Genecks

That's getting worse to me. I support this idea of the female teachers. Ah, to be young again. B)

I think we should do away with affirmative action. Just take it away and let people fight for whatever. The government intervention is unnecessary. Here is another interesting read in relation to schools and affirmative action. I read it a few months ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopwood_v._Texas If I remember correctly, the US state of California is attempting to get rid of affirmative action in its entirety if it's not already gone. Here is another good law case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger Honestly, after a lot of consideration about higher education, I've considered that private institutions are the place to go for people who want to excel in their education if they're doing well for themselves. In general, I'm trying to say take the power out of the government's hands and slowly move toward privatization of education. Dangerous idea, but I'm sure the strong will succeed and honored for their efforts rather than be discriminated against for something as petty as not being a certain skin color. In a lot of ways, private institutions can't get money as well as government-funded institutions: This is probably why public institutions continue to do well.

Whenever I'm very tired and been up for about 20+ hours, I'll drink some hard liquor. I often get a little more alert and awake. I often consider that what's happening is that the alcohol is killing off the brain cells that are active and making me tired. It also might be clearing up trash between synapses, too. Definitely much more research would need to be done. In general, alcohol can destroy brain cells.

I question whether or not the pedaling aspect could transfer energy to something, as mentioned in a previous post, which could then provide a steady current to the battery over time. Maybe pedaling would be more efficient than the solar panel. But I don't have enough engineering knowledge to suggest how to build such a pedaling apparatus. Sounds like an issue where you are somewhat screwed. But if you live in consistently sunny conditions, a solar panel might not be a bad idea.

Scientists consider alternative hypotheses, not just the ones that negate probable truths.

In general, the answer is "no," none of this matters. That's the answer from the get go. These women matter to me. I wish I could find them. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_gingrich#Personal_life

Considering if this were a true, blue time traveler: This is just one more thing a future potential OTHER time traveler will be left to figure out to test whether or not you can stay in THIS timeline and time travel. So far, we've got at least the MLK assassination, JFK, and now this. Definitely it offers someone a way to check for other time travelers and timeline consistency. Question is if it will be possible to lock down this time traveler as being there at that moment in time. Honestly, I don't doubt the possibility of time travel. I doubt the possibility that we'll be able to tap back into our direct timeline, though. If she's a time traveler and there is something special about her, maybe there is something special about the film. Maybe there could be some odd radiation on it? Perhaps if the original location could be locked down, there is some kind of active communication port going on that continues to exist at that area. So, in that particular area, even to this day, there is currently a time rip that continues to exist until after the point where the person on the other line (let's assume the person on the other line is in the future at the moment), then surely there should be an active channel there. I think that would be a truth if the time traveller foolishly opened up a communication with someone from the future: Foolish, for there may exist some kind of trace of the call. Considering it's a hoax and shoop: Well, I'm sure there is some original film vault or copies around that can prove this shoop is a fake. Otherwise, there should be a physicalist or mathematical way to describe it as a fake. More intersting however: What if before the Irish film maker and we ever discussed this topic, it was actually real footage. And what if the time traveler fixed all these issues (which take some time to take effect) and then somehow this film is now considered a shoop and so forth... It'd be a radical curiosity to think what behaviorist tactics the time traveler employed in order to get the film artist to engage in such, but surely it must have had a way of being done. Maybe it would be like MIB, where the past events are erased, and the future events are instilled. Maybe the guy will walk around being called crazy, while in fact those things were real. -- As I've said before, definitely if we want to know, all we have to do is time travel back to those places and find out. Perhaps the best that could come out of actually proving a time traveler would be the act of convincing people that you can indeed change time and/or partake of being in time. Then again, such a proof could even cause serious chaos and world war 3 until a person eventually gets his/her hands on time travel capability.

EndNote is a reference management software. I've noticed I keep reading science articles more and more. As such, I've considered that maybe I'll reference what I've read throughout the years. Not sure, but I've considered maybe I should keep track of them rather than just saving them all to the harddisk. Thoughts? Ideas? Buy? don't buy? I know there is free, and or open-source software; but it doesn't seem to compare to the longevity and consistent use of Endnote.

