JorgeLobo

It is highly unlikely that the origin of life can be "proven" even if imagined conditions can be reproduced and viability elicited. In fact, biology has few if any "proofs. We have theories such as evolution based on and ther interpretation.

I'm with Marat. "Junk food" is a subjective and political term as is the term "empty calories" - neither have much to do with science. They're more related to the food police attempting to control others and governments that would manage citizens like a herd of cattle rather than serving those same folks. Look at the specific components of that "junk food" - be they salt, lipid, carbohydrate, etc. and the dietary needs and dynamics of the consuming groups. There are data that would help us understand the specific effects. And's the mass of data that is significant - not individual studies that are often designed to prove rather than test an assumption. BTW - Really loved the news that junk food causes "moodiness." Tho' wouldn't be srprised that biased someone designed a study, defining such a subjective term, that "proved" this one.

Rambling, very emotional, marked with cute terms "greenways" from" generationofgreensunrise" and no of substance. Only generationofgreensunrise (and thousands of others) understands this and is now uniquely motivated by an anonymous quote from the net predicting catastrophy - wow, that's never appeared before! Alot of silly emotional comments supported by nothing. Pop psychology of motoviation. Global pollution has never been worse? Bycicling adds 0.01 seconds of life the the next generation? " Atmosphere failure - whatever that means. Hard to understand the business aspects - but I just know leaders wil listen to a teenager with angst who of course knows so much more than they do. Eco-motivated political parties exist - the Greens in Europe and a tiny green patry in the US. You asked folks to agree to a "trial" of your vaguely described plan - unspecified objective, success criteria and protocol. Assume you'll tell us the detials of this trial with the understanding that you effectively know nothing of science, business, politics but are driven by youthful ignorance, anger, enthusiasm and angst. I do not agree. Calm down.

Ecology is a study - no more importanty than any other -ology. It does not place value on nor sustain the survival of a species - it merely describes a system and its dynamics.

Thanks vulgaris - good points. The presumed pristine water of the "mountain spring" is a good source of giardia and in any case has significant bacterial load. Bugs can grow in even distilled water to millions of cfu/ml with no discernable effect on color, clarity or taste. The presumed "natural" benefit is pretty much enviro BS and commcercial hype. Don't forget that oxygen is toxic. Evolution of photosynthesis that liberated oxygen was a highly destructive phenomenon and no doubt drove many species to extinction. Those that found protection in anaerobic environmental niches and developed catalase and superoxide dismutase, antioxidants etc. survived and evolved. UV does not penetrate water well and like ozone, does not leave any means of sustained microbial control in a water utimately offering water with substantial bacterial populations. These are usually pseudmonads, of more concern to the immunocompromised than "healthy" folks, but these folks do represent 25-30% of the US population.

Theisolated, unicellular microbe is probably more a lab creature than what is found in nature. Some maybe most form cooperative/functional assocations from biofilms to mycelial mats - and the coenocytic fungi grow as mycelia without cells walls. They are responsive - to environmental stimuli, metabolically (feedack inhibition), positionally (e.g. chemotaxis). defensively, etc. and cells communicate(quorum sensing).

Japan has used incineration and built land mass using cement encased ash. But as is one might expect in its highly ordered society, citizens arewilling (trying) to comply with pedantic soritng requirements - in some cities up to 40+ categories of trash for burn, recycle etc. To outisde eyes, this is often absrub - for example one sock goes to brun but two socks go to recycled cloth. Effective management beenfits alot if folks drop holier than tho', ill-informed judgements of the pracices of others. For example, life cycle studies have clearly shown the major environmetal impact of cloth diaper. Recycling is often more expensive. In some cases, landfill is the lesser of necessry evils of large advanced societies.

SMF - please avoid the chlidish insults - and tell us the stoichiometry that shows us how your fetish developments using wind, solar etc will reverse or even stop what is projected for global warming.

i love the pedantry of a science teacher - tell us and give mass balance - how "solar PV electricity" and your other fetishes will stop or even reverse global warming.. Let's not pretend that Gore is a scientist bringing science to the unwashed, his was a ;policy document. Sorry the concept was too complicated for you, for one. Allow me to explain - Thomas meant that means to establish compliance may exist but were so draconian that they would disrupt society. Understand?

