved with hiring the trained MD.

I think the discussion of women in your thread-creation post was unnecessary, but we can make it a point of discussion. Well, I don't see a problem with women working. I think many women's work efforts relate to their reproductive ability. I don't have any statistics, but I'm going to assume that many women are willing to work very hard until their reproductive abilities expire. Afterward, they might become stay-at-home wives. Definitely, men have much less to worry about in that realm, so their financial desires are not so age-dependent in the reproductive sense. Not all women want to have kids, though. Yes, it's just more competition. Then again, not all women wanted to get married long ago; and many women still do not want to get married.

Sure, social viewpoints prior to the 1960s may have been able to suppress female entrance into the workforce, but wanting to support that is just some blatant oppression I'm not going to approve of. If I remember correctly, women were paid half the wage of men in early-American history: Another way of deterring them from working. Many times much less money. As such, women were not as great an economic problem in early-America.

---

Now, it often seems that the people who own realms of business are to blame in American economic issues. I've often told people that said business persons should be killed and/or sent to prison for treason against their own country: Bringing forth the economic destruction of America (aka economic warfare against their own country: aka treason).

Unfortunately, no one has really done this yet. I've yet to actually hear anyone on mainstream media ever mention this in the past few years. A serious disappointment I must say. The next democrat I hear say this on television gets a $20 donation from me.

But then again, it's difficult to say these people were committing treason, because a variety of economist say that free-trade, outsourcing, getting more for the least money, etc... is good. Well, I've been reading more into economics and free-trade, and it appears that the kind of specializations required by each country to make free-trade realistic would force people into particular vocations. However, this seems similar to communism; it's not communism. It's more more imperialistic propaganda of forcing everyone in a country to be a rice farmer in order to trade with the foreign country that produces beef. That's so unrealistic. Theoretically sane, but good luck as I have no interest in being a rice farmer.

So, I keep seeing that this whole free-trade idea America is pushing forward with government and business is not working for the majority of Americans. As such, the American people will continue to be screwed until they find a way to get money to trickle in their direction again.

In a lot of ways, though, I think we're screwed. Not everyone wants to be a cyborg. Economy is fueled by supply and demand. And the idea of getting everyone to buy an ipod is silly. It's not silly to consider that people still need energy to keep their homes lit, warm, and cool during the seasons. Nor is it silly to consider that people need to eat. These food and energy industries seem to be of the few things going strong in America at the moment.

Our health and science technologies are being more seen as social luxuries by our contemporary societies. They're not considered of the utmost importance for enlightenment and understanding of the universe. People are more concerned with figuring out how to provide power to a growing world population, such as investigating further control of nuclear resources.

In reference to outsourcing... yeah, I agree.

I think outsourcing caused a lot of these issues. But China and India have a lot more people. And those people are willing to work for less money. It's difficult to compete unless you're willing to work for less money, too.

I keep reading about free trade. As I read more into it, I'm starting to get a bad vibe from all of it.

One of things I keep thinking about is how would science be effected?

Scientists exist all around the world. Many scientists work on similar things, but their funding sources differ.

But what if free-trade were to exist? Would this mean only one country gets to specialize in a particular kind of science?

Would that mean there would no longer be the ability for there to be an international effort to progress a particular field of science?

Kids aren't graduate students.

So, I don't even a middle-schooler to have a firm grasp of the scientific method.

I'm sure they can be taught, but I don't expect most school systems to have children embedded with that knowledge.

With that said, most children might have a science topic they are fascinate with, but lack expertise on how to narrow their perspectives.

I think it's up to the educator to present a realm of topics (biology, math, physics, chemistry, etc.), and then try to get the student to pick a kind of feasible experiment (perhaps even replicate a simple one; or find a twist on a simple one). To find a way to get the students to narrow their interests.

When I was a kid, most of the experiments I did were related to physics and electronics. I also messed with experiments that had to do simple things around the house.

