badchad

Grades? so just because a teacher awards you a good grade that means you have achieved more then someone who has lower grades? Every teacher is different, and they all teach differently, which is exactly the reason we have standardized tests.

How else would you measure the ability/willingness to work of an individual if you didn't have standardized tests?

I'll share my views. I think everyone on these forums would agree that education is a good thing. As a society we will advance further by educating the masses. While everyone may have his/her personal interests there is neither the time nor the resources to tailor make each and every individual a specific education package. As far as tests are concerned they definetly suck, but in the midst of a large-scale educational system, there needs to be some sort of measurement of achievement. Grades suck, but they serve to measure the ability of an individual to achieve/and or measure their willingness to work. Basically put, if you aren't smart enough/don't work hard enough, why should society spend it's resources by continuing you're education if you're going to piss it away? The last point I'll address is one of constraint. My opinion is that this constraint is removed in college. You are able to choose your major, and also a variety of classes within that major. Continue further to the graduate level and you're course of study is extremely narrowed. You may not be happy with your current system, but it's probably not as bad as you initially think.

But if you could ever hook it up to a larger TV (e.g. home theatre), 5.1 sound is an absolute necessity.

Well, slipping up during a speech doesn't necessarily dumb. However, Bush shouldn't be doing it as often as he does. Speaking to the public is part of Bush's job. As someone stated before in this post, Bush has a cabinet and many advisors to help him make decisions. Thus, he gets plenty of help in forming national policy and deciding the countries fate. Since he has this cabinet and his advisors to help him decide our fate, he plays mainly an iconic role. The president is the figurehead of the United states. Part of the Presidents job is to speak in public. Theres no justification of a person not being able to perform his/her job.

Most people get student loans. Either that or some type of academic scholarship, although I would think academic scholarships at private universities are extremely competitive. Aside from loans, you can receive aid in other forms as well. And lastly, public universities are much cheaper. For instance, The universty at buffalo is about 8k a year. My undergraduate institution was about the same amount.

Look at Bush. Graduated Yale. You don't think he managed to do that based on academics alone?

Albert Hofman, Alexander Shulgin. Two pioneers of the study of hallucinogenic drugs.

I agree with admiral though, most people get into science for the sake of doing science, myself included. My only point is that maybe the government should throw a little bit more money towards research. It would stimulate interest and get people interested in pursuing careers there. To tell someone that they will have to complete 4 years of undergraduate study, then another 5 getting a Ph.D. After all this you'll start at 30K being a post-doc for the next 3-4 years. 30K for having a Ph.D. I thought I read somewhere the average salary in the U.S. is about 36K. Even after a post-doc, an assistant professor will start around 40-50K. This is after 13+ years of post high school education/work experience. Opportunities for science in industry are far more lucrative. Thus, even the small amount of people trained as scientists will tend to move into science which is driven by a companies desire for profits, not necessarily the advancement of society. The field of science is an example where government support would go a long way. SImply my opinion though.

Thats not a whole lot, considering it takes 9-10 years of school to get a Ph.D. Plus an additional 3-4 during a post doc. After that if you land a faculty position, you start about 50-60. You'll probably move at least once, and then it'll take approx. 10 years to hit full professor and get tenure, which may only pay you 70-80 for a while. You don't get near 6 figures until the end of your career. For all the work that it takes, it's not that much money.

I agree with zhuam. There simply isn't any money in science. Look at college professor's. If you're good, by the end of you're career you'll top out about 6 figures and thats with a Ph.D. Have only your bachelors and a good technitian will max out about 60 or so. So essentially you'll bust your butt in coursework for peanuts. Not very attractive.

if you're at a university then it's quite likely you're professor's do research. Approach one of them and ask. Work experience will get you quite far in the field of science. Personally, if I didn't have any work experience I wouldn't have gotten into graduate school. If you plan on obtaining a higher degree you'll need it. SO even if you do an internship and work fro free, it'll be worth it in the long run.

First of all, if you want to get into the field, the school isn't as important as you might think. Yes, a great school looks good on a resume', however whats more important is the laboratory that you graduate from. I'm a perfect example. Right now, I'm getting my Ph.D at the University of Buffalo. This is by no means means Yale, cambridge, Hopkins etc. The university of Buffalo is usually classified as an "average" graduate school. However the professor I'm getting my Ph.D from is tops in his field. When I graduate, my publications will speak for themselves and my CV will say I came out of a good laboratory. Heres another example. If you were accepted to UB, you could enter the laboratory of Herbert Hauptman. If you're not familiar with him, he is the man credited with perfecting X-ray crystallography. He received the nobel prize for his work. Again, this is an example of a very accomplished professor doing state of the art work, at only an "average" graduate school. if I were you, I'd concentrate on a few things: 1. Getting good grades in high school (or wherever you are). 2. Get into a very good undergraduate institution. 3. Get as much research experience as you can: internships, summer jobs etc. These intangibles will go much further then you think. enjoy science, cuz graduate school sucks and is more work then you can imagine.

