LawfulBlade

The movie was called "Julie and Jack", and I randomly selected it from the (legal) movie downloader program that I subscribed to at the time, knowing nothing about the film. I'm fairly certain that the version I saw was pirated. At least I hope so. The alternative is that this was the lowest budget movie of all time, shot on a cell phone's camera: image was grainy and slightly wobbly, lighting was terrible, color was flat, and sound quality equally bad, echo-ing throughout the entire thing. The storyline and dialogue were gleefully thin and based on stereotypes of people, as if the writer had just heard about humans, and had never experienced them directly. Run-of-the-mill, cheesy flicks can't hold a candle to this puppy. Frequently, I found myself saying "OH MY GOD" out loud in disbelief to both dialogue and goings-on. Halfway through, I was forced to pause the movie and go the store where I picked up, among other things, a bottle of wine, just so I could complete the stupid thing. A glass of wine, a phone call, and a meal down, I was fortified to finish the film and pushed play. The impending "plot twist" was predictable fairly early on, and the movie was so horribly painful to watch that I didn't feel for the lack of continuity. I'd never imagined a movie that terrible before, even having seen Plan 9....*and* Twilight. It was such a smarmy movie; everything in it absolutely REEKED of the writer perceiving himself to be clever. If you have a hankering to be stunned by the lack of creativity and human insight in the average Joe, this movie is for you. Here's what IMDb has to say about it: Storyline Jack Livingston is looking for true love. He is a successful computer chip salesman for STELLAchip Corporation in high-tech Silicon Valley. With a suggestion from his best friend, Mark Stevens, he reluctantly subscribes to an Internet dating service, CupidMatchmaker.net where he meets Julie Romanov, a beautiful genius computer software developer. Jack falls madly in love with Julie. Julie and Jack begin an intense and passionate affair. With Julie, Jack has found his soulmate. And love is forever. But this seemingly perfect love is more than he had visioned. And so Jack's love for Julie is put to the ultimate test! Written by james@goldengateent.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358551/

We don't really need evolution for group formation, per se. Chance alone is sufficient to explain aggregation. Keep in mind, individual drops of oil will aggregate spontaneously into a micelle if they happen to bump into each other, and they have no brain, or capacity to evolve at all. Additionally, groups may form for external reasons where the individual members don't really benefit at all, and would "prefer", if given a choice, not to be in a group at all. A single tree in a forest is an example of this. (Please keep in mind, I'm not a plant biologist.) The forest has sprung up due to a combination of appropriate growing conditions and how far seed gets spread. Competing for soil space and sunlight doesn't benefit a tree, however. The group appears in this case to exist as a detriment to its members. If it's (evolution, now) needed at all, it's needed for retention of group. What's the benefit of remaining in a group? The near-necessity of group living for anything that reproduces sexually is obvious: it requires a willing partner (or third party, with plants) of the opposite sex in order to exist. Furthermore, that means that there needs to be exposure to the opposite sex at appropriate times. Depending on the frequency of ovulation that exposure may just be annually, or it may be constant. If the offspring are dependent upon the parent, need for a nuclear group (at least) is immediate. But in general, weakness in an individual unit, or reliance upon a group to survive is sufficient to explain group existence. Emergent properties of group existence are sufficient to explain the retention of a group, even if it formed by chance alone, and even if reliance doesn't factor into the equation. I'm not sure it makes sense to view these broad things in terms of evolution, when chance is sufficient to explain their occurrence and immediate benefit is present to sustain it. And, I hate to say it, but you'll need to define what you're willing to consider as a group if you want to think about this further.

motile = able to move on their own, through flagella or similar non-motile = unable to move on their own The "Kingdom Monera" comment is throwing me off. Are you saying that you're in a class that's *currently* using the 5 Kingdom system? Biology's been taught with the three domain system for at least fifteen or twenty years...