Then again, times were great. You had awesome cartoons revolving around crazy biology/genetics. You had MacGyver (inventive thinking). You had Mr. Wizard on television for kids... So, I can definitely see how today's youth aren't as inspired as much by scientific knowledge and possibilities.

You need a control.

You'll be using the pour-plate method with agar.

You'll want to melt, slightly cool, inoculate, and then pour the agar into a plate.

Your sister's method sounds interesting. Try it.

Try both. It shouldn't take too much time.

Getting the pour-plate method right, however, can take effort.

I am currently a student of Bachelor of pharmacy (B.Pharm) in India. I will be giving the GRE next year. Can I take up masters in Neuroscience or will I need any specialization? please reply

In general, a bachelor's degree in some form of science is considered a pre-requisite to graduate study in America. The GRE will help evaluate your knowledge and skills in reading and comprehension. Furthermore, it will be used to determine if you will be able to use resources and learning materials you may encounter in an American graduate program. If you have done very well in your current program of study, you may be eligible for a Ph.D program. However, if your current academic standing, such as your marks in coursework, are not comparable (if not better) than those entering Ph.D programs in Biology/Neuroscience, then you may be referred to first completing a masters program in neuroscience/biology.

You want to talk to your university advisors to determine if your grades are competitive enough for a Ph.D program in biology/neuroscience in America.

Psychology?

Then do consider animal behavior, right?

Mating rituals, comparative neuroanatomy (dolphins and sleep patterns), and maybe some other stuff.

If you think about it, I think you have the skills to put a good spin on animal behavior.

Perhaps some simplified neuroethological videos (not going into too much detail about the anatomy or cellular biology) may make things interesting.

The older individuals (16 to 18) may be more interested in neuroanatomical differences between an opossum and a human in reference to the corpus callosum.

The younger individuals may be interested in how a bat explores territory or how an owl travels at night.

You seem to be under the gross misconception that it is the job of a university professor to teach you. It is not.

 

It is the job of the professor to facilitate your learning. It is your job to actually learn. To learn at a high level, it is sometimes useful to have the guidance of an expert.

 

A university is not a high school. Students are there to learn, not to be taught.

Seems, huh?

I wouldn't say that is the case.

I'm under the firm belief that university systems have become examination centers and little more than a place to obtain technical qualifications.

However, I think it would be nice if it acted as a place to learn how to grasp the material on a similar level as the professor understand it in order to better learn it.

Otherwise, students tend to come to the university system and learn, study, and digest the material with whatever study skills they've obtained ahead of time.

I've begun to consider that whenever people say, "This isn't highschool," that those people may have went to a college preparatory high school where they were introduced with college-level study skills. I know there are plenty of students around the university I attend who did go to such. However, since I went to a drop-out high school, I didn't get that treatment.

Since the majority of college students do not come from middle-class families nor families with a high educational background, I would consider it on-track for university and college systems to serve students in obtaining better study skills or to find a way for them to learn the material well.

In my more advanced undergraduate courses, I've found sitting in lecture to be a waste of time. Professors rarely edified their presentations and it became an absolute data dump. I'm quite sickened by it all, really. It could be better, but I suspect their SES has influenced them to be lazy.

All-out supernatural battle against divine forces.

Hi. I used to ask questions on this forum maybe 6-8 years ago back in high school.

Now I'm about to graduate college, and I feel like I've wasted not only much of my college career, but also much of life in general. You ever felt like that? I'm studying math at the university I'm at.

But I'm not really engaged in it. I feel like I wasted my opportunities here and really haven't pursued any research opportunities that were available. I'm just having regrets I guess.

What do you do when you're at that point where you don't know where to go? And you feel like you've wasted what was one of your best opportunities in life, potentially destroyed any career plans you have in the future, etc.

 

I've talked to a few friends, and they might say things like, "What are you talking about? Wasted your life? You're doing well in your classes, you're graduating this year, etc." But I don't think they understand. I was wondering if anyone had advice or thoughts from another perspective.

Yes, I agree with the previous poster.

The point I was trying to make was that you've developed a nice set of skills. That doesn't mean you have to use those skills to develop more of those skills through research.

