CharonY

I'd be careful with these generalizations as beyond the first semesters or so it will be increasingly difficult if one goes down that route. Let me put it differently: physics, mathematics and chemistry are often easier to learn as the concepts are generally more structured. Biology on the other hand has a lot of incomplete concepts, which means that one can only derive so much. The deeper you go into a given topic the more (sometimes wildly) different concepts you have to learn and apply. If you try to use superficial analogies you will get stranded at some point. On that specific note, if one does not build up at least some basics in chemistry, the whole area of molecular and cell biology will be extremely difficult to understand and work in. While I see folks get by in other disciplines without it, it is not a good area of study to neglect. It is like going through (academic) life while denying yourself useful tools. To make an analogy (heh), it is like not getting a driver's license since you think engines are difficult. You may not need it, but there are likely to be times when you wished you had it. That being said, I think hyper's suggestion are sound. One should not worry to much about school performance, uni is rather different and relies more on self-study. Using bridge courses it is quite possible to catch up and develop a working knowledge on given subjects. In my experience, folks that are putting in an honest effort (including identifying their knowledge gaps and making serious efforts to close them) tend to perform quite well. Folks relying solely on highschool experience/performance, not so much. In fact, over the last decade or so I found anecdotally that high high-school grades are getting worse as an indicator of knowledge in a given subject. In the end, it depends a lot on the attitude and work ethics of the students. Some excellent high-school students rely too much on the teachers telling them what to learn for example and assume that it will continue in uni (and despite some efforts to make it so, it is luckily still not the norm). In short, if you are willing to put the hours in and get the assistance you may need (such as bridge courses, perhaps a good study group) I do not see a fundamental issue regardless of your previous grades.

I think in the last elections a lot was made regarding the polarization in Canadian politics and especially the grumbling in Alberta and Saskatchewan (i.e. Wexit). That being said, your are probably right that the polarization has not been weaponized to the US level and one indicator that I often find telling is that the anti-immigration bid from Bernier ultimately failed. That being said, a recent study suggests polarization arises from party loyalty. But the study also indicated that folks broadly still do not use social media that much, which may affect the high polarization in the US. On the other hand, MAGA hats are also popping up in Canada, so whatever the US has, it may be contagious.

Sure I just wanted to make sure that "agreed" has very different meanings in the two procedures plus the fact that the talking point as a whole (i.e. everything is following the Clinton precedent) is inaccurate, as I think it is quite important context.

So McConnell has argued that they are using the Clinton impeachment as precedent, but there are quite a few differences in the procedure as iNow mentioned. There is also another important difference, that makes a substantial difference. During the Clinton impeachment house and senate were controlled by the GOP. IOW if the impeaching party wanted to have additional witnesses, they could just have them without much problem. As such this article was not controversial. Now, however, it would mean that the non-impeaching party could (and are obviously in the process of) suppressing relevant evidence and witness testimony.

As Zapatos pointed out, it is about patterns and not individual events. What visible or other identifiable minorities (e.g. first generation immigrants, see e.g. the challenges Polish workers face in the UK) experience is a often subtle pattern. If they perform similar to their peers or work in or aim for positions that are considered above their station, they often encounter a certain level of resistance. Of course not all events are related to that, but they are more likely than their peers to be punished for the same actions, are less likely to get credit for the same performance and so on. Usually it is related to intangibles such as perceived leadership qualities or fit, for example. For many minorities it is very difficult to navigate and they hit this type of glass ceiling with very little recourse. On average their majority peers (even if they are more junior or even mentored by them) move to higher positions with more ease and this pattern is still present even if the group is actually overrepresented at entry level. We see that in academia, but also in management and other higher level jobs. Essentially there is system which promotes for folks that are more similar to those already in power than to promote or accept different ones. Now, it is a huge taboo to call that racism (in fact, it is likely going to threaten your career if you insinuate that). Nonetheless, the system results in racial inequalities as I mentioned above. Perhaps in order to make it more palatable (and in some ways because it is precisely that) folks have started to call it unconscious bias and promote training to address these issues. While I mentioned it is difficult to tell how much of it relates to the Meghan Markle, I will say that the colour of her skin means little here, her background is widely known. Also, you'll note that in the articles John linked that it is not the case that she is being criticized for some shortcomings in characters. Rather it is about criticizing the exact same behaviour. Also, I wonder how many children of royals have been described as chimpanzees in recent times.

Yes and no. Getting rid of solvents completely just by drying works reasonably well for ethanol, but is difficult with DMSO. PhilGeis has touched on other points.

TBH, even if not applicable it is one of the things that POC often face when getting criticized for something that their peers are not. Overtly, it is never about race but something else. Weirdly, however, there is much larger pile of the "definitely-not-related-to-race-issues" on someones desk. Of course no one ever acknowledges it and the imbalance must clearly always be about something else.