You're at a point where you'll need to select one or the other, if you want to continue on immediately after graduation. No, you may not practice either of these with a BS in anything, including nursing. These are both specific advanced degrees, and very, very competitive programs. My understanding is that NPs are easier to place than PAs; they have equivalent amounts of schooling, as both are standard Master's degrees. The applicable fields are specific, but NP's may work independently as generalists, whereas PA's will always be affiliated with a physician.

So there are a lot of studies out on the benefits of coffee or tea, including lower incidence of a number of cancers, but few long-term studies on caffeine specifically. The reality is that most people don't go through life popping caffeine pills throughout the day, so we can't easily tease apart the effects of caffeine from the products that have it, and both coffee and tea are known to have other bioactive compounds. And it's a tough one to get info about the short term effects of coffee and tea for the opposite reason, as many of the studies looking at coffee's effect on the brain are actually relying on caffeine tablets, instead of coffee per se, to produce an effect. Apparently, the caffeine in coffee is too variable to be relied upon. Regardless of any of that, there are at least long-term benefits that you can talk about with products that naturally contain caffeine, and short-term benefits of alertness and greater accuracy with caffeine alone. In terms of whether it's addictive or not...this gets sticky. Addiction is a big buzzword, and, at least within neuroscience, has very specific constraints associated with it: it needs to stimulate the nigrostriatal pathway (the "Reward Pathway") to be considered addictive, and caffeine definitely does this. But stimulation of this path alone isn't sufficient to call something addictive. Smelling or seeing something pleasant will also stimulate this path, yet you never hear of "scent addictions" or "visual addictions". So, in addition to stimulating that path, drugs of abuse must also cause withdrawal effects, which caffeine certainly does. Ok, so two criteria met. Is that sufficient to call it addictive? We've just entered philosophical territory on accident. The net's been cast too wide, and we've caught too many non-addictive things in it, along with the addictive ones. The definition of addiction isn't fine tuned enough to exclude it, so, as a working definition, we can say it is addictive...or not. From a personal opinion standpoint, I would definitely say it is.

You'll likely end up with a "clumsy plate" (you meant mixed colonies, right?) regardless of sampling technique, because bacteria are ubiquitous. But, to some extent, they should be resolving into individual colonies, which, with good technique, can be sampled to see which one you want to streak into a pure colony. Additionally, using your shoe isn't going to guarantee an endospore-forming colony, or is it going to rule out yeast. You'll have to conduct a number of tests to determine the characteristics each colony does or doesn't have. Rapid staining and microscopy with a light scope ought to be fine for this. If you have questions beyond this, google will pull up simple protocols for endospore stains that you can use. It's just bizarre to me that your class gave you no guidance on this. Good luck.

5' 5 & 1/2". Tall enough for me. Hope your experience isn't too painful!

Totally agree with GIMP. I love it for all arts applications.

This is confusing. If the bacteria needs to be novel, you're going to need years to get it to grow in culture, and you'll be lucky to accomplish it, even then. Are you just doing this to learn staining/basic techniques? What kind of media are you using? Where are you planning on keeping your culture? It sounds like you're looking for really basic advice, so I'll gear this towards that. If you can't keep it in an incubator, I'll assume it needs to be room temp. Swab the bottom of your shoe with a sterile q-tip, and rub it all over a petri dish of TSA. If you want to take an airborne bacteria sample, you can just open the dish with TSA (or similar) and wave it around in the air for a few minutes. After a few days, check to see if there's growth (there should be something). You can do a sterile streak plate from your initial plate, and do what you want from there. Does this sound like what you're going for? CharonY is advising you well, if you're looking for something more advanced than what I just described.

Not really. There isn't a clear winner yet, and I doubt there will be, given that, first and foremost, you need to keep in mind that neurons are cells, and will require all the standard equipment that cells have. Their production, therefore, requires most of the genome. Additionally, the brain is affected by almost all of the endocrine system, and those components are all over the body, and aren't directly connected to the CNS or PNS in any way. It's a tough thing to separate out. The genes that are unique to neurons are all over the genome, also. The best you can talk about is within fetal development, but that's almost cheating. If it's helpful, I can tell you that chromosome one is implicated in a lot of neural tube defects and brain/spine cancers. That's something that's created very early in development, so its effects are a little broader.