You could use those skills to develop or further particular realms of research that are slanted from what you have been doing: As such, I suggested going into biomathematics.

I'm a neuroscientist/biologist (more neuroscience), first off.

From a historical perspective, I guess the big-league schools public and private, tended to have more money than other colleges and universities.

And as we moved forward past the 1960s, we start to see the design of many other local universities and colleges.

I've considered that in the past, intelligent people with ambition were allowed to go to top universities and colleges. I would say these were for general students before the 1980s...

However, from what I've read in terms of personal biographies, CVs, biosketches, and so forth of scientists, it would appear that after the 1980s, things get really shady, universities and colleges get really selective, and people start generating lots of prejudices and so forth. The elitism really starts to form.

But we're keeping in mind that people are similarly intelligent and similarly hard-working.

Do I think the elitism is justified?

Well, I don't think so.

But people who did benefit from the elite colleges during the times when entrance was a bit more lenience were given an upper-hand on the amount of resources and connections they had. Furthermore, in order to maintain their SES, they more than likely sent their children to particular schools so those children could get into nice colleges and universities.

Of the many professors of whom I have met, they tend to send their children either to a nice private college or a top-10 public university.

What's allowing people to excel is entrance into these institutions because of the varying amounts of intellectual inheritance their parents have given them.

If you've ever filled out college applications, they ask about your parents, their highest level of education, and where they work/worked.

Middle league universities would not be so bad were it not for the lack of funding and endowment they receive. As such, when choosing a particular university/college to attend, you will more than likely want to go to the one that has the most money with the hope that a good amount of money is being put toward research. This is different from the amount of money people put into a particular department, such as a biology department.

For example, UIC vs. UIUC. UIC and UIUC put similar amounts of money into their biology departments. However, UIUC has much more money to spend on research adventures in the realm of biology due to its higher endowment.

The higher endowment allows people to do more research, because they have more funds. Otherwise, people have to wait around until they get more grants.

With that said, it's obvious to see that getting into a college/university with a decent amount of endowment is the better bet. It also helps to find out who is bringing in grants for themselves in order to do research.

Historically, I do not think many middle league universities pushed out research that others have built upon. They do push out research, papers, and so forth; but not something that becomes fundamental in a textbook that you build upon.

Again, the knowledge someone finds useful is dependent on a particular person's field and research.

This research stuff, however, becomes way more important at the graduate level.

Now, the conundrum is that you've got to get to graduate school first.

This is where that intellectual inheritance part comes in.

If you go to a middle league private college, you'll more than likely get higher grades and leave with a higher GPA. As such, you'll be more selected for graduate admissions (because graduate admissions people are generally fools who aren't aware of what universities and colleges are doing grade inflation/deflation and to what amount).

Going to a middle league public school, however, can set a person up for failure. The business model and teaching structure of public institutions focuses more on research rather than teaching, thus you might not get to the grad school of your choice so easily.

As a person who is into neuroscience and biological regeneration, I don't feel that way. The field continues to grow.

I was big into the arts and psychology, but my transhumanist philosophy keeps me motivated.

Anyway, I would suggest just slanting your future studies into a new direction that you find exploratory.

Perhaps slant things toward neuromathematics, biomathematics, or bioengineering?

Maybe create some kind of learning software that works with atomic force microscopy in order to help better diagnose particular biological variations of interest?

Perhaps get a masters degree in an ecological field where you can go out and adventure while modeling particular population dynamics?

Really, I think if you slant things toward biology, you may find that there is a realm of information there is yet to uncover.

Remember, there is graduate school. You can change your interests yet use your past knowledge and training to accomplish new things.

I come from the large public university setting. It seems like some of you are from the small private college/uni.

I feel at the large research university that it never matters.

Professors end up making the material more difficult and curving, anyway.

They never really care in the first place. At least, their pay doesn't involve them caring.

I know that the TAs are decently intelligent, most of them. And I know that they can at least teach the material if they are refreshed on it.