There are only 6 people in this lab. It can usually hold 12. I think that's plenty of time to go through each person's misconceptions. The university double-booked major required classes, which caused fewer people to be there. The professor didn't tell me that, but the TA explained it to me yet was not suppose to talk about it. These professors surely aren't very open about what's going on. That's why I can't help but think they are fucking with me. There was definitely the ability for the professors and TA to watch us more. I've even sent the professor emails before, and he never emails back. Oh, and he checks his emails, I know he checks his emails. He'll check other people's emails but just ignore mine. He was telling me the other day about emails he received from other people, but he never took the effort to check and reply to me. I had to orally tell him everything in the email until he cut me off. Maybe he was just fucking with me to see if I would actually resay everything I just did in the email? I don't like being tested, so I did present that email in speech I sent to him. My partner and I had explained to him multiple times I could not get a decent visual. He understood that. He didn't bother working on that fact, and instead insisted there was nothing wrong. I have barely ever complained. I have only complained about the visual field and magnification I've been given. I've not complained about anything else but besides that. If anything, I've asked for advice on how to do something; but I never complained until recently, because I thought there was something seriously wrong going on. I'm more of a social scientist and a behavior watcher. When I notice the people around me making leaps and bounds while I put in way more effort than them and know that I understand things better than them, then I start to get seriously concerned. And I did go to him yesterday and show to him his ignorance. The issue didn't get fixed. He didn't give me any oculars. That was some serious negligence on his part. In the end, it appears I just need to either use someone else's rig or else steal from their rig and bring it to mine. With the way things are at the moment, I might as well just not show up to lab during class time and come after people leave in order to get stuff done. swansont, I believe in your issue, the student would have the lab manual, which would have fixed the issues. As such, it was the student's responsibility to read the lab manual. Any issues that came about from ignorance of something that should be read was the student's fault. The student could have corrected his equipment. In my situation, my equipment was as good as it could get for what was there. If anyone reading is wondering why I didn't just bother from the start to work with other people's equipment, it's because that equipment costs thousands of dollars. I had no interest in messing with anyone's equipment except mine in case something went seriously wrong and/or broke. At least you looked into the issue. I believe graduate students are more willing to help students than professors, at least from what I've experienced. My guess is that there is a point where professors become more close-minded and turn off their brains. I don't really feel my professor put in the time to figure out what my issue was. I told him there was an issue, and he insisted there was no issue. I doubt he actually spent the time to tend to my concern. There were only 6 people. This guy is in his late 60s if not 70s (he was drafted for the Vietnam war, so I know he's got to be around 60+), and he has tenure. He's not worried about much, as he's one of the people who built the neuroscience department in the beginning. I believe he seriously decided to ignore my complaints rather than take them seriously and do something about them. My teammate made similar complaints, but she tended to be meek about things. After a while, I become increasingly aggressive. He made an incompetent action. He didn't fix anything. And I'm still behind on doing my research. At least I've learned to have serious mistrust for my higher ups, anything they say, anyway they act, and so forth. I think what pushed me over the edge was that I eventually became skeptical of the professor. I know damn well that people can't be 100% certain about something. And when he started seeming 100%, I arose the thought that he's a fool and he is wrong.

