Genecks

Definitely. The point I was trying to make is that if the person is in the same major as me, I more than likely have to see them in a few more of my classes. For instance, the bipolar girl? Well, I'm going to have to be in the same class as her next semester and the semester after that. I know this for sure. I'm going to be sitting in the same area as her for a year. It's going to be a mess. That's going to be a serious pain. I rather have had an academic ally than a personal enemy.

Alright, so, for about three weeks, this girl keeps looking at me. Let's call her "asian chick that's not bad looking and probably in her early 20s." At first I was thinking that maybe she has some staring problem, but today... she made a deliberate look. You know, the person turns their head enough that any person would have endured a little bit of strain trying to do a neck turn like that and if only to gain a second's glance at the other person being looked at. Personally, I've got wayyy too much B.S. in my life at the moment. Not toooo much. I mean, I've learned how to deal with having a relationship and managing my time. But I don't have a lot of time except a few hours per week, maybe, to donate to a girl. If the girl is seriously interested in me, I would definitely make it worth my while: I'm fond of clingy girls who obsess. She's in two of my classes. I've caught her looking at me during lecture, even though she's wayy across the lecture hall. So, either this chick thinks I'm a freak and fun to look at (truth be, I've been wearing black cargo pants, black plaid, black shirts, and black&white vans as of late) or she's interested. I don't think she has too many reasons to be interested unless she's a sapiosexual, because I act like a silly chatterbox in class. Sometimes I'm a rhetorical ass. For instance, I was in discussion one time, and I kept saying to people, "Oh.. there's that symbol... geeze, omg... what's the term for it.. you know.. it's two dots... uhh.... ... ... .. colon.. that's it." heh. I have a very subtle humor. It's hard to see. Yeah, but w/e. I don't know what this chick's deal is. Truth be, I wouldn't mind at least trying it out. As far as I know, she keeps looking at me and making glances. And this last one was very deliberate... But... uh.. I've tried hooking up with other science majors around this place. My first experience was a very, very, very bad one. And I wouldn't really want to try it again. I thought it would be cool to date a girl into neuroscience like me; she ended up being immature, cancelling possible dates, and ditched me to go have sex with guys. Girl was crazy, weird, bipolar, depressive, etc.. The kind I seriously attempt to avoid. Very edgy, too. Bad experience. I remember I was really into this TA, too. The professor directly told me to "stop fucking with" her. Maybe he thought I was messing with her. Maybe she thought I was messing with her (or she did feel harassed and was too insecure to say so). I did no such harassment, though. Very annoying situation, and I was attempted to accuse him of slander and talk to administration about it, since he said this infront of my peers and a friend of mine from a different city. It's something I'm going to make sure I confront him about and call him an asshole about after I get my degree. Maybe I'll punch him in the mouth and go to jail for a while. I've learned to feel proud from doing what I believe in. Like a good spy, I got to know the guy. He's a messed up person and a sexist pig, in reality. Probably foolishly thought the same of me. Some weird Freudian stuff there. Bad experiences to say the least. If anything, I could at least chat her up and try to be her friend, hang out with her, and get to know her. I'm a firm believer in getting to know a girl before dating her these days. Can't start any legal harassment bullshit against a person who wants to be your friend. That's for damn sure. I hate the shallow, annoying women around the area, though. You trying being a guy who wants to build a relationship; then they get paranoid and think you want them as an object or something else.... I keep meeting messed up women, or else a good amount of them are like that around here.

DNA processors seem a little ahead of their time. Then again, we've had the past knowledge to put things together. Something that's behind it's time is using gene therapy to possible treat AIDs. Then again, we didn't build to population studies until the effects of the virus on communities occurred. Still, the logic to say (this is a protein, gene(s) code for proteins..) was there... Maybe just a lack of funding all around.

