CharonY

The issue is that there are no simple answers in science (for the most part). Take a look at the abstract of the article: So what can you learn from there? First, chest beating is observed in the wild, at least indicating that it is not an artifact of captivity (e.g. by gorillas observing visitors and then imitating them). However, does it mean that it is genetic? Not necessarily, they could learn it in the context of the what the signals mean to them (same with hand clapping). The fact that kids use it in different contexts (mostly while playing) could indicate that they learn the meaning over time. Similarly, the fact that there is a gender difference in use among adults, also might mean that they learn and use it.

As Endy mentioned, the light does not affect the bacteria positively, but plants that produce cellulose and other materials that can be used for consumption. For the most part especially UV is harmful to bacteria as they induce oxidative stress as well as other damages in bacteria. Just for clarifciation, the guys producing acetic acid are bacteria, i.e. the mentioned Acetobacter aceti. Edit: I should add that there are of course photosynthetic bacteria do benefit from UV-light (below harmful doses, of course). But the bacterium in question is not one of them.

That has influenced the English language, but I think it is not only the acquired words, but it also influenced how words were pronounced over time.

I rest my case. In an Interview McConnell basically said that they will only consider things that are in their interest and have declared anything else a leftist agenda which will be fought. Actually I was just looking for them (because I am reading a thesis and got headaches and need a laugh) and apparently a number of key Reps, including McConnell declined to comment on Trump's illegal claim to power. Others, (Cruz, Graham, McCarthy) actually added fuel to the fire (by at least suggesting that there might have been fraud). So yeah, there is not even that.

I think these are more symptoms of knowing when they have lost and going hard in that direction at this point would not benefit them (different matter if Trump was likely to be still in power, I suspect). But that does not make me hopeful that they will shift the party. The overton window has shifted to saying the quiet things loud (e.g. when it came to refugees and immigrants). And it has been a quite successful strategy (it will be interesting to see whether the same themes were the drivers as 2016). Also I find it funny how dominating US-politics is. It is really built for soap opera. look at us, we talk more about American politics than any other country. I suspect part of it is that in other countries things are not that open. Aside from the recent wave of populists, most politicians are not that openly moronic (if they can help it) and many are forgettable, dropping in and out due to some byzantine party politics. US is just so in your face that I find it hard to ignore.

As a German speaker, I don't get how you decide to pronounce certain things. I think someone explained to me that both, English and German both originated from same Germanic roots but than were heavily influenced by romance languages and booth. And indeed, I am more fluent when I am slightly drunk.

I do not think that will happen. While Trump subverted the GOP to some degree, he did it by leveraging voters. Those are still firmly on brand as we saw in the election. And I think it will further shape the GOP in the years to come. It is like teaparty but on steroids. Can't see that happening, either. For the GOP no-compromise has been a working strategy, why start now. For the Dems compromise was one of the reason why Obama was considered ineffectual to a large degree. So there is a strong sense that falling for that again won't work. If anything, folks are more polarized than before. The election was seen as a referendum on Trump and while again, Dems got more votes, it is not the referendum either side hoped for.

Seems like it. Strangely it feels that this election may have disappointed basically all US-Americans.

In that context, I have heard a few interviews from Trump supporters, and it basically sounded that they were actually quite happy with all the policies (even when questioned about the more cruel policies). The main criticism they have is basically his Twitter. I.e. you can be mysoginistic, xenophobic, incompetent etc. as long as you are at least somewhat polite about it. It is not new (anywhere, really, not just in the US). But for some reasons I do find it more disconcerting.

Fundamentally there is the issue that only a part of information (visual, auditory etc.) is being transmitted to the brain in the first place. I.e. a significant part of information is already pruned and curated. Much of the memory is related to effort. I.e. if there are certain things that you recall frequently it gets committed more efficiently than others. Even then, memory is an active process. Drawing from memory we create a kind of mental map of memories which might or might not be accurate. There are specific cases (e.g. sometimes called savants) where memory is extraordinary for certain things (i.e. deep, but narrow). I.e. Practice and repetition plays an important role and even in conditions like hyperthymesia, what is being remembered seems to be selective. In other words, folks may remember certain things in incredible detail, but might be unable to remember other aspects. There are tons of literature out there, but the only simple theme that one can make out is clearly that memory is not simply a recording of events. Rather it is a mental re-creation of sorts. And I think the possibility to have perfect recall is not seen as possible, as this is not how the brain seems to work. These stories have to be taken with quite a bit of salt. Many of these stories are not carefully documented and/or exaggerated to make a better story. I am not sure about this particular case, but I do remember numerous classic case studies that have been questioned in more modern times.