I would not say I turned off my brain, as I found an eventual truth that was not discussed. I've used my brain a lot to understand the cellular physiology and anatomy of the various things I've been working with. Now I know these things about the lab equipment and being in a class, for sure. I had never been told these things nor discussed. If part of my brain was turned off, I surely think someone did not give me the light bulb to turn on. I am a bit of a determinist, as I've said before. It's pretty pathetic, because it causes a lot of worker inefficiency, especially since I'm helping with his research in this 400-level class. I have attempted to understand what I see; but I cannot know all nor always perceive all. I surely know I'm responsible for turning the knobs, using the equipment, not breaking the equipment. I'm responsible for getting my own equipment. But now I know that I am also responsible for knowing what equipment I could somewhat get unauthorized access to is like, and how exactly that is different than mine. Had the thought of using someone else's equipment when I have my own crossed my mind? Not necessarily. Yes, I know there is a difference between how the world "is" and how the world "should be." Lesson learned: The world is filled with ignorant assholes. That's about it, then. I'm going to have to agree with Lemur. I don't like the idea of considering that people are inevitably selfish, ignorant assholes in the end. That's the way it is. Common sense is not so common. I shouldn't have to quip that Voltaire quote. And I've also discussed on this SFN forum that I don't believe that most graduate students learn most things themselves. I believe their parents and other higher-ups spoon-feed them the information, which allows them to succeed. People are primed. The statistics are there. I'm highly doubting they have a neurophysiology that makes them very deviated from other humans in the world's population by working much more efficiently. Otherwise, there might be something to aristocracy, racism, and so forth. I try not to ask for too much help, because I want to experience for myself all the guildish bullshit that really exists. I like testing myself until I decide that there is too much bullshit, and I begin to decide that the people surrounding me have inside information, which is and has been the factor that makes them succeed. I really want to know what all the bullshit is, so I can then actually be able to explain to people why things are actually so screwed up. I definitely see this as somewhat of a social duty as being a transhumanist. This is often an implicit aspect of me in my actions to better understand things. Otherwise, I'd probably just drop out and say fuck school, those old people, and I don't need their medicine: I'm going to join an indian reserve. Most things I've learned from graduate school came from my community college professors. They told me about their graduate school experiences, and I learned from that. I'm glad I learned that "steal but bring it back" philosophy. It's what allowed me to actually further analyze the situation I am in. Furthermore, this school seems to fail in educating people to actually examine all of the equipment they are using. That microbiology class I took was a brilliant example of this. There were plenty of resources to be used and understood, but no one ever really went around telling people to further analyze things. I'm sure of the many tools I use, I've examined them. I knew I was working on a stereoscope, but I wasn't very sure of what others were using. And personally, I've often been told to worry about myself, my work, and how I do rather than undergo social comparison to attempt to understand others and how they are working and what they are doing. I'm sure I've done a lot of social comparison to succeed, but it would appear that getting by in these upper-level aspects requires social comparison, deviancy, and getting into the mind of your competitor more and more. But schools don't really teach that, because I'm sure it would be unethical for them to say, "You are competing against each other. Attempt to actively get into each others' heads without letting the other know. If you can take advantage of someone else without giving back, do it." Apparently, there are issues. I did a social experiment with the graduate students the past day, though. I swapped the equipment to see if they would notice and get any results. They have plenty of data, they're fine. They didn't get jack that day, and they had a hard time. Gee, I wonder why. I think if the graduate students had the experiences I've just had, they'd notice something was fishy and look for a better lens. I swapped it back before I left though. I only did this for one day. Surely, it would be great to do more unethical studies like this in real life to really see what the truth of the matter is in people being "self-responsible."

