badchad

I agree with Boris, I like my minidisc better. I think I can hold 56 hours on a single disc. Each disc costs on 1 dollar. The expandability is awesome, and quite cheap. Now however mp3's are storing so much they may be better. Listen to bloodhound. Get a nice filesharing program (I use bearshare, works beautifully IMO). Or join a newsgroup.

if it was a bacteria.....Why wouldn't you just use an antibiotic?

Yes, phages can introduce DNA into a host cell. So, you were considering using a phage to do what? I usually interpret "autoimmune" as a host attacking it's own cells. What type of cells did you hope to target with a phage?

Well, if you really want to get started, the best thing for you to do is read the literature. Especially if you are interested in biological sciences, become very familiar with using pubmed. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi This is a government sponsored database. It contains all the most relevant information. In addition to pubmed, you'll need some sort of institutional access to the articles in pubmed. No problem if you're at a university. I'm not sure of your father's position, but you could find links and have him grab the articles. For instance, heres a nice review of betaseron CNS Drugs. 2004;18(8):521-46. Pubmed link http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15182221 When I start research in a new area, start with reviews, they are more basic and general. Grab a few reviews, and while you're reading them, note references in them to narrow your interests. From reading a couple abstracts it seems betaseron is an interesting drug. It's often used for M.S. but it's exact mechanism of action is unknown. Seems to be a non-specific inhibitor of aspects of immune processes. Keep up your work. Unfortunately, like someone else said, you won't be able to receive any grants or funding as they usually have a section where you have to demonstrate that you the capabilities to fulfill the objectives in the grant (e.g. technicians and a complete lab). Keep at it though and good luck!

Of course YT2095, you'd have to ask yourself: "How would you determine whether or not LSD has an effect on an animal?". LSD is extremely potent, I regularly give my rats 25 micrograms of LSD per day (approximately the human "threshold" dose) and they tell the difference (versus an injection of saline) with about 99% accuracy (I'd say 100% but nobody's perfect). From their response, I can tell they also respond to 10 micrograms of LSD. I can't recall the dose for pidgeon discrimination training off the top of head..... Aardvark, that should answer your question. I would assume LSD effects most animals. I've even seen a few publication observing the effects of LSD in insects!!!

Of course in that link you provided damion, one of the studies they constantly referred to was done by Georges Ricaurte. He has been one of leaders in the crusade to show how horrible exstasy is. In a landmark paper submitted to Science, he showed neurotoxicity in monkey's following exstasy use. Consequently, he retracted that paper, as he had mislabeled the drugs. Thus, one of the "backbone" studies showing the dangers of MDMA was thrown out the window. One mechanism is through apoptosis, or "programmed cell death". Too much neurotransmitter release can also result in death; for example excessive glutamatergic or dopaminerigc stimulation (glutamate neurotoxicity and dopamine toxicity) is another mehcanism. My opinion would be dopamine toxicity can play a large role as it is associated with euphoric feelings, and has been correlated with the addicitice potential of drugs. I've even read that there needs to be a threshold level of dopaminergic excitation in order to receive a "high" from a drug. There are probably a lot more. I would assume death also occurs through some type of signaling pathway (e.g. apoptosis) or through the production of some type of free radical which is toxic, or a similar mechanism. If I ever get some time I'll search medline and see what I come up with.....