If I were you, I'd buy yourself a nice receiver. Although mine is a tad outdated (2000), I love my kenwood. It has dolby digital 5.1 sound. I get 100 watts per channel which will crush your chest, and then I added an additional, powered 200W 15 in. cerwin vega sub. For 2.1 sound I'd go with 10 in. woofers all around (the fronts and the sub). Depending on where you live, you'll blast your neighbors away. When I choose to make an investment into some new toys, the first thing I do is set my budget. THen I read, read and read some more to see what has been recommended. WIth audio, remember what you hear is what you get, so see if you can get a demo. Good luck!

I'm no statistician, but I think significance between variables hold more weight when they are parametric. What I think is more important is the type of statistical analysis used. There are strengths and weaknesses involved in any type of statistical analysis. Therefore, it's best to determine these when analyzing the data. I would agree with you that parametric measures seem more impressive. I know it's a vague answer, but it's the best I can do.

So how do they select which proteins to analyze?

Like budullewraagh and others have said, any class can be difficult. For me, the difficulty with chem. was not being able to "see" the molecules and the like. In bio, you can put a slide under the microscope and physically see a lot of the cell structure discussed. For me, I think thats the reason I stayed away from chem.

Pulkit, pubmed is an online database. It's a humungous database of journals maintained by the U.S. government. It contains the most recent literature, although it's content is difficult for me to describe. I guess I would say it includes the "biological sciences". Search on google and I'm sure someone else could comment on its content. It might not contain a lot of references related to computer science unless it's a description of some type of computer model used to describe a biological process.

Probably. I would assume by "grad" you mean your undergraduate work. If this is the case then ask your professor's. Usually professor's at Universities have a substantial research requirement in addition to teaching (for example, my professor does very little teaching and almost all research). You can also search pubmed, or google. If theres publications in the field, they are obviously achived through research. Without having any knowledge of computer science I can't really answer you're question any better then that, however there is a trend towards computer models of protein folding (it's in a thread here), as well as protein structure and such. Good luck!

Agreed, "different strokes for different folks" as they say.....Isn't it only about 3 years for a Ph.D in the UK?, here in the U.S. we average about 5 since we have two years of classes before our thesis work.....

Just to jump in with a brief comment on the subject matter being taught in schools. In the strict sense, "YES" it probably is outdated. Thats because the time it takes to publish a textbook is on the order of years if I'm not mistaken. That is, a lot can happen in research in the 4 eyars or so it takes to publish and put together a school textbook. This is why we have journals which allow results to be published relatively quickly. Academic journals are generally considered to be most current....

Using pubmed, you can find numerous studies. If your looking for info about the actual technique of 2d Gel electrophoresis google it. Basically, it can separate a protein using two dimensions (hence the name). One of the dimensions is size, or weight, the second is by charge. You could look for a change in a protein as a result of a condition and then make an inference about it. I think you may be able to separate many proteins simultaneously, so you could for instance try and identify a set of proteins that are upregulated during S. cerevisiae replication, or something and target those for a therapeutic target. I've read a couple papers on it, but that was a while ago......pubmed should have plenty

By stimulating particular areas of the brain you could probably trigger some type of emotion, happiness, sadness, etc. Would we even know of "reality" if we hadn't experienced it? Could a person spontaneously create a "reality" if they had never been exposed to it?. How would the concept of yourself, or another person even be initiated if you weren't exposed to anyone else? I think that person would just lay there, in a vegetative state. You might be able to make them "happy", but it would be a somewhat non specific state. If you didn't have a simulated reality, who would you learn skills from?

Right, I just assumed that "real life" couldn't be accurately simulated. Everyone's life is so different it would be near impossible to replicate it IMO. Of course, then again, we're talking about hooking a device into the brainstem "matrix style" so I guess it's possible...

I don't think the brain would develop normally. The brain is dynamic and constantly forming new neural connections, while destroying others "synaptic pruning". I think it would be impossible to simulate real-life experiences, and without them the brain would not develop. It may be able to support basic life functions, but thats about it IMO.