To clarify the last post, I noticed that my scope out of all the other scopes had a 10x ocular lens rather than the 20x that everyone else has had since the start. And that has been causing my teammate and I a hell of a lot of problems. Imagine working hard everyday, attempting to do your work, and the professor himself often looks through your same stereoscope and never claims there is a problem. What is this guy's deal? I'm a hard worker. I attempt to be responsible for as much as I can possibly be. I care about doing my work, doing well, and coming out with more professional knowledge and a good grade. Has it crossed my mind? Yes, it's crossed my mind in the sense that I'm responsible for me, my partner, and doing well in the class. But I can be only held responsible for so much. I'm not familiar with the equipment, chemicals, nor procedures. No lab manuals were made (the only one was a dissection manual; but nothing ever really covered the details of the scopes we're using), and I had no fucking clue until I started looking up the prices of things how expensive the equipment I'm working with is. I've not been trained to pay specific attention to what equipment I'm using at any time during any lab at my time at this university. If I am to pay attention, it's because the procedure calls for it: something or someone has described it to me. Anything they want you to know about the equipment, they train you to know. It's fascinating that there are two professors and an electrophysiology TA in there, and none of them fucking realized that the ocular lens I was using was half the magnification of the other ocular lenses people were using. That's some serious bullshit. The TA and both professors have taught that class multiple times before. After everyone was out of the lab for the day, I grabbed the $1500 stereoscope picked it up out of the rig, and moved it onto a table. I was going to swap it with the one from my rig for the time being. It wasn't until I did that did I consider to look at the oculars. Because I thought to myself, "What the fuck is it about these stereoscopes that makes this one better than the other? They're aligned exactly the same. It's the fucking oculars. Son of a bitch. That mother fucking professor. How dare he claim all along these are the same." I'm not even familiar with how all the optics work. I know how some magnification aspects work, and I figured it was a really shitty stereoscope setup. But I didn't know any better. THESE PEOPLE DID AND COULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. My job is to do the work. Their job is to provide the pre-requisite tools for me to do the said work. I know my research project eventually calls for me to use suction electrodes.. I know that. As such, I have to eventually request that. That's MY PART. But I shouldn't have to request a pre-requisite material that everyone is suppose to have. Furthermore, the professors pretty much showed their irresponsibility by allowing a new transfer student (a junior, though) into the class when she had not yet fulfilled pre-reqs. The class would have shut down otherwise for lack of enough people. She's been having a hell of a time herself. She's responsible for her duties, I'm responsible for mine, and as a team in that lab, we try to do well for each other. If something tipped me off to the bullshit that was going on, it was the fact that the professor actually brought one of his undergraduate research assistants into the teaching lab (and he's not suppose to do that, really), put her on the rig I was using (I had a prep right there), and then allowed her to use it rather than me. I couldn't help but think, "WTF? The other rig is open; go use that." Now both of those rigs at the time had 20x oculars. Mine still had 10x. It wasn't until the past week I started remembering something my microbiology professor taught me before I left my community college: Steal shit and use it; but bring it back. Serious bullshit, folks.

Are professors this fucking dense at the graduate level? Are they truly like autistic children who've found a way to the top? That they can't figure out how to communicate nor empathize with how people "understand" things? Now, surely, I wasn't given a lab manual, told about much of the equipment, and so forth.... but still... So, I'm inside my lab right now (it's 11:05 p.m.), and I came to notice something about an hour ago. The professor since the beginning of the semester put me and my partner on a microscope with half the magnification power of the other microscopes in the room. I talked to him today, and he said to me, "All of those microscopes are the same." That was such B.S.. I don't think he even realizes that he has been ignorantly causing me to go through a hellish amount of torture for the past 2 or so months dealing with this bullshit microscope. I'm trying to get inside of snail neurons, at the moment. And for the past two months, I've been trying to figure out what the fuck is going on and why I can't see shit. The graduate students (and potential graduate student with his B.S. biology already), have been doing fine. I've been behind for some odd fucking reason despite putting in shitloads of time. My main problem: I haven't been able to view these snail, buccal ganglia under the microscope despite how well I make a prep. This guy is a professional. Seriously. He knows his stuff. The other day, I was talking about how magnification while dissecting was being a pain. He looked through it and then said, "Oh, let me find a microscope with a 20x lens." That was his lab, inside his office/lab where he does research.. Inside the student lab, he's been familiar with checking everyone's microscope. He can see through them to the best degree. He should have damn well known that my microscope didn't have 20x ocular lenses, and that I've been having a shitload of problems ever since. Truth be, if he is truly being ignorant and unaware, I could truly steal these 20x ocular lenses, sell them on ebay, buy 10x ocular lenses, and replace them at the end of the semester; and he wouldn't know any better. I could easily cash in on this stupid asshole. Maybe he's not being stupid, though. Maybe he's actually being an asshole. So, I can't help but think... is he stupid? Or is he being an asshole? I can't decide.