I somehow missed that it has to be a disc-diffusion, so much of what I ranted about earlier does not really apply (no idea how, it is prominently in OP). DMSO often takes quite a while to evaporate fully.

! Moderator Note Since we got already several threads discussing/debunking common arguments of climate change denial, this thread is closed for now.

This is also the process to create echo chambers. It is especially devious as obviously false information is much easier to create and disseminate.

AFAIK there are no established methods to help you there. For the most part folks stick to solvents that are only mildly toxic for the organism (such as ethanol) and hope for the best. Controls are, as you mentioned, the solvent without the compound of interest. Perhaps trivially, another rule of thumb is getting the stock as highly concentrated as possible in order to minimize the volume of the solvent to be added to the assay. One issue of course is that once in media, it is often unclear how the compound behaves, things like micelle formation or aggregation can become issues, which may need to be analyzed in a cell free system. Specifically DMSO can be problematic as it enhances membrane permeability quite a bit and if you do molecular assays (such as proteome analyses) you will often see quite some drastic changes in the bacterium in response to it alone. However, while it may be dubious for real-life use, in most cases folks are content (at least for publication) if one shows significant effect above solvent alone.

I think this is misconception many folks have, and it is quite pervasive throughout Europe (i.e. it is not limited to the UK). I think there are several reasons for that, but I feel it is first necessary to contextualize the term racism a bit. Many folks see racism as the expression of racist attitudes or sentiments by individuals which range from stereotyping to harboring certain ideals of racial superiority (or inferiority). That in itself is not a issue in isolation, as that would be individuals being arseholes and you will find them in each society. What is different is mostly what is considered permissible (to state openly) , which in turn are obviously heavily influenced by respective histories. There is an obvious difference in black-white relationship due to the historic suppression of black African American communities up until very recently, for example. There are also different entanglements between certain races, social attitudes, influence of wealth and class and so on. It is relevant to state that most of our Western modern thinking about race and associated stereotypes are heavily influenced by enlightenment theories on human races, which, in turn, were strong affected by colonialist attitudes. As such you will find in quite a few Western countries, presumably also in the UK (where my knowledge is at best second hand) but certainly in Germany the stereotype that e.g. black folks are more physical and aggressive, for example. As such while there are interesting overlaps, the expression and permissibility of racist attitudes between countries is nuanced and it is easier to talk about the difference in form and impact rather than level. One cannot really state that racist attitudes are not as pervasive as they are in the US. Europe as a whole has many ethnocentric tendencies (which is far less nuanced in the US), which we see very prominent with the rise of popularism throughout Europe and movement such as Brexit have been heavily influenced by explicit and implicit prejudice. While not all of them are along racial lines, it is undeniable that these are strongly correlated. In Germany many folks make a distinction between ethno-Germans (sometimes semi-jokingly called Bio-Deutsche) and those with a migration background, but rather obviously the latter are singled especially if they are non-white. However, that is not the whole story and perhaps not even the important one. As mentioned racism as a phenomenon on the individual level is not a huge issue per se, but it begins to become an issue if they result in systemic effects. This is often why folks distinguish between racist attitudes within minority and majority groups as the latter can lead to issues that are more commonly discussed academically. These issues include racial discrimination and racial inequality. While it is easy to conflate these terms there are very different mechanisms at play. For example racist attitudes can be foundational in the creation of either racial discrimination or inequality, it does need to persist in order to continue. Often things like implicit bias rather explicit belief in racial superiority are important drivers or even just historic decisions that have not been questioned. Even something as simple as not addressing issues that are not deemed important by the majority but have significant impact on minorities can create racial inequality. In that light many parts of Europe do have similar patterns as the US. Some of them are borne by the fact that minorities traditionally (but less so in recent immigrants) have been working in low-skill jobs. But at the same time multiple studies have found discriminatory practices where certain minorities with same CVs are evaluated worse, for example or are less likely employed, have less social mobility than their equally poor majority counterparts and so on. A big difference is that since there is not such an overt historic conflict, it is rarely discussed as openly as currently in the US. There has always been the demand that minorities should assimilate and thereby become invisible as such, which obviously does not work well with visible minorities. What is different is potentially (but I am not well versed in UK politics) is that in the US there is a more concerted effort in suppressing the rights of African Americans. Such voter suppression strategies are, to my knowledge, not present in (most) European systems. However, historically (perhaps less so in the UK due to their empire) minorities in Europe often had little political engagement as a whole. Many, even those in the second or third generation were still seen as foreigners or immigrants rather than full citizens. But in recent years I have seen an attitude change (but, as noted, there are also strong countermovements). So here we have a needlessly long answer which could presumably be summarized that a) on needs to define more clearly what one means with racism and b) whatever it is, it is difficult to quantify except some of its effects and c) racism and its effects are different between countries but I am not certain whether I would subscribe that the US is more (or less) racist (again, which measures?) than the UK.