Ok, well I was reading the wikipedia articles about the prostate and prostate cancer. It got me thinking that it's a container for biological substances, which can be seen as biochemical and then chemical substances. That got me thinking about how other organs act as fluid containers, such as the heart and liver. Perhaps some kind of biological relationships and mechanical relationship and dissimilarities can be made between the various organs and how they deal with fluid containment. I'm currently reading about a gene related to prostate cancer: CYP3A4 I'm guessing that organs need to find a way to constantly remove remaining waste and shed themselves. I guess women do a good job of doing that each month (I've often considered renewal functions of the female reproductive system to be responsible for their longer lifespan), but I don't think we're going to find too many similarities in the male body. And if you could somehow mock the shedding for males? Heh? I'm not sure how that would feel nor look. It does bring to mind some pharmaceutical possibilities, though, if drugs could be used to incite a shedding process. In terms of masturbation, there may be some kind of serious link between not masturbating and fluid containment. I would imagine that fluid would build up over time, vasocongestion would occur, expansion or irritation from increased storage sends a signal to the brain to masturbate, and the reason the brain and body has evolved with such a network system is in order to remove the fluid from the prostate, thus enabling a person to have higher fitness. You could argue that the brain evolved such a system to get people to have sex with one another more often; but I would seriously consider the idea that maybe it evolved to prevent physical decay of the biological container: prostate gland. I'm not a big fan of fitness enhancement as the primary reason various biological systems have evolved. I like to think in terms of self-sustainment. That's something that would be argued in a different thread, though, unless attacking my views in the previous paragraph.

CharonY, any ideas on the current hypotheses? My guess is that alkaline and acidic conditions of the prostate gland somehow causes mutation in the cells of the prostate gland. I figure that the germ cells are ok, as I don't believe they are going to radically develop and divide out of control. However, if it's the organ itself, then my suspicion is that a mutation is occurring to the prostate gland, and that is caused by its environment. Cancerous mutations have but a few m.o.s. I question whether or not some form of gene therapy could be enacted upon an animal to change the function of the prostate gland in order to make it function longer (or even longer but less often while being more stable). I don't read too much into the mechanisms of cancer, so I don't know too much about what's causing the ordeal. With how I understand biology, though, if there's a problem, then cut it out or add to it.

I've often been thinking about how people say that the redhead phenotype is going away. This is true in a lot of ways. However, the alleles in the genetic world pool are not going away. However, it could be said that the inability for a phenotype to be expressed in the real world means it's undergoing an allelic degradation. What I mean by this, is that the lack of phenotypic expression is tied to all the other genes in the person's genome. And all genes work together for the fitness of the individual. A gene that is not phenotypically expressed means that it has not been required for survival. As such, it undergoes degradation. It will disappear from the gene pool, because it is not required for increased fitness. Furthermore, individuals have no way of being selected for that phenotypic expression, since it's unknown whether or not it is there.

I'm thinking of a type of universe where pure energy is in existence. Assume that the beginning of the Universe was a Platonic realm with all the perfect things in existence (universe with the form of anything that can and will be) within that beginning. Then I would suspect there would be a black hole and/or worm hole to that dimension. To travel that distance, however, might cause you to be sucked into it and broken down into its existence. So, if there is a wormhole to that, and the idea of wormholes is that you use one to travel to another point in time, well, it'd be awfully worthless to go to that spot... unless somehow you could avoid being destroyed and consumed by it.

So, I came up with a crazy idea. Actually, my brain put together some random information, data, and combined it into an interesting idea of which I partook of it to be a fun, interesting idea. Would it be possible to insert the GFP gene into flora of the human body (gut, skin, etc) and have them live on the body, reproduce, and glow? So, in general, my idea is like this: 1. Take some bacteria from my mouth 2. Insert the GFP gene into them 3. Swish the bacteria back into my mouth 4. Smile and walk away Now if I spit on the ground in a room, wait maybe 20 seconds, and then turn off the lights, then my spit should glow. Right? If that's not right, isn't there a way this could be done? It'd be so cool and trendy.

Go to a library and talk to a librarian about your ordeal. That will be one of the fastest ways.

I think the board titles and descriptions should be expanded out like the old layout. The thing I have circled in this image should be like this by default. I think you ought to let users have a crunched layout if they like. Furthermore, the orange isn't working out. This ain't Ubuntu. I think it may be the orange that makes the Google Ads stick out more. I replaced it with the color from the "n" in (n) of SFN. I think the icons for the boards need to be changed. They are bulky and somewhat non-descriptive. Usage of the atom cage (w/e it's called--too early for me) seems like a nice replacement. I think the old color scheme is something that should be adhered to. Not as a form of tradition, but as a way of keeping this SFN. Kind of how McDonalds still uses Ronald McDonald as the spokesperson. I can't find a word for it, but it's kind of how you know who the Green Ranger is, because he's wearing green when not in uniform. Anyway...

Guys, the new layout is not very attractive. It's not. It even seems as if the Google Ads pop-out more than before. Anyone else have an opinion about the new layout?