You know, I've often considered a few things while spending time at the university I attend. One of the main things I've considered is that universities will truly see people as numbers. They'll create class-in-a-can pedagogies, which end up often being set in stone from about ten years ago. Professors don't often take up modern teaching techniques, which causes students to fight for themselves in finding ways to learn and grasp the material. I mean, I even come across professors who still use the word "understand" to say how a person should go about learning the material. That's such bs, folks. If I memorize an aspect of a G-protein receptor, I would know that it helps with signal transduction. I got the function down. I have memorized an aspect of what it does. But that doesn't mean I know every reductionist level of it. Furthermore, as we biologists know, there are downstream biochemicals that a g-protein receptor can tamper with. There is more to this than "understanding." I have even done the social duty of calling professors out whenever they talk this way to me. I'm not some 18-year-old who never worked or hasn't experienced life or the educational system. And let me tell you, the professor gets seriously pissed when in a room of about 200 people, you show up the professor. I quickly learned he wasn't grading me, so he couldn't control me. But you know what, I have never felt guilty about those acts, because the professors are conducting sophistry. Am I suppose to assume someone who has gone through 10+ years of education can't see the faulty aspects of using a word, such as "understanding," and expect to seriously use it to educate masses? And they often screw with using the word "critical thinking" without ever defining it, too. It reminds me of an organic chemistry TA I had once. She eventually broke down when discussing numbers for which you can attempt to determine things on an IR and/or NMR spectrum readout. She finally admitted there is an aspect where you have to "memorize" things. You can't "understand" that. You can maybe memorize stuff, abstract from it, and generate a pattern... but there isn't this "understanding" thing. I no longer really believe there is an "understanding" aspect to much of what I learn these days. There is a language to be learned; and there is a rhetoric to that. And the abstraction of the rhetoric can often involve inventio, a discovery of arguments. I don't believe in the term "understanding" anymore. At least, not in a "feeling" sort of way, because that's utter bs. I don't think the biology nor chemists around me actually grasp that idea. However, whenever I'm talking with psychology professors, they know exactly what I mean. Furthermore, if I talk with a neuroscientist who works mostly with cognition, he gets what I'm on about. I can't help but feel the professors leading my classes and department are inferior tools and idiots, because they can't teach. I can't help but feel that somehow our educational system have been thrown into a time before the greeks. It's as if education hasn't progressed in over 2000 years. Is it that we're now learning about neuroscience and cognitive psychology that we can say, "Oh, now we have a footing to work with"? Whenever a professor uses the word "understanding" with me, I want to smack them. Seriously. I find it insulting that such educated people use a word like that. It's as if they are trying to use a baby word with me. Furthermore, it's not like they ever operationally define it. As we can see, professors can act like idiots and do a poor job of teaching and help people absorb and cognitize the material, which I consider to be memorization and abstraction of materials. With this in mind, I'm wondering if graduate school is the same bullshit. I'm taking a 400-level class at the moment, and it's awfully unorganized, the professors will still use crude spoken language like, "We'll hold a review session, and hopefully after any questions asked are answered, then everyone will get an A." That was supposedly the hardest exam we've had so far. I hate that kind of dialogue, especially when the exam is built to be more difficult than other exams. And it's a 400-level exam. Are they still trying to weed me out at the 400-level? Seriously? There are about 120 people in the class, and the next class will have about 50. What am I getting at? Well, this 400-level class has access to graduate students. Graduate students need to get a B in order to remain graduate students. Are they somehow trying to strip out potential graduate students and the ones they already have? But I'm a little annoyed by how they keep seeming to weed people out. They don't offer suggestions as to how to better absorb the material. They don't really interact the class as much. And it's a real pain. I'm taking another 400-level class, which is omg... such bs.. it's unorganized. We've all been trying to collect data for about 3 months, and there has been no data collection. The equipment we're using is subpar, and the professor's stereoscope is much better. I can at least see what I'm doing with his microscope. I have vision problems, but it seems he only needs reading glasses. The equipment is absolute junk in the student lab. As such, I've been trying to use the professor's microscope with his permission. He keeps wondering why we can't see ****. Gee, it's because you've been doing the research with this for over 30+ years, your equipment is better, and I've been working on it 3 months rather than 30+ years. Of course, it's going to take me some time! I talked to another student about this, and despite him trying to be a humble person, he agrees that this professor is unorganized and cannot seem to establish things well. I'm sure the professor is not stupid, but I believe he is overly confident of his student's abilities, especially when they are absolutely new to something. Otherwise, he lacks the ability to communicate with people. I mean, he could have really told me how to do things much differently earlier in the semester to save me a lot of time. However, he didn't bother doing this. And I've met people who have taught me things (I'm in a research group). And the first day with this guy (20-something about to go to med-school), he told me, "I'm going to teach you some things that I didn't know so you can save a lot of time." Are professors really like this in graduate school? Do they expect someone to quickly pick something up in almost the same way someone else has in 30 years? Is there an age effect to where they forget what it's like for someone to startup? Do they forget how difficult is to get stuff done and accomplished? Maybe they've gotten to the point of tenure that they no longer know how much pressure students are under? What is the deal? Is this more undergraduate BS? I'm seriously concerned. Maybe I don't want to go to graduate school anymore, if I keep having to be hazed by educated fools like this. I am a strong-willed person. And I'm sure I have enough will to go through 7 more years of hazing by damn fools, just to have the ability to become a powerful Biology/Neuro Ph.D holder and erase these archaic assholes from the university educational systems across the world by waiting for them to die so that actual learning methods can be employed and more people can move forward. I'm damn sure I've got the ability to help people; but these pricks seem to only work to weed-out people. As someone once told me, getting into graduate school is easy, but staying in is difficult. Is it because there is still this bullshit? Is all of this seriously a hazing procedure? Really? Is it? Because I believe I'm going to be very worried for the rest of my life about the educational state of America if this is the best these professors can do in terms of educating people.

