Genecks

This issue may be more field related. As a biologist and a person whose done work with psychologists and sociologist, I find you can get out there and do research. Some of it may be physical labor, but it's still data collection, which can either help prove or disprove a particular theory/hypothesis. I'm not a hardcore physicists, but I could see how you would want to learn everything that has been tried so that you do not re-invent the wheel. However, they may be times when you can do physical labor that involves data collection to a particular research theory/hypothesis; and that will often allow a person to get involved with research. I'm in a research project at the moment where I would gladly grab about 20 kids fresh out of high school who can think about neuroscience, cell biology, and have patience to sit down for at least 8 hours in front of a computer screen. I'm not team leader, so I can't do that. I'm not even expecting them to understand cell-to-cell signalling or genetics. There's only a handful of things that need to be understood, and once that's done, most people could do the project. Even some juniors in high school would be good enough. Just need some people with intelligence who are good at understanding biology. There are definitely aspects of research that could use more people. That would severely cut down on the amount of time particular people have to use in order to accomplish certain projects. I'm talking about the economics of reaching maximum efficiency. I just believe the deal is that some professors are straight-up snobs and have a severe pessimistic look on the capability of some students. There are surely times when you have too many researchers in a lab and not enough equipment. When something reaches that point, then it's just too cramped and you can't really get anything done. I've been inside many labs of professors, and I don't really believe them anymore when they tell me they don't have anymore room for researchers. If I don't see someone sitting down at the table using equipment, at least one person, then apparently they need another person. In other words, having enough people means all persons' schedules are in accordance so that lab work is constantly being conducted. If that's not the case, I don't believe the professor. Otherwise, I think the professor is an inefficient manager and might want to look into how to get more people in the lab in a more orderly and scheduled manner. In reference to the work world, there are often a lot of ignorant, stupid people out there. However, after enough time working somewhere and showing their potential, they are given more skills and knowledge to complete newer tasks. In a lab, I don't think it's necessary to indoctrinate a person with all the knowledge necessary to understand something so that he/she can do her part of the research to help the entire research ground. People simply need to be trained (specialized) in a particular task and do it. They need to be asked to not ask too many questions and simply do their job well. The major issue and complaint I've heard from professors is that people will work for about a year or so and then leave. Well, there is some truth to that. That same thing often happens in the work world, too. And it's a major problem. However, in academia, I think the situation can be a little different. If a student is a freshman and asking to be in research and can adequately describe why he/she wants to be in that group and be in their field, then professors are missing a great opportunity to enlist that person to keep them around. The student may a little naive and may find eventual fun and interest in the research to want to stay on the team for a Ph.D or something like that. Personally, I'm still a little annoyed with professors I've asked if I could join their research teams. That's time wasted that I could have been there, gained skills, and maybe gained enough interest to stick around as part of their research. I've found major interests in many of the labs at my university, but I am satisfied with where I am now, as I'm actually doing something rather than hustling professors. Perhaps part of the issue is the pre-meds who just want enough credentials to get into medical school, and surely, they are a pain and need to be segregated. I suspect many professors are skeptical of students, believing that many of them are pre-meds rather than die-hard scientists. Despite what lines of thinking professors may have, they could still be wrong about their choice in researchers. I find it humorous when people get their Ph.D in a professor's lab and then go on to medical school and do little to nothing with the skills and knowledge they just obtained. Pathetic. To summarize, I don't often believe professors when they tell me they don't have room. I believe this is code for them not trusting students or calling them stupid. My advice: Do your best in the mind-numbing B.S. that you have to deal with. Try not to hustle the professors too much, as that can become time consuming. Try asking professors for redirections to others who made need researchers. But I wouldn't suggest spending too much time. Focus more on your school work. When you get into higher-level classes, sometimes professors talk about their research, teach aspects of it, and are even desiring assistants who make As in these classes. So, I think you'll find a point where hard work and doing your best will pan out.

Answer: I think we have the technology. Our knowledge of science, biology, and engineering to make a super soldier that has a stable bioengineered body does not exist. We have many working theories on biology, bioengineering, biomechanics, and so materials science. And we also have people researching and working to find better ways to make biomaterials. I'm not saying it's impossible. But not everyone is working on something like that at the moment. We have the technology to build the technology, but we don't have the allocated resources to build your super soldier right now. I guess theoretically we could do it right now (lacking adequate knowledge for making a stable cellular and anatomical framework for the soldier), but don't plan on living to an old age, as your cellular biology is more than likely going to turn against you. Maybe you could live two weeks to three months. I'm not a specialist on immunology and bad reactions people have to materials, so I'm just throwing out some random guesses. But for whenever I've heard of people having toxic issues with biomaterials, they tend to live at least two weeks. You would need to find the materials and surgeon with the skills to do it, though. Possible right now? No. Possible in the future? Sure, I don't see why not unless everyone stops working on it, as people above have described.

College algebra... I find it hard to believe a 12-year-old acted as an autodidact to learn the topic of calculus. It must have been a good book. I'm not sure about any of you, but in my experience, most mathematics books in the 1990s were cryptic. They were still pretty cryptic into the 2000s. It wasn't until there was a medium (the Internet), where people made it very obvious through book criticism sites, such as Amazon, that many math books are f'ing cryptic. Go back even further in history and you'll notice that they are even more and more cryptic. Luckily, some libraries actually have calculus problem set books that are around from the 1970s, so I guess it's practical for a kid to pull a Matilda and just start teaching himself. But then again, many cities, towns, and the such don't have good libraries that provide people with access to the materials to be autodidacts. And, to my knowledge, not many grade schools actually possess calculus books. Truth be, I haven't walked in a grade school library or middle school library in many, many years; but I'm pretty sure they don't have those college-level resources there. What am I getting at? I'm pretty sure the kid didn't do it all by himself. Whenever I hear or read about someone learning about a particularly advanced topic at an early age, I can't help but consider they had someone there to hold their hand. Otherwise, they had an excellent mentor who explained concepts quite easily so they were quickly understood. In terms of neuronal development, I'm skeptical of the quick need to generate associative networks for greater information retention, understanding, and episemantic database building. I think much of society has been led by a variety of early-age development theories that it's somehow damaged their self-esteem and belief that they can learn an advanced topic even in old age. As such, people don't dare to attempt learning the topic. That's my view. There are a lot of theories about language development and whatnot. If there is perhaps some truth to all of the neuronal development, it might be hormone-based. I believe it's about the age of 12 where people have greater difficulty learning a new language. Before that age, people don't seem to have many problems. But surely, that's what I read over and over in the university. I don't have the data nor understanding of the methods used to collect the data. So, it could be just as bogus as me reading something by Daniel Dennett where he describes some guy named Walters using a slide project to discuss free-will. I did read such an article by Dennett, and never once sourced nor cited was what Walters did. I don't think I can deny, however, that some people are neuronally specialized for obtaining and digesting particular aspects of their environment. In simpler terms, I believe there are surely gifted people out there. I supposedly am gifted at math. Nonetheless, I don't really care for an intense study of the field. I find mathematics classes to be particularly boring. However, set me in front of a spreadsheet, and I seem to have fun. One could say that I've generated a hidden layer that causes unconscious cognitive dissonance, thus causing me to have a lack of care for picking up particular mathematics materials. As such, when given a mathematics book, I don't learn as easily anymore. This goes back to any particular age-related learning issue that might come around: Some cognitive scientists believe that accumulated life experience unconsciously plays a role in making things harder to learn, similar to how a hard drive fills up. People can only hope to have a type of Zen enlightenment in order to pick up new topics. As an aside, I do find that some people have an interesting affinity for mathematics. For instance, I have two nephews who I often discuss mathematics and statistics with. One nephew had trouble understanding the concept of tying his shoe, so I explain the process in mathematical terms. It made a lot more sense to him, and he quickly grasped how to tie his shoes. My other nephews finds amusement, as I do, in trying to determine and estimate the probability of events using mathematics, more in an actuary sense. Also, finally, I think there is a lot of unfairness in academia. This is for sure. There are guilds, old boys' networks, and the such. Collecting the data and information is difficult, as people don't want to be exposed. As I'm not familiar with mathematics on a graduate level, I can't tell if sophisticated equipment is required to generate many new theories; but if it is, I could see not having access to such equipment to be a problem for mathematicians. I often consider that we are still in the stone age of education, but then again, we have Internet communities who are often willing to discuss academic topics. So, it's not as if people are stranded in caves these days. Maybe we're in a renaissance.

