CharonY

All of science is nitpicking and grand statements have to supported with equivalent levels of evidence. Anything else is making up stories. Sexual dimorphisms are often related to mate selection (not necessarily polygyny, just intense male-male competition). That is what I offered above. However, you cannot, for example reduce all or even much of the development to such simple explanation. Take Australopithecus. Here, we have the case of large sexual body dimorphism in size, yet reduced canine dimorphism. The latter of which indicating reduced male-male competition but conflicts with the former. In contrast to what you present, those aspects are still very much under discussion and there is almost no trivial answer to those complex questions. Also note that even if you want to discuss dental evolution, there is the added issue of diet is known to shape the need to maintain canines. Intra-species pressures are really just one bit of the puzzle. You are taking one aspect that are specifically driven by mating behaviour and ignore all the other aspects of influences and thus proclaim that that is the main driving force. It is rather funny as sexual selection was identified specifically to understand certain developments that did not make sense otherwise (like peacock feathers), only here it is kind of flipped around. Point is, intraspecific competition has its place to explain certain aspects (e.g. sexual dimorphisms) but will utterly fail in explaining most other evolutionary traits (activity cycle, non sex-dependent body size, metabolism, sensory adptations etc etc).

I think you are missing my point. In any thorough study, the intra-species interactions are part of the parcel. Depending on features you are looking at they can be a driving factor. However, they are embedded in their given environment and you can generally not understand these adaptations without that context. The issue is specifically that in your post before it seems you noted the following as fact: With the issue of not defining a) what higher animals are and demonstrating that b) these interactions are indeed the most important kind (with which I assume selective pressures are meant). An overall issue is of course the lack of precision here. Intra-species interactions, including mate selection are of course a major driver for certain aspects (including social interactions, mating behaviour etc.). But making it a general statement makes it inaccurate. Trying to expand the scope by including all interactions kind of diminishes the overall point and, as I noted, would include the most simplest of organisms.

I am not sure whether such a broad definition is useful. From that standpoint even for unicellular organism the parental cells and its status are defining their survival or existence, for example. Bacteria have evolved mechanisms to kill members of their own species so it is not even limited to higher organisms. At minimum it would put all sexually reproducing organisms and again, not sure how that is useful And on the opposite end you could argue that it still account for nothing if e.g. the environment does not provide access to nutrition. I.e. while there are inter as well as intraspecies competition, all still happens on the backdrop of the ecological system they are living in. Trying to isolate one over the the other does not seem, well, useful.

However, as a general trend someone knowledgeable on a topic has an easier time navigating nuance and find simplifications that are useful. Of course, it still does not mean that everything can be trivially explained.

Do you mean that social interactions are more relevant than environmental in higher animals? Does "higher" mean complex here? If so, how about solitary species? If not, could you elaborate on that?

What you describe is basically what is referred to as ocean farming. There are efforts underway to estimate the profitability of establishing aquaculture in oceans. Note that the what you describe in OP ("ocean desert") is not caused by lack of nutrients. Rather, these areas are called dead zones. Those are caused by lack of oxygen. A major driver are algae blooms caused by pollution with nutrients. And are likely go get worse due to climate change because a) warm water retains less oxygen and b) warm top layer reduces mixing of layers.

I am honestly still not sure whether Palin was disease or symptom. While heavily disputed, I have a hard time believing that the fact that a half-black man was elected president did not contribute to the popularity of the movement.

Here is the thing, I am agreeing a lot with John McCain as what he says as a person. I do believe that his stance on torture, for example, was formed from his personal experience and is a deeply held conviction of his. At the same time, he was a politician and he had to play according to the GOP playbook. And he did. Taking torture as an example, during Bush, he pushed an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill to limit torture. However, it left a convenient option for the CIA to continue these practices. I do believe that he, as a person would have abolished it, if he could. But he toed the party line, even over his own convictions. Immigration reform was another one of the big things that he flipped on, when challenged from the right fringes of his party. Especially in AZ (his home state) this was a huge issue. He was an impressive man and I wonder what could have been if he had shaped the GOP more.

There are options for neurophatic pain, but unfortunately I have the feeling (but no real expertise) that there are vast differences how medical professional approach the issue. And unfortunately it seems to be one of the cases where the treatment has to be very tailored to be effective (and often still remains insufficient). There are broad classes of other drugs being shown to be effective in trials, but the usually there is a large spread in terms of efficacy. That is the point: opioids are legalized. Painkillers are a huge industry and it is a pathway to get many folks hooked. But now that a sizable proportion of folks are addicted, cutting off supply without replacement options will increase deaths. Also, at least as tobacco user you are not in trouble if you seek help. With opiates that is not so clear.

The death rates are staggering and a huge issue. However, just to add perspective: smoking has been linked to 480,000 deaths per year in the USA annually with 40,000 related to second-hand smoke alone. Now since that statistic, the number of smokers have reduced but even accounting for that we are looking at 450,000-465,000 deaths a year.

From memory: outside of cancer and palliative treatment, a combination of therapy and some analgesics (but no opioids) were more effective in bringing down pain. The reason why opioids were preferred is really that it works faster in the short term. The tricky bit is that there is lingering pain which makes it more likely that folks go for a second dosage. Therapy on the other hand takes more time and may not be available to everyone.

A while back I cam across a metastudy looking at efficacy of different pain management options. IIRC at least for chronic pain there are alternative options that were shown to be equally ore even more effective in bringing down pain than opioids. For acute pain IV administration of e.g. acetaminophen in combination of opioids was shown to reduce pain while also cutting down on the required (opioid) dosages for relief. Cannabis on the other hand has shown at best limited potential for treatment of acute pain.

All young folks have to meander aimlessly through life... for a while. How are you supposed to figure out life before you had one? How do you follow your path before you discover your passion? How do you know that a passion you discovered is really a passion is not merely a fad? Religion could be used as an instructional blueprint and that can be re-assuring. Nonetheless the "aimless wandering" is part of discovery and if you deny that yourself you may miss out things about yourself.

The issue is actually quite interesting. Theoretically everything entering the TCA has the potential to be used for gluconeogenesis purely from a pathway perspective. However, in the absence of a glyoxylate shunt oxaloacetate would be imbