CharonY

No, if evolution is true that is exactly what you do not expect. One aspect of evolution is that selective pressures shape the evolution of genes. I.e. you can have maintaining presssures, forcing genes not to changes. This is true for example true for essential genes, say for respiratory genes. OTOH, areas that are under weak or no selective pressure are expected to diverge more strongly. They are likely to be reasonably close among close lineages but the farther you go the more uncertainty you get. IOW if you build phylogenetic trees using conserved sequences, you get a tree that will follow lineages very closely. If you use areas that are highly variable, you will other shaping factors (such as drift). Again, this is what we expect if evolution happens. Your scenario (i.e. that phylogenetic trees will also resolve the same way regardless of loci being analyzed) will only happen if there is in fact no evolution, i.e. the genomes are either static or all change at exactly the same rate.

I think it will be hard to find total numbers. Phylogenetic trees are a standard technique used for tons of different questions . But I think that is beside the point. First the assumption that all trees must be the same is not true. If it was the case reconstructing them would be a waste of time in many cases. Rather, what you expect to see is that for example in very conserved genes (i.e. genes that highly selected for, because they are fundamental) the trees will more closely follow species relationship (as we assume even pressures). On the other hand, genes that are not under strong pressures we expect to see higher divergence. I.e. because there is no strong selection to maintain them, they are more prone to mutations.

Some potential challenges with regard to immunity. Most patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 showed diminished IgGs (antibodies produced against the virus) after ~2 months of after discharge from the hospital. About 40% became seronegative (no antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 detected). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6 This might put a dent into hopes that infected folks remain immune for an extended amount of time and could make vaccinations more critical. The study was based on 37 symptomatic and 37 asymptomatic patients, so more studies are going to be critical.

! Moderator Note The discussion has been going off-topic a fair bit. As such it is closed. If a more focused discussion is desired, a new thread may be a better home.

That is difficult to say. There are openstax books that you could check out first, as they are free. While I do use them occasionally for some topics (I do not teach human physiology) most I found not to be too much to my liking. But that does not mean that expensive books are automatically better, of course. My suggestion is to look into books that are for non-biology majors (e.g. for nursing) which tend to be written more fundamental and read some chapters if available. That alt east gives you a sense whether you would be interested in reading the rest.

There is absolutely no symmetry in the usage of these words. Words such as 'thugs', the n-word and other slurs are designed to dehumanize folks and are part of a larger effort (knowingly or not) to dismiss concerns of minorities (it is not the system, it is their culture), explain away disparities (we gave them all the opportunity but they just failed to make the right choices), justify uneven application of the law (they need more policing, they are superpredators) and thereby create a system that at best is "just" unfair but more commonly (and especially in the US) creates a form of indirect subjugation where even things like health are racialized. Because the effects of racism are baked into the system and perpetuated enormously by the use of racial stereotypes, the weaponization has huge effect beyond mere hurt feelings. It is OK to overpolice certain areas, because they are thugs and drug dealers. We do not need to look into the body count because "those folks" are violent and criminal- there is obviously no solution to it so one does not need to address it. "They" are obviously unable to govern themselves or make the right decision, therefore there is no need to address injustice, broken treaties or any other range of measures that could have been employed. It is OK to sterilize them, it is for their own good. This mindset is fairly common and many folks having them would balk at the idea of being racists. Yet this mindset does perpetuate these issues from which certain minorities are suffering from by denying the inherent injustice of the system. In order to perpetuate systemic racism one does not need to be a full fledged member of a white supremacist group, although many feel that this is the minimal threshold before one should call out racism. So to add insult to injury we are now kind of beginning to accept that there is systemic racism (to absolutely no surprise to any minority) but then we put such a high threshold on it that it becomes impossible to actually point it out. The concept of minority stress, i.e. the stress resulting from conflict between minorities and dominant values has been well documented for a few decades. Especially immigrants learn to not rock the boat and take abuses with a smile to be successful. These attitudes do result in chronic stress, which have been measured in the blood. But not surprisingly some of the highest levels have been found in African Americans, i.e. folks who are a minority but are actually part of the population since pretty much nation existed. If it really was just folks hurling insults at each other, the world would be objectively a better place. But one form of abuse has resulted in huge, huge damages to a large swath of the population, which does include worse health outcome and even death. There is no symmetry.