Response to #2: Yes. Abstract By the way, scilearner, if you don't mind me asking, ... what are you up to? You seem to be specializing your reading in biological sciences at the moment. Are you a student currently in an accredited educational institution or an autodidact?

I've been reading about small animals with nervous systems. I've read that tardigrades can be microscopic while rotifers are close to microscopic. Surely, I need some say in a scale, but I don't have one. Nonetheless, I've been attempting to figure out which organism can be the most miniscule and yet possess a simple nervous system for somatic interaction with its environment. Which can be simpler and smaller: Rotifer or Tardigrade?

I can't remember, but I think there is a mathematical name for the percentage of plasmids that take in the gene. "Transformation efficiency" comes to mind, but I don't think that is it.

What are you on about?

Let's say I wanted to start up a laboratory where I constantly did research with fish, in particular goldfish. And I would probably be killing a lot of goldfish each week, maybe 20. Furthermore, I wanted to have a lab full of assistants who were also doing research (inside and outside of the lab). What kind of ethical constraints am I going to run into? Are there many problems that I will come into because I'm using fish?

I've been told that there are a lot of ethics involved when dealing with animals that are invertebrates. Otherwise, when a person is working with invertebrates, such as bugs, snails, etc., then there are not so many ethical controls and a person can work with them without too much constraint, paperwork, and ethics committees. First, about when did such a system develop? Why did such a system develop? Should the system develop to also consider invertebrates as precious as vertebrates?

Ideally, yes, it's a good test of whether or not you want to get involved in biology. It you can't memorize the cell-signalling pathways (at least this) that are presented (and gain an understanding for the networks displayed through the book), then you more than likely are not cut-out for biology.

WIth a 72k/year salary, and I'm assuming you're actually working years (not being laid off, looking for another job, working three months of that year), then I don't think I would bother with a Ph.D (if it were me). The master's degree isn't such a bad thing, as bachelors are becoming worthless. I don't know if the Ph.D would really open that many more doors, at least to jobs with as great a salary. Actually, if I had a wife who didn't have much of an education or salary and I was in your situation, I would try persuading her to start up the education. Two money makers makes for great financial stability. I think you need to go find some engineers with Ph.Ds (maybe find others who are pursuing Ph.Ds), and start talking to them about the state of the market, the state of technology, what the past, present, and future will be like engineers in your situation who are thinking about obtaining a Ph.D. Basically, take what you've said here and bounce that off of them. So, I suggest networking quite quickly and attempting to get as much intel as possible. Maybe try going around on online engineering forums and trying there, too. Another thing, I've often held the belief that it's easiest for parents to go to school when their kids enter the school system. So, when your youngest child starts entering kindergarten, then I suspect you'll have a lot more time to work with academia than if you started right now.

If it means anything, the room also has a fluorescent microscope, of which I don't ever use. To clean off fluorescent microscope slides is a isopropanol or ethanol used? Does it matter? I really somewhat chuckle and think it's insane that there are two bottles of alcohol. I'll ask my supervisor the next time I see him, though.

I often consider the limits to one's culture a product of one's limits due to biology. For example, birds got wings. So, if shit gets too complicated, they fly away. Society of cowards, if you ask me. None of them want to stay and fight the good fight. *claws at the air like a cat*

There is always be the undernet or the darknet. Something I find surprising about the Wikileaks stuff is that they didn't have a darknet prepared in the case their Wikileaks website was to be taken down. At least, darknets are created by people who've got an agenda. But maybe having no darknet says something about Assange's agenda: He doesn't really have one except telling the truth without too much resistance.