When and what should I discuss these things? Should I at all discuss them? Project: Extracellular, Single-unit recording of snail motor neurons Here are things I want to discuss: 1) microscopes used 2) amplifiers used 3) computer program used to observe spikes 4) electrode puller used and variables used to generate electrodes

For some background knowledge, please read these: 1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_period 2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Period_Hypothesis I've been considering something for a while. I have considered that if people are to lead a life focused on a specialty, a type of life-career (say biologist, computer scientist, etc..), then they should be trained to be such at a young age. A form of technical training. Why? Why should we ignore teaching them particular fields, such as history, art, and so forth? Because of the critical periods that come across in people's lives. So, let's say people are most prone to learning and becoming specialized in a particular field of study until age 12. And I'm throwing out that number, because it's the age at which people start declining in their ability to pick up a language, as much research has shown. And in some ways, being able to master the knowledge of a field is similar to being able to master the language of that field. As people age, they become less sharp. So, if people are to specialize, they should be trained at an early age and not be forced to study things that are not immediately relevant to their field of study. So, if a person is forced to study history but wants to be a biologist, it might be better to force that person to learn historical things related to biology (learning about DNA's discovery, when people started certain experiments, when papers were published, etc..) rather than something about the British vs. the Americans for control of America. You can see that both include people, historical dates, and titled works. The mission can be accomplished on both parts. What do you think? I think at worst, people may feel forced into a field of study that they cannot easily get out of later in life.

I'm not a planaria expert, but I suggest you track down a few professors on the Internet, email them, and ask them in an email. Don't mass mail it, though. Individually email each person. I don't know if anyone here does anything with flatworms or has. But I think sending out emails will help. Here is someone: http://mcb.illinois.edu/faculty/profile/908

This is basic stuff. Show us some effort. It's not that hard if you think about it. Visualize the things.

I want a double-blind study and other research facilities to repeat it before I believe it. Furthermore, I need to see how they operationally define their variables. This kind of research seems almost the same as saying a magnetic bracelet helps blood flow.