Not feasible as you're stating it. Right now, bacteria have been modified to produce a ton of useful enzymes, and some pharmaceutical compounds. And trans-species and even trans-"kingdom" knock-ins are certainly done, but what you're suggesting has some problems. First, and most importantly, there isn't a single gene or set of genes (like an operon) for "skin". They're cells...human tissue...and a huge portion of the genome is used to build and maintain cells. In other words, practically the entire coding portion of the human genome would need to be knocked into the plant, to make this idea work. But that's not the only problem. Skin, being tissue, needs a constant blood supply, complete with fresh nutrients, ability to remove wastes, and appropriate partial pressures of various gases. As it wouldn't be attached to an immune system, it would need to be reared in a biobubble/sterile setup. Also, as it stands right now, human tissue culture is notoriously difficult to maintain in vitro, barring transformed tissue (cancer), and that's controlling for all the variables I just mentioned. There are a ton of other variables going into this, but this is all just to say it's probably not going to happen. In terms of the human skin substitute, they've been trying to generate this for years for burn victims. I recall hearing a program on npr saying that potato skin can be made into a worthy temporary substitute for a number of reasons, and that there were new (new at the time, that is; I heard this maybe eight years ago)and effective, but expensive, pseudo-skin products being manufactured. Given that what you're saying has a different intended use, it may not be a good sub for skin in that context. Wonder why they don't just use leather?

One point to add, the capillaries only contain endothelial cells, and, in fact, are only one cell thick. This maximizes nutrient and waste exchange, and allows for diapedesis, when needed.

Ah, you are correct. My mistake. Slightly sloppy wording in my classes, I suppose. We never had need to go farther with this topic than to say that there were nodes at the nucleus were electrons would never be found, and I never thought of it again.

If you complete your plan of doing those sciences this year, you'll be well equipped to begin the program. I've known two people to enter PhDs in neuroscience with a BA, neither of whom had taken any science courses at all. The program made an arrangement for them to take "basics of gen. chemistry and organic" classes at the local community college; upon successful completion, they were allowed to enter the program. Just to let you know, one failed abysmally, and the other made it through without problem, but neither appeared to have any concept of how science proceeds. You, on the other hand, with your lab experience, are in an excellent position to make this decision. You know it's often repetitive, and that experiments often fail, and you need to take account and try to determine why. In addition to the chemistry you're acquiring, you'll be well set for the PhD. An additional comment, organic chemistry, while an interesting field, has no real connection to anything you'll be doing, or to any other information. People take it to meet departmental requirements, and to get into biochem (where it also has no real connection...but at least you'll be used to viewing carbon backbones). So don't worry too much about your lack of it. The universities you've selected are very competitive (unsure about UMinn), and if you're really interested in getting the degree, you should apply elsewhere as well. Please keep in mind, the ratings are mostly useless; if you're as motivated as you sound, you may well have more luck trailblazing at a less established program. They'll have more space for expansion, to maintain your project, if you so desire. I've never heard of classes being structured like you're saying. Anywhere. :/ . Anyway, great luck on your future! You sound like you'll be a strong candidate.

Have you ever done a Punnett square? Having one copy of a dominant gene and one recessive, in a system like you're describing, would be sufficient to show the dominant trait. All this is saying is that your parents would both need to have one dominant and one recessive allele for both of them to have wet ear wax, while their child has dry. It's the same way that two brown-eyed parents can have a blue-eyed child, or two healthy parents can have a child with cystic fibrosis. This doesn't weigh in on the possibility of having Asian ancestry, as it doesn't need to. As long as the percent of the population presenting with dry is above zero, any non-zero percent is sufficient for you to have dry earwax, and no Asian ancestry. Obviously, it likewise doesn't rule out the possibility, but we won't be able to weigh in any farther than that on here.