Also timeisthe5th.

It is more about power over others rather than being cool with it.

Do you have any specific questions that you want to address? Otherwise I would recommend you to look at text books, such as Kromidas: "The HPLC‐MS Handbook for Practitioners". Depending on your reading level you could also start with basic lectures that you can probably find online and/or wikipedia entries.

My recollections is a little bit different (especially with the equivocally part), but to be honest, I was very young and my memories are likely to be colored by articles on the incident I read over the years. But I am fairly sure that while the US has expressed regret, they did not consider to be at fault (i.e. considered it a regular wartime incident). What I am quite certain about is that compensation was paid under Clinton after a lengthy court battle and that the settlement included on admission of wrongdoing.

... she was still in the race?

I agree, though I found that the references in wikipedia for many topics are not that great, sometimes general textbook references are given other times there are papers but not always the ones that folks in the field would consider to be really relevant or important. The reason of course being that the editors are often not experts themselves and there is the tendency on the web to cite whatever google shows up in a given topic. The danger there is that there is a disconnect in terms of what the internet seemingly tells you what important research is being done versus what experts actually think. But obviously, the quality varies and especially for basic concepts linking to text books is not actually a bad thing.

A) measuring free amino acids does not allow you to quantify proteins. You'd have to measure proteins to do so. B) You can measure the various metabolites (though I am not sure why you picked those particular selection of sugars), but you would need different methods. Fatty acids used to be a bit easier on GC/MS but newer columns are decent at separating those, too.

Or conversely, model organisms such as Escherichia coli are the ones where we identified basic molecular functions (such as gene regulation), metabolism. Due to a vast array of tools available for genetic manipulation, availability of genome sequences etc. There still new functions being characterized, though some research focus has switched to systemic analyses.

I haven't seen reports of a third wave at this point, but Iranians claim that their attacks were a proportionate response and further aggression will only be initiated if the US attacks first.

Or the first.

A) It depends on the type of research. As a whole embryonic stem cells are still more popular than induced pluripotent stem cells, mostly because we still compare the latter to the former (as these represent what happens "naturally"). Especially when it comes to the development of stem cell-related therapies, folks still stick with the less manpulated embryonic version. However, to understand gene regulation and differentiation induced stem cells are used more frequently. A short version could be that clinical applications are still sticking with embryonic, whereas basic research uses a mix of both types. Funding is difficult to assess as individual groups are funded which may use one or the other (or both) as appropriate for the research question. There is no general pot only for embryonic or induced stem cells AFAIK. B) These are the aforementioned induced stem cells, i.e. other cell types that are reverted to a pluripotent form. They were established roughly in the mid-2000s and as mentioned have found various uses without the ethical baggage. However, they have not outpaced embryonic stem cell research in terms of research output (again, AFAIK). Note that for certain types of basic research non-human embryonic stem cells (e.g. mice or rats) are frequently used. Embryonic stem cells are more important when we look at things specific to humans (e.g. diseases and therapies). C) Most of the discovery-type research is still conducted in the public sector. Private sectors are usually involved when there is a direct path to commercialization. But even then quite a lot in the stem cell therapy field (because much is still experimental). Most trials and preclinicals that I am aware of are conducted by universities or start-up grown from them. So they may be partially private but were grown from public funding. That being said internationally there are quite a few private stem cell research labs, but many maintain relationship with public funded researchers. So generally there are not necessarily clean lines between private and public funded research. A fudamental question of course is that the private sector may operate without ethical safeguards as implemented in the public sector. For example NIH has strict guidelines to adhere to when being funded by them whereas it is unclear what rules the private sectors have to adhere during the research phase (trials are a different, more strictly regulated matter). However, the private sector is generally also allowed to apply for public funding (depending on mechanism they may have to have a collaborator from an university, but that is not always the case) where they would basically fall under the same rules as a public entity. Even so, some private clinics have reportedly conducted experimental stem cell treatments without approval.

A challenge with this tactic is to actually employ it. There is usually sever lack of funding to create and maintain permanent firebreaks, especially in remote areas. Often, locals are encouraged to assist (and sometimes are solely responsible). There are also models where loggers are encouraged to build firebreaks and thin out woods at the same time (though often they just do what is most economical, not necessarily what is best for fire prevention). But in areas far off from any cities it is a challenge to fund such or other maintenance measures.

To flip things around, it is perhaps paradoxically also a boon to the Iranian government. Iran was shaken by violent protests against its government (according to Reuters about 1,500 died). The recent threats by Trump to attack Iranian cultural sites may give the Iranian government further excuses to shut down protesters and rally the rest. Obviously, especially in the larger cities there are plenty of progressive Iranians who are are not precisely sad that Soleimani was killed per se, but there are also real fears about a potential war.