You're better off attempting to become a cyborg and slowly change your biological neuroanatomy into a hardware brain. That find a way to maintain your current brain. Both might not hurt. But if you would like to remain physical, my guess is that you would have to find a way to route the input/output from your brain to the other brain, perhaps share the other brain along with your brain and attempt to slowly use the other brain more and more until it can become independent of your current brain. How would he find the funds? Convincing people to do it with him, I guess. Maybe you could do experimentation with Hydra, inject a neural net processor into them, cause them to become super-intelligent, and convince them to build a time machine, come back to make you into your ideal humanoid self, and then destroy themselves. I often consider that if the world contained more die-hard transhumanists, then there would be a lot more progress going on in terms of biomedical advancements. So, become the next great revolutionary. I'll agree with you, CharonY. Nonetheless, there seems to be a direction people are heading toward and a rate at which they are heading toward that goal. If a mathematical description could be generated, it might give some hints as to how long it will take. Technological progress has greatly expanded in the past 60 years. But then again, with people finally shaking out of naivety and choosing to more fully examine homological similarities between organisms in the past 20 years means there is still little progress going on. At the current rate, it would appear that it would take maybe 200 years for people with cyborg brains to come about. We got more scientists walking around. We have more experts and oldguys walking around. We have a lot more creative thinkers, and so on. We have more people than before working on stuff. So, at least it's a step forward. I think if we were willing enlist the human race into transhumanist goals, sacrifice human persons, and so forth, that progress might be made in the next 60 years. But yeah, people aren't going to be game for that. Our world would radically change if people were to jump on all of this tomorrow. It would more than likely fix the economy, too.

So, I've come across a certain terminology aspect in literature. It's like this: ICa. I looked at this and thought, "Calcium iodide, what? No, the bonds don't work that way." Anyway, I went online and about the only thing that made sense was that the I stands for "iodized." Does this seem right to any of you? This is the first time I've come across a term like this.

So, where did they go?

I think when a person asks a sophisticated question here and then types at the end "thx" I can't help but feel that person only wants to meet the end goal of that question. Unless it's a very sophisticated question requiring knowledge of a person who has a specialized interest in that, I find that someone using "thx" while asking a generic science question is wasting my time and not acting professional. But if someone started talking about cellular membrane consistency, atrophy, and cellular death all in reference to cryogenic and cellular revival of whole mammalian organisms... well then I'm probably going to ignore the "thx," because that post (if asking a detailed question for which there may be a speculative theory/hypothesis present) is of interest to me: As such, I may reply to it. In my view, it's about professionalism. In another light, it's about keeping up my writing and communication skills.

I'm somewhat surprised that you're saying this. Isn't one of the main points to "collect data" to become informed? To have ways to encode that data in the brain? I suspect if someone was taking pictures of me and my data during a speech, either the person was trying to collect data (maybe he/she needs to write a report or better understand my data via review of what I presented as it may be relevant to that person's interests or goals) or else the person is interested in stealing my unpublished research.

Good advice all around. Do any of you think I would anger and annoy a presenter if I brought a digital camera and started taking pictures of the presentation? Let's assume I don't use the flash. I suspect if the presenter were to tell people not take pictures, then I wouldn't. But I think taking quick pictures would be an excellent way to capture graphs and various data. @cypher222: Interestingly, when we held class again, the professor (she) said it wouldn't be fair to exam us on the material of the speech. Curious situation, really.

http://ebooks.bfwpub.com/iga9e.php I suggest getting the ebook, as it's more affordable. It'd do you some good to get a solutions manual and not look at it right away. Also, it might be better to work with haploid yeast rather than bacteria, as bacteria take some skill. I've had plenty of microbiological experience to where I could culture the things and attempt to do genetics. But it takes effort, and I would not suggest working with bacteria unless you've the microbiological knowledge. Yeast and drosophila are more than likely two good candidates for experimentation. That's all I got to say for now, as I'm particularly busy as of late.