I have some microscope slides with brain tissue slides on them. They have a glass cover slip over all of the slices. I'll do oil drop on them in order to observe, but when I'm cleaning up I have to use alcohol. It's been a while since I've walked into the laboratory, and it's difficult for me to get a hold of my supervisors. As such, anyone know which alcohol I should be using? Isopropanol? 70% ethanol? I cannot seriously recall nor reason as to why not to use one rather than the other.

I think if there is something to be said about being a good chess player in relation to mathematics, it would be that a person can consider the possible outcomes of a directed action. So, if I take a math problem and move it a particular way in an attempt to solve, before having done such, I could have considered a variety of other possibilities to solve that problem. Learning chess as a child can help a person abstract from the game of chess in an attempt to apply it toward real life. Introduce children to the notion that "everything is like chess," and you've got some children who are primed to abstract from the game of chess. There is a large amount of consequential thinking that comes out of being a chess player. Whenever I start playing against serious chess players, I find myself having to think 5+ steps ahead of them. It surely makes things more serious. I like to "plan ahead" all of my steps and think of future alternatives. It keeps me quite organized these days.

Eh, I'd definitely need some really good genetic, developmental, and biochemical explanation as to why people would really be that different. We haven't really unlocked the mysteries of the biology of cognition, and we're still working on it. For what we have, though, a person could make some strong arguments, but I doubt a psychologist is going to be able to pull that off. I'd have to see it. You'd really have to start opening a lot of people's brains, running genotype analyses, culturing tissue and doing cognitive experiments, and more. The ethics of it all would surely prevent people from firmly establishing the facts of the matter. James D. Watson was pushing some views a few years ago about race and intelligence. But not enough of it was substantial enough. If I had to throw out (and I've yet to have decent evidence to think Chinese have the highest IQs) and idea as to why China has people with higher IQs, I would have to say that it is due to the social nature of the Chinese. The intricate community-mentality that is provided in Chinese culture provides people with a way of sharing knowledge and achieving new heights rather than the competitive and individualistic model that is followed in America. I'm reading about the psychologist and the work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race,_Evolution,_and_Behavior Scientists are still researching more about social behavior and genetics, so something might pan out in the future. Then again, given enough time, maybe a few generations, eh, this social genetics stuff might be over-ridden as more races attempt to mingle. We've only started to see how aggressiveness works in social creatures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

Very much an interesting thought. Consider that we still use animals to further medical science research in our industrial world. We're still using animals for industry! But this crow stuff is definitely a few years old. "Betty the Crow" comes to mind.

Well, I've actually been thinking about this issue the past few days. I'm surprised to surf SFN and find a thread about it. Well, I'd generally have to say that the common public is not really aware of what their tax dollars are being used for. They elect individuals into offices to decide that for them. But then these people who come into office are not that efficient either. I really think that we could get a lot of people supporting transhumanism, and that grants might start using terms like "bioenhancement" or stuff like that, in an attempt to bring society to a more cyberpunk/biohacker future. Surely, many people rather see stuff like that than trivial research that attempts to turn an ant into a model species to better understand social behavior. So, I would think you would start seeing the general public support generally any kind of research that would have to do with vertebrate systems. An intelligent republic would start to learn more about evolution, animal homology, and vertebrate systems if they were interested in moving toward a transhumanist future. And what society really funds really depends on the goals of society. In a lot of ways, people want better health care. So, if there are scientific goals that will help attempt to achieve better health care, people will support that. As you can currently see, society is moving more toward a transhumanist future. I think another serious issue was brought up by John: There will be a tug-o-war in attempting to get grant money. If it's the number of people who matter, then small private, elite colleges/universities will not be able to get the grant money that they want. However, large, public and prestigious universities will be able to get the money they want due to the large student body. Many members of society simply may not be easily persuaded to vote. As such, it may be left to the scientific bodies to vote on who gets the research. And of course, if the majority of the vote is left to scientific bodies rather than the general public, I can see a lot more public universities obtaining the money. Otherwise, a more enlightening idea, is that private universities will start letting in a lot more students.