This is always an interesting subject IMO. A lot of people talk about how many diseases are "big business" and this is certainly true. However, my personal belief is that "big business" and politics doesn't affect disease treatments and research to the extent that some people think. I say this because a large amount (I would say the "majority" but I don't have a source) of research takes place at college institutions. Your "average college professors studying cancer" are the driving force behind a cure to the disease. Were a professor to discover the cure to cancer, he/she would receive all sorts of fame and notoriety. Obviously the cure to cancer would be a career defining achievement. It is merely my opinion, but I find it hard to believe that a professor on the verge of such a discovery would be approached by agents in dark suits (matrix style) and be forced to stop his research. Simply put, there is an individual drive from these researchers to find a cure. You have to look at it from two perspectives. First, pharmaceutical companies. They may stand to lose moeny if a "cure" is found. However, in our capitalistic economy, the prize to the winner would be enormous. Enough to encourage any company to do so. Second the government. THe government spends millions each year on providing grants to researchers to study cancer, and taking care of patients. This money comes from your taxes. The government is not "profiting" from this money. If a cure were found, the government would SAVE this money, and come out on top. (In the long run, no cancer for eternity could potentially SAVE more then any profit from drugs). Thats just my general opinon. Now as far as Vitamin B17 is concerned (known as "laetrile"). I don't think anyone is suppressing it's research. A clinical trial was done in the 80's Moertel CG, Fleming TR, Rubin J, et al. A clinical trial of amygdalin (Laetrile) in the treatment of human cancer. N Engl J Med 1982; 306: 201–206. Simply put in this trial of 179 patients treated with B17 (Laetrile), only 1 patient met the criteria for a "partial response". OF course, this trial occurred in patients who already had cancer, but you can imagine the problems with performing a trial looking at "prevention". How do we know if something is prevented if we don't know what causes it?. Anywho, vitamin B17 is in the company of a long list of alternative cancer treatments. There is currently ample research going on the field (a medline search reveals 477 references) so research isn't "suppressed", I think it's simply a matter of B17 not being a "clearly" effective cancer treatment. A nice and recent review on many "alternative" cancer treatments can be found here: CA Cancer J Clin. 2004 Mar-Apr;54(2):110-8. medline link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15061600

The image will depend upon how symmetrical you already are. This can easily be done in adobe photoshop. I took a fairly close up picture of my face, then split it down the middle and mirrored each side. Thus, if you look at the original image, and then the two others (the original plus the two mirrored sides) it looks like 3 separate images. It wasn't a flattering pic of me or I'd post it. However I found another example here: http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/symmetrie/symmetrie.htm Cool isn't it?

What ophiolite said. More than likely it is a combination of genetic and environmental causes. Kind of like obesity, and other disorders like schizophrenia. In determining genetic factors in diseases, twin studies are usually very helpful (for obvious reasons). I bet if you look at a twin study, the concordance rate for monozygotic twins is high, but not 100%.

I saw a documentary on discovery or something that surveyed people's ideals of "beauty". They simply showed volunteers a bunch of mugshots (for lack of a better word) and asked them to rate the person in the photos attractiveness. The basic finding was that the more symmetrical a person's face was, the more "beautiful" they were perceived. After that initial study the guy went a bit further and actually refined the technique. He then added things like distance between eyebrows, which points on the face were more pronounced in beautiful people, angles of the mouth, nose etc. etc. In the end he came up with a "model" face. It would seem that "beauty" can be generalized, however I still abide by the old adage: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Thats a good idea. Your lazy and don't work. Obviously it's the system's fault. You'll realize that "I didn't do it because it was too easy" is a poor excuse in the working world. You won't always have someone to help you along the way and push you.....you have to be self motivated. That being said, you have to realize that with many things in life, like it or not, there are "hoops you have to jump through" to get to where you need to go. If you're smart enough to be bored by your AP classes, you should have been smart enough to say to yourself: "You know what, this class stuff sucks, but it's something I have to do to get into college and get where I need to go". I hated taking "Intro to poetry" as a science major. But I realized it was a required course, and that it had to be completed in order for me to get my degree and move on to grad. school. I'm glad to hear you are doing well in your classes, keep at it. This probably won't be the last time you get bored from something being too easy.

I'll bet another 10 that during the sighting of the "ghost" in the fire there was an awful lot of drinking going on......probably some other "recreational" things too eh?

This is going to sound silly, but I'm sure someone knows what I'm talking about and can explain. My chemistry teacher had three large balloons filled with different gases when we walked into class my freshman year. I'm not sure what each was filled with (which may say something about the use of this "experiment" as a teacher's aid) however, when he placed a lighter to each balloon, the last one exploded with such a large explosion, it felt as if a professional firework had gone off in the room. I'm sure someone here knows what gas I'm speaking of. Also, making things glow is always cool. If you have bacteria or something you could try and transfect a luciferase gene into them. Lazer pointers are cool for optic stuff. Try bouncing a beam off tons of different mirrors to make a design or something. I had a teacher demonstrate waves by giving us humungous spring coils. When you shake them just right, you can get basic waves to demonstrate frequency, amplitude and stuff.... Dissections for biology.... lol, I've had lots of teachers I thought were pretty good. I'll think of some more and post them....