The trick is getting them to do it rather than have them dodge and evade undergraduates seeking help. Sometimes professors advise the TAs to not help undergrads.

I'm serious about that. I had a TA tell me once that she was told by the professors not to help us undergrads.

Experts seem to have a way to weasel their way out of teaching the material.

My money is on the belief that they will continually do a poor job at teaching (Even though they really could do impressively better) in order to say, "Hey, let me do what I'm best at. See! I'm not good at teaching. I'm good at research. Let me do research rather than teaching."

As such, they'll do a bare-minimum teaching style, giving the classes subpar averages of 30% to 40%. Pft.

I lack serious faith in the modern professor who has already specialized in research skills.

As a senior, I bet there are a few labs I could teach. The lecture material is a different story.

I'm more of a lab person, though.

Then again, I suspect I could give some of the "expert" professors a run for their money by generating higher exam averages.

Seeing as how many professors still go off pre-generated notes, all I would have to do is the same "class in a can" method but with a different skew on how to provide learning resources in order for people to do well.

Anyway, many of us on SFN have discussed this issue before.

There needs to be a division between teaching professors and research professors, unless of course the research professor is teaching some useful research skills.

My current situation is that my two roommates will be moving out near the end of July. New leases start on August 1st. However, I will be graduating in December.

As such, if I choose to stay, I will need to get new roommates. However, the bigger problem is putting the bills in my name, which would involve electricity, gas, telephone, and Internet. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, because maybe people will ditch the apartment the first few weeks. Furthermore, because I'm not staying a whole year, I'd have to transfer the bills to someone else come December, so that might deter keeping the roommates around.

I took an active role on ditching television, because I think it's detrimental to studying.

I don't want to put the bills in my name, so I'm thinking about finding another apartment nearby. My current rent is about $425 USD with about $100 average monthly utils.

I suspect the landlord (a nice guy) will help me get new roommates. I wouldn't have such a problem if the ordeal was getting new roommates.

I live about three blocks from the University, which is about a 7 minute walk. So, I don't feel that there will be a problem getting new roommates.

What do all of you think? Ditch the apartment for another? Take on the responsibility of the bills?

I like where I'm living. It's quiet and the distance to the campus is considerate.

But I definitely don't want the bills in my name and want to avoid such a problem.

I find that Linux is the best for stability and as a workstation OS.

I use it for school more than Windows.

Because Linux OS's mostly lack the inability to corrupt due to spyware and viruses, I never have to worry about losing my data due to those things.

@#%$, and that's the talk at a symposium that I decided to ditch on Friday before deciding to go home for the weekend because the semester ended.

Irony.

lol, ok...

I'd love having some more money, but I don't focus on aspberger's at the moment.

In relation to you post, there might be some validity to consider that continual information intake and processing through multimedia outlets, such as the Internet, have been constructing a varied behavior that people have not seen in the past. With television, the act was passive. With the Internet, the act of intaking information and processing it can be more interactive, thus more active. Mainpoint: The human brain is undergoing never-before-seen plastic changes to large information intake and processing acts.

So, what you're seeing are further cognitive changes (I suspect) with the Internet medium than the television medium.

However, I don't think these changes are enough to lead to an complete epigenetic lineage change for future generations. Remember, things have to affect the gametes. And the gametes are often well-separated from the brain. So, I don't think these modern-day cognitive changes that are occurring to people are bringing forth autism. Perhaps the plastic changes that are coming forth through constant interaction with the Internet are providing people with autistic-like attributes, though.

Here is something that might be of interest: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/medmicro/staff/lasalle.html

Eating yogurt.

I was reading a thread, and I somewhat agree with the development of a Bioengineering board. Of course, I'm biased, as I have a biology background.

I think it would be a nice addition to the board. I see a lot interesting bioengineering topics out there these days, ranging from cellular biology (such as plasma membrane plasticity) to body mechanics. A lot of the stuff has a nice mathematical, engineering spin to it. Again, I don't always fully understand the stuff, such as chemical guidance throughout the body; but I still find it fascinating and worth a bit of a read from time to time.