If times are rough, in a last act of preservation have a lot of kids. Those that survive have survived the environment. That's probably the subconscious act of it all. I doubt people are really thinking that. But if I had a wife and 5 kids, then I'd make all of my kids go to school and choose serious careers in order to make cash. And then we could all pull together our cash and live in a mansion. Well, that's not really how it works in America. It might if the Mexican-Americans with strong Catholic ties a chance to dominate the country. I really think that will happen, btw. But in a place like Africa where having multiple children means the tasks can be divided better and resources brought back together (and there is a lack of child labor laws), then it works out for them to have many children. Don't forget that with a large child death rate (say the kid dies at age 3), the adults are going to have children again. Certain foreign countries must be under some severe, corrupt rule that prevents the people from actually improving their lands. I've never fully understood the ordeal. At best, I've only read, heard, been told that whenever someone tries to fix such societies, large murders and wars start to occur. It's difficult to reform the societies without some kind of bloodshed occurring. Also, animals don't really have the same system of economics the world has. I think animal communities run like a dictatorship or communistic society. But their leaders aren't that corrupt, because they could be replaced.

I watched about 20 minutes of it. But in general, I don't think police officers or judges are the most philosophical of people. Judges have more education than police officers, for sure. Either way, watching the video has reminded me of a scientific reason you see systems of incarceration still around: There is a B.F. Skinner style to them, such that they attempt to change and alter the behaviour of individuals who land there. Nonetheless, I think the modern prison system is ineffective. And to make it effective would cost a lot of money. And I think society would be putting in more money to make prisons like schools in order to change people for the better. So, unfortunately, it will be economics that determine whether or not people decide to change the system for which behavior is rewarded and/or penalized. People penalize others with jail/prison in an attempt to change behavior. I'm very sure judges and police understand that the system is ineffective.

Personally, I see the whole opportunity of working with a certain professor as a form of apprenticeship. In other words, I'm there, because I want to be doing research with that professor and what he/she is doing. I have some research ideas of my own (unfortunately, not neuroscience-related which is the down side), but I rather be training under someone with a game plan. Moreso, a game plan in neuroscience. Of the time I have spent around the neuroscience graduate students at UIC, I often notice that many of the students are doing something similar to the professor but different from the professor's main topic. At other times, the graduate students are working on what the professor is doing. If anything, however, the students seem to be doing a form of apprenticeship. If there is this side project the professor has on the backburner that he/she hasn't been doing but will get money? Well, I'm guessing that's related to the professor's speciality, right? Otherwise, the professor more than likely wouldn't have that on his/her to-do list? For how I've grown up and understood graduate school and getting a Ph.D, two things can occur: 1. You have your own topic and you attempt to get a degree based on pursuing research with your topic 2. You act as an apprentice under a professor and do research with him/her in order to push out his/her research goal; and you're allowed to get your Ph.D this way. I see problems with such ideas with universities that make students rotate amongst the professors, thus never having a main professor to train under. I truthfully don't have a thesis topic or very narrow research idea for neuroscience at the moment. I think if I take some time off, then I'll have a better idea of who I want to work with and why. I think if I were to just drop everything right now, then it might take me a month and a half to figure it all out. I attribute my indecision to the fact that I haven't been keeping up to date with many things in neuroscience for the past few years (I've been trying to survive this @#$$^#$%@!# recession).

I've been talking to a graduate student as of late, and she advised that I find a professor and/or graduate school with a decent amount of money. Sure, that'd be nice, but I'm uncertain of how feasible that is or how well I could pull it off. In summary, I talked to her, and she described her experiences so far with not having a lot of money for her research, having to do and make her resources by herself, and saying that some things that getting done an experiment that might take her a year or two could be done at a different school under a different professor for perhaps 6 months. Furthermore, she mentioned that getting a Ph.D would be much easier and faster with a professor with more funding. I'm totally game for a Ph.D that will take 4 to 5 years rather than 7 or 8. I've often questioned what helps a person get a Ph.D faster than usual. I've seen unusual cases where it can take a person 4 or 5 years. I can't tell if it is the topic they pick, the amount of funding they get, or __blank___. My best guess is that since people need to take a few years of courses while going for a Ph.D, then the remaining years would be pushing forth the thesis topic and getting done with the dissertation. So, people who graduate in 4 or 5 years are either fortunate or extremely die-hard individuals who can function on very, very little sleep for very long times. Does that sound right to you? Personally, I don't know what kind of experiments in science take six months. I could see the necessity of repeatability being a time-consuming tasks. And I could also see the process of tissue development being a timely nuisance, too. However, I'm not sure what goes into making one's own resources. I figure if I had to make everything I use in experiments right now, it might take me a week of time to pull it off. How much of a pain is it to make one's own resources while a graduate student? Furthermore, should a person really choose a professor with more money and perhaps a slightly different field of focus than a professor with less money and the focus you want? I mean, I could probably study the biological mechanisms of learning under different professors and to different degrees. And I suspect those professor would have different focuses, as such many of them would have varying levels of funding. I figure even if I studied under one professor, I'd still gain some skills that the others would have taught me. Any input?