! Moderator Note Moved to speculations. Please check out the Speculations rules. You will have to outline some more information what the supposed mechanism should be. However, I will already mention that it is clearly not mainstream biology and if there is discussion to be had, the thread will most likely be closed.

The fact that it did not eliminate him outright is a bit of scary thing, isn't it? Actually on reflection, one viable strategy is probably to do as much economic harm as possible and blame it on the dems. If Fox plays ball it should work quite well.

! Moderator Note Edited the strikethroughs. Not sure what happened, but I had to use an editor and copy it back in.

I do the usual cloning sacrifices to Damballa and more rarely Papa Legba, when the former does not respond. Also the mass spec demands blood on a semi-regular basis to the heavenly engineer of "Who-the F-puts sharp-edges-in-here?" as part of the blood ritual called pump maintenance.

Which is a huge issue. Don't know or don't care. For many, democracy is just a slogan. It is 11 electoral votes. More than e.g. Nevada, similar to Wisconsin, but only about half of PA (and less than either NC or Georgia). Politically I suspect it has much to do with how popular McCain was.

As a serial immi(or emi-)grant, I can tell you that it is not exlusively Americans. It is just more visible due to confluence of factors.

You can simply convert the measures. So 0.75 PPM formaldehyde would be around 0.9 mg/m3. (assuming 1 Atmosphere and 20 C and I did not screw up the calculation)

If you are asking whether your body is using the zinc, yes it does. In fact it is an essential micronutrient. In case there is a bigger misunderstanding, there is no way to create elements biologically. You can only synthesize more complex biomolecules using simple components. Things like Mg, Ca, Zn and so on are all taken up from the environment.

You make it sound that the only issues there are with the pandemic response are his rallies. However, disassembling existing structures of pandemic response (including the dismantling of the pandemic response team) are policy. Using the White House and other officials to spin the death toll is another form of policy (directed at (mis)information dissemination). Systematically weakening the influence of science in the decision-making process is clearly a policy decision. Which folks to put in charge of the response (or health services in general) is a policy decision, and so on (e.g. in context of deregulation and weakening associated structures). Not making certain measures mandatory is a policy decision and so on. I am not sure what you try to say here, honestly. Do you mean to say that the WH did have policies but they were generally correct and all things went to hell because he was being an idiot independent of it? If so, that is clearly not what happened. If you meant something else, it would help if you could specify what kind of policies you refer to.

I disagree, it is precisely because of his policies. His policy was to diminish the awareness of the dangers (rather than promoting it) and make it harder to put in restrictions. His policies created uncertainty among the populations, which then went to those rallies. I.e. there is a direct line between his policies and the overall outcome. You forget one important aspect, even if many measures are done on the state level, traditionally the CDC would coordinate those responses. Countries that had a strong central support did way better than those that tried to piecemeal a pandemic response. And on top, Trump's policies made it harder for the states to get tests, PPE and other essentials. It was not just laissez-faire, which would be bad enough, it was actively sabotaging them. And the cherry on top is that by discrediting science, the GOP has now created such a strong anti-science base that I am honestly already worried about the next outbreak. And that will take a long time to mend (perhaps too long).

I would disagree. His pandemic response reflects his rallies quite well (a study suggests that about 700 folks died due to exposure at one of his rallies), and especially his immigration policy strongly reflects the values he espouses to his base. His tax policies disadvantages about a quarter of the population (mostly mid-low income folks). There are positive policies, too, but he himself does not highlight them, mostly because I guess he does not quite understand them.

That is a ridiculous criterion, as it would mean that science is in fact limited to a tiny aspect of our natural world and would by default exclude all stochastic processes (like say, radioactive decay or biochemical reactions).

Absolutely and it depends on the complexity of the system. Simple and well controlled systems allow for precise predictions. Complex systems come with uncertainties attached. You cannot predict precisely, for example what is going to happen if you get exposed to a pathogen. However, we can tell a range of likelihoods of what to expect.

Oh you would be surprised. There are a number of tests and measures that result in fairly reproducible results (or at least similarly reproducible as other measures with uncertainties).

I am not sure what you mean. There are whole scientific areas dealing with emotions mood and similar brain function. Anyway, I think as whole it is a label that has very little utility in most situations. In some cases it makes sense to distinguish folks with different levels of training, in others it may be more about activity. In certain others we might talk about mindsets (which in my mind is the most nebulous way to think about it).