1) The best thing to read are entry level textbooks. They provide a broader overview but more importantly, also provide context which you generally do not find from from short videos. I generally found that the latter make you feel that you understand a topic, but they usually do not convey actual understanding. 2) Typical websites to use are Pubmed. Web of science is also good for specific searches, but you generally need to access them from the uni. Google scholar also works but if you are not sure with the keywords can take a while to look through.

This discussion is depressingly familiar. Society demands a huge burden of proof before the label "racist" is allowed to be used. If someone demonizes a whole group of people wholesale while alluding to racial stereotypes it is not racist. Even if such attitudes lead to unjust laws it is not systemic racism. Even if someone uses precise language by folks who at some point were deemed racist, it is not racism. That is not new, few folks really think that they themselves are racist. Heck, even during Jim Crow most folks found racism distasteful. Sure, folks think that it is a way of shutting down conversation, but on the same note they do not realize that by using such labels, those folks are invalidating other folks. Moreover, it plays to the assumption that the society as a whole is actually egalitarian and that there are only few if any systemic issues. This, results in significant challenges for those folks that feel differently (say having worse evaluations despite similar peformance, less or no callbacks relative to comparative peers and so on) as it invalidates their experience and speaking out is quickly construed as playing the race card. This historically results in shutting down as obviously no one feels racist, therefore no one is racist. And if something does slip out which goes beyond the acceptable level, it is easily excused with phrases like, "well I do not mean you, you are one of the good ones." Sure, there may be value in engaging racists IRL, but a forum is usually just used to propagate these views and to paint them in reasonable colour (i.e. shifting the overton window). It is only recently that the ones on the receiving end are getting a platform. But then just look at the demand of treading careful lest someone might get offended.

The role of MCPH1 is far more complicated (i.e. no relationship between the gene locus and cognitive abilities have been found). But in this context I am fairly sure that while it was speculated to have originated by interbreeding with neanderthals, the draft genome of neanderthals has refuted that notion (or at least did not support it).

They do not utterly random of course, but since they are hybrids they are not necessarily stable, either. I.e. pollen from one plant is taken and transferred to a different plant. The resulting seeds can either have both genotypes (i.e. duplicating their genome) or have some other mix of their parents (plants are less fuzzy about retaining genome integrity than animals). Heirloom seeds AFAIK do not have strict definition, but typically are from established line which could have started as hybrid, from what I understand.

It should be noted that the drug is a steroid, which are used to manage inflammation and are not antivirals.

If it is part of a lab, I would expect that folks will let you know which what the standard procedures in the lab are. If it is a theoretical course, or if you need to establish protocols as part of your thesis, I would probably start with transfection kits from the usual manufacturers (again, ask you supervisor regarding suppliers in your region). While they often do not have too much details on optimization strategies, their protocols are usually very detailed and are a good starting point. In parallel I would look into papers doing these types of transfections using your cell line- I am not familiar with it, but optimization is often cell line dependent.

Vilifying folks that are victims of a system is a common tactic to invalidate experiences especially of poor folks. It is the cheapest way to use moral outrage to create an us vs them stance in order to wipe away legal or moral standards. It has been used to justify holding folks in blacksites, it is being used to explain deaths during police encounters which should not and in other countries would not have ended up deadly. It is as if only perfect human beings should be protected by the law, which is of course a ridiculous stance.

It also requires a significant lack of empathy, as it also requires ignoring someone who is begging for their life.