Haploids have half the number of chromosomes a diploid has. *closes book*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g84z4n9idhc

This topic is focused really on education, I would think, and I would hope that many of us can keep that focus. Men surely are in the minority in terms of employment in the U.S., as women have higher employment than men. With that in mind, I've often considered that part of the reason for a large increase in female education the past few decades is not only due to woman liberation, but due to their higher employment, which may be due to them being favored, socially desired for hiring if not due to their abilities and skills. Now, if you want to get controversial, I'd say that women have become sexist in particular pink-collar jobs in an attempt to exclude men from entering them, cutting into wage profits, and from men possibly using earned wages to educate themselves. I believe health-care fields (and within those fields some historically considered pink-collar jobs) are particularly the fields that have been the media for which women have been seeking employment and using employment to obtain higher education. I wouldn't exclude that women have some control over pink-collar professions. I believe Lemur is attempting to ask if I can imagine a society where, for instance, black men are of the most powerful and prestigious while white men are very much the minority and are hired as tokens in many cases. I'm sure there are a few places, and I could think of such. But I'd say such microscopic social institutions are not a major representation of many important and functioning social institutions in America. Nonetheless, this topic is focused really on education, and I would hope that many of us can keep that focus. If I wanted to get controversial, I could say that asians are starting to pull ahead of whites in the American educational system. That, however, may be due to a few things: higher population of asians, more community-based learning styles, and historically a higher emphasis on education. Combine this with free money for education, it would appear that many Asian-Americans are obtaining a particular fitness for success in America. I've often considered that given enough time, whites would surely be the minority, and asian-americans would become the educated majority. But I think it might take another decade or two to establish such an idea.

These programs somewhat dependent on what you want to do. What do you want to do with these programs? I could do a lot of stuff with an excel sheet, but that would depend on what I plan on doing with it. I could analyze my grades, how fast I'm reading a book, doing a chi-square analysis, and so forth. I could give a presentation on behavior in mice; I could present data and figure; I could present why I think capitalism should be abolished; etc..

I don't really care if minorities complain, because I can easily say to them, "I'm poor, too." I'm 24 and currently on the SMART and Pell Grant getting all that each grant offers. I suspect I can apply for the MAP grant, too, and get all of that. Obviously, I scored a 0 for my EFC. I'm in debt. I'm poor, too. My father grew up as a workaholic who blew his money on trivial things if not stuffing it in his retirement only for himself with no concern for us children. My mother never really worked too much, but when she did work, she often saved it and saved some up for my college education or vehicle repairs, etc... Lots of repairs through the years. She hurt herself around 51 years of age while working as a lib. aide in a middle school. She hadn't worked for a while. She's back working in a library to help me a little bit. It wasn't until recently that my father has been taking me more serious and has considered giving me a decent amount of money to help me with my schooling. I guess he figured I was never going to make it all the way. I'm not there yet, but I'll have 122 credit hours by the end of this semester. I didn't expect my father to contribute at all, because he's retired, old, and has health issues himself. He's a strong mother*******, because he's fought off cancer twice, and fought off serious infections that should have destroyed his spine. But I know he needs that money for his health. But me? I'm in debt. I'm a white, caucasian, Catholic male; my grandparents were Irish-american. I'm the youngest of my family. My siblings did the following: one started a small carpet/flooring business based on things he learned from all his past carpet/flooring businesses (he's been in business about 14 years now) (he is 36); my brother is on social security and has had over 90+ arrests (he's 40); and my sister had a kid at 16, and she is now a medical assistant (she's 28): she's in serious debt, because she has health issues. My parents are in retirement age. My father is easily retired. But I don't feel that being white should disqualify me from things nor segregate me. In fact, I think offering free education to minorities can be a bit spurious. Reverse discrimination is still discrimination.