Unless the medical doctor is affiliated with the religion or beliefs (such as the person being a priest, shaman, etc..) of the person having surgery done on, then I'm going to have to say no. You cannot find too many religious figures who are also licensed medical doctors. That would involve a lot of schooling and study. And yes, the system is corrupt, Marat. Unfortunately, not enough people are intelligent enough to actually take note of that. It would appear that many professionals are booknerds. In the U.S., you can blame the American Medical Association for most problems with the medical community. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Medical_Association#Criticisms

One of the things that I think people continually forget in debates about God is that you have the ability to define God as you like. You can either adopt a few, or you can attribute aspects to God. I think the most physicalist, rational human idea that has come out of theological views would be the concept of the Tao. Whether or not it is an intelligent entity is of debate. Nonetheless, of the greatest aspects of the Tao is the idea that it cannot be defined. Let's say I'm being a completely logical being without sticking to the idea of an anthropomorphic God. So, if I define God as the Tao, I'm only equating terminology. But I cannot logically define what the Tao (God, for that matter) is. I think as science continues, it will indeed adopt a view that if there is a God, then it would definitely appear relative to the idea of the Tao. Sure, you can keep an atheistic view if you so desire. However, the values of the Tao seem remarkably sincere to the Universe having a plan for itself: order, consequences, input/outputs, etc... As a serious note, as I'd just like to state here, atheists who continually think of a monotheistic God (Zoroastrian, Arabic, Christian-based)--you'll find many from European-derived areas--whenever arguing are not going to be very good at arguing against me nor anyone else who takes philosophy and theology and their relation to science with seriousness. There are more views on God than that, people. Those things are the major reason I don't bother to discuss religion, theology, nor God with people. I believe most of humankind throughout history has designed God as a function to comfort people's psychological views toward life and death. God, in the ultimate, in most religions can have a heaven (or rebirth) for people. If science were to assume some form of God, I assume science would adopt views from many Eastern religions (as they include cycles, consequences, and a system of renewal). As it is often within the view of Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, to stop the cycle of life and death, you'll notice that science has been attempting to do the same thing. Keyword: Transhumanism.

You backed things up (will back things up), right?

The farthest back I can remember, I must have been maybe 6 months old or less. I was in a car seat, I suspect, which was on the couch in what use to be the house's living room. I was looking to my right, and I saw my brother. He was 16-years-old at the time. Sitting next to him, I saw a friend of the family. Both of them were 16-years-old. To say the least, I can remember farther back than modern psychology and neuroscience believes I should be able to remember back to.

If there are any inmates with a death sentence of a life-sentence and those inmates have HIV, then it might be within the inmates' interests to have gene therapy conducted on them. As more have been found about genes that allow people to resist HIV, it would be suitable to test those inmates. However, only under their permission; furthermore, they have to be explained the science behind what will be going on and what could go wrong. Truth be, this would be more of a special treatment to them rather than a rude guinea pig experiment. It would extend their lives. Furthermore, it would be a population that was going to die anyway (and faster than normal without treatment).

Being able to destroy diamonds would be useful in fighting against the diamond monopoly. There may be cultural hate against diamond mines in the African societies. I'm not sure about such cultural hate.

Because my eyes have evolved to perceive it as blue. And that's a fact, jack.

We are discussing biomedicine and biotechnology. However, I believe this would fall more under biotechnology. Books often act as foundations for knowledge. I understand what you mean about Scientific American being difficult to read, as I once felt the same way. I think for the most part, I think the mathematics introduced in scientific articles is what will hold most people up. The next thing would be specific types of methods used, such as western blotting (a person might ask what a Western blot is). For the latter, Wikipedia could be used. But for the former, reading and working through a college statistics book will help get through some of the statistics introduced in a journal article.

Page last updated at 23:16 GMT, Thursday, 8 July 2010 00:16 UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/10559880.stm Journal: Cell