Presume you're speaking of general culture rather than differential media. At one time, characteristics of growth in the respective medium were considered in microbial identification. Other than that, these are just convenient means of culture, usually of pure cultures - deeps and some broths esp. useful for anaerobes.

SMF - perhaps you might consider if you have anything of substance to offer.

PhD - 30 years in academia and industry. Please understand that claiming priority by education or experience is not very useful but to feed ones ego. Providing data and substantiating ones claims are much more effective. I could add that I was responsible for solid waste policy of a multinational corporation and served on the garbage commission of a major US city for many years terms. But again, these means little if I can't back up my comments and they were largely questions. Your expertise is certainly evident in your post offering the simple comment "crap?". Why not offer a reference that justifies your "expert scientific opinion." In fact, you might read the high school level wikipedia article - it says nothing of these alleged garbage islands - it speaks only of currents. The cutsie link to the cartooned, solicitation for money is silly tho' it's references are informative tho many a bit old. Missed that for the conclusion of 3E6 tons. But I'm sure you have reference that would defend it. Please provide them. That should give you something to do for a few hours. Odd - most folks (at least John and I) with experience in chemistry would identify chromiium as Cr rather than cr and would wonder how pippo got to Cr by way of a whine about garbage. We'd also be interested in how one would ban an element. So alleged expert, what did pippo mean?

It might in acute sense - linking it to specific isolates from the hospital in question but there are certainly better ways to demonstrate the connection. There are both community and hospital acquired MRSA.

Here? Safe in what context? Numbers usually mean little - it's the species that determine risk. Injectable drugs should be sterile - raw hamburger has no bacterial count standard and includes 10E6/gram or more bacteria.

Very melodramatic. Planets do not "suffer." Waste management is given quite a bit of attention but I'm sure we'd love to hear what stopsweating is doing about it. Do tell us.

Enzyme kinetics are not typically measured in half lives - it can be and sometimes is calculated the changes in that measure are usually so rapid, it becomes an imprecise and not very useful measure.

Sorry it's over your head SMF, any chance you could elaborate on your childish comment?. I see you apparently can't read or do so poorly. i asked about the so-called garbage patch and please remember some of us are scientists and who look for more credibility than wikipedia, however effective it is for high school students. Anything more than this?

Can you please give us the reference for the "garbage patch" study you mentioned? Regulatory prohibition of plastic bags is merely a gesture - effectively an extension of environmentalism. Every religion has its sins. How are skin care products polluting the oceans - man, i gotta hear this one! cr++? What are you talking about? Chromium? Hexavalent chromium salts are already regulated but chrmium is an element. It's kinda hard to ban an element.

As charonY inferred, the concept of half life is pretty irrelevant in context of biological molecules that effectively come and go in log terms. One prob. could estimate but in most cases it's a pretty meaningless number in context.

to: #1. Evolution is presumed to be continuing - and slowly as before. #2 - the mantra is "acquired changes are not inherited." Why would you expect them to be? To your example, how would braces affect the genetic information of sperm and ova? #3. Not aware of a cutoff of the "similarity" % that distinguishes species. Understand that metric speaks more to technique than taxonomy.

It's Sabouraud agar and there's not much special about it. Fungi will grow on most conventional media but there are a few bacteria that grow more slowly on Sab. so it's a little more useful for fungal culture. Diagnosis of C. glabrata was likely based on culture using that or a similar medium, and it's hard to believe they'd not have ruled out all the usual suspects for your condition. I'm fairly sure they wouldn't have cultured for Malassezia spp. but even if one of these were found in abundance their potential as causes wouldn't be clear. Even if you have some fungal proliferation, it may be secondary to abnormal condition of your skin itself. Have you had your immune functions assessed? Not wishing to insult but is it possibly an emotional condition as Blahah suggested?

"according with my opinion " - lol

Wow - if true, that's wonderful.

Mr. skeptic put it quite succinctly but I'll also offer the following. Presume you mean edible food that has become "poisonous" rather than eating something innately unsafe - improperly prepared blowfish, amanita, uncooked snake. One could classify etiology in two ways - infective content and toxic content. Examples of the 1st would be salmonela, Shigella, E coli 0157 (NOT just E. coli), hepatitis virus. The second a toxin such as aflatoxin, B. cereus toxin or staph enterotoxin.

LOL