! Moderator Note Since these questions cannot really be answered in terms of evolutionary sciences (beyond just-so stories) I am moving it to psychology for now, which may be a bit more appropriate.

Not sure what you mean. Obviously coronaviruses or respiratory virus diseases in general are not something fundamentally new. There is a lot of data from the SARS and MERS outbreaks specifically so many studies are able to compare and contrast new findings with what is already known. One of the things that are not certain yet are which pre-existing conditions are truly mechanistically linked to worse outcomes. A naive model would simply look at outcomes and then look at the variables that are most strongly associated with negative outcomes. But then it is not clear whether it is a factor of the virus specifically (e.g. a molecular interaction) or just a general situation that make treatments more difficult. For example, there are reports that ventilators could more frequently result in lung injury in obese patients. So while the virus might now interact directly with factors related to obesity, obese patients may have worse outcomes when they need to be ventilated. Diabetic patients generally have issues with the immune system. High glucose levels often result in inflammatory responses (adipocytes and macrophages start producing pro-inflammatory molecules). One effect is further reduction of pancreatic cells due to the inflammation, but the other is that it could make cytokine storms more easily to happen. That again is not unique to COVID-19, but something that is known from influenza.

This is a new one. The once referenced earlier are already in or past Phase I trials, respectively.

Napalm.

As mentioned before there is legislation in play to increase police accountability see text here. But to the broader point of funding: the fact that the US spends much more on policing rather than on social programs compared to other economically advanced nations but has worse outcomes in terms of criminality points to an issue with funding priorities. Policing is basically the reactive band-aid for a range of social issues, but does little for prevention these issues to crop up. More importantly, it also leads to mission creep, where police now also have to take on roles which are better fulfilled by health care providers or social workers. The basic idea is then, to increase funding to fight the root of the issue plaguing the US rather than further investing into a system that intrinsically is not working. I think there are different schools of thoughts at play here. One that sees that the roots of crime are social in nature and require deeper adjustments of structural issues. The other is more focused on combating symptoms. Most literature indicate that social measures as a whole are more effective to create large-scale changes and while a balance needs to be found, it at least appears that the US is performing less well than their counterparts.

That is more of a fundamental perhaps even philosophical question. Does HIV kill you by destroying your immune system or is it the inability to handle infections that kill you. Is a virus killing you or just the way your body deals with the infection. The dangerous thing is from that viewpoint folks assume that without (known) underlying conditions folks are safe. That, however is not the case. Younger folks usually have less complications, but we do not know the reasons. There are otherwise healthy young folks who end up in ICUs, but the rate is far lower.

Then I assume you have nothing against tearing most or at least many down? I will also note that with time monuments lose their power. Kids in Germany now experience a visit to Auschwitz quite a bit different than even my generation did. Especially now with very few survivors still a round's to tell their stories.

I think we had that all covered, but the issue is that these monuments glorify the events and/or where specifically created to intimidate. Just adding a plaque just to clarify only makes sense if there is proper contextualization. If there are certain areas where they are collected together with additional info material, then it would make sense. I.e. a space to commemorate and remember. However, mixing it with areas that are used for entertainment, relaxation or other business would only dilute the message and/or result in misinterpretation, IMO. I do not want to see a bust of Hitler or Nazi flags in a town hall or court, even if there was huge plaque stating that those guys were really not good. It just would not be enough and it would be the wrong space.

I assume that would also mean that Germany should have kept all the monuments and statues of the third reich and just add a plaque everywhere that the symbols were actually bad but are everywhere lest we forget? I kinda feel that survivors would have a word to say about that. There is a reason why those emblems have been delegated to text books and museums. There you can provide proper context.

! Moderator Note Off-topic discussion on statues have been split into an existing thread

It is only one of the strategies and even that is more involved than you make it out to be. Take a look here https://populardemocracy.org/sites/default/files/Freedom To Thrive%2C Higher Res Version.pdf Essentially it is a redistribution of municipal funds as an alternative to overpolicing.