I think it's due to the toxins and other additives (like others have said). I also heard that the deyhdration can cause differences in the pressure on some nerves and such which contributes to the pain.

interesting. Here in the U.S. we have "Everclear" whic is 95%, We also have "bacardi 151", which is 151 proof. Great for the kids, only takes a shot or two and you're done for.

We do some alcohol studies in my laboratory. Thus, we have solutions of 100% alcohol. My professor always says however, that once the bottle is opened technically it is no loner 100% alcohol as it will absorb some water from the atmosphere and be diluted (a negligible amount mind you, but nonetheless).

It is my understanding drosophila are used because there genetics can easily be "messed with". For instance, kill off a majority of the insects with anoxia, then breed the remaining flys. I believe these flies reproduce quite quickly. Eventually you may be able to breed a set of drosophila that are extremely resistant to anoxia. I'm not sure the depth or time length of these projects, but you could then screen the "anoxia resistant" strain of drosophila to determine what genes are upregulated to determine why they become anoxia resistant.

I agree with tecoyah. Yes the genome is mapped, however the information by itself is not overly useful. It will take decades until we can make sense of it all and use it in a producive manner.

So......does osmosis play a role in any of this (even though there is a lack of membrane)? Doesn't water flow from a high to a low concentration? If that were the case it would be interesting, because it would seem that in the absence of a membrane, the water would be pushed up through the tube. However, if you added some sort of semi-permeable membrane, it would seem that the water would move down it's gradient, and the opposite effect would happen (water moves out of the capillary tube, and into the sucrose).

Your best bet is to use some type of illustration (an artist's rendition of a cell). Use the google image search and you'll come up with plenty. Perhaps something like this: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/courses/c2005/purves6/figure04-07a.jpg An actual picture of a cell (With enough magnification to see organelles) will appear in black and white, and will not look nearly as pretty as an illustration. I'll try an attach something (although I dunno the size limit for things, so it may be quite small (If I manage to attach anything at all).

Heres a good review: Lancet. 2004 Jul 24;364(9431):315-6. (medline link http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15276375) Clin Rehabil. 2003 Feb;17(1):21-9. another decent clinical trial (medline link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12617376) Another good one on treatmen resistant glaucoma: Eur J Neurosci. 2001 Jan;13(2):409-12. (medline link http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11168547) One last one, although I couldn't see the abstract so I'm not sure the outcome. Neurology. 1999 Dec 10;53(9):2209-10. medline line (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10599815). Should get you started. Those are all peer-reviewed, professional journal articles, and are clinical trials.

i think the problem is that (with respect to marijuana) there are other drugs with comparable efficacy.

I always use: C1 V1 = C2 V2 (concentration of solution 1)(volume of solution 1) = (conc. sol. 2)(vol. of sol. 2) This way you don't necessarily need a common denominator. For instance, we know solution #1 is 3%, (your stock). We also know the concentration we want (conc. #2). All you have to do is decide how much of number 2 you want. Using YT2095's 100ml, you'd set it up as: (3%) (V1) = (.2%)(100ml) Solve for v1. Remember 100 ml is the final volume. So in this case v1= 6.67. You.d put 6.67ml in 93.33 ml of water. Sound correct YT2095? (just an alternate way of doing it)

Also look into a phenomenon called "long term potentiation" which is also used as a model of learning. As for everything else, I'm not sure what you mean by "I don't think reinforcing should achieve any learning". And lastly, it seems intuitive to think that a "new stimulus not related to the activation of any previous connections" would result in learning. At some point in our lives, every stimulus we encountered was essentially "new". How would we have learned anything otherwise?

Go to NCBI's website http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=Protein They have full nucleotide and protein sequences. In general, if an organism has been sequenced it's fairly easy to locate. The very difficult part is what to do once you have a sequence. There are many types of database matching programs which attempt to predict the function of a protein based on it's amino acid sequence. What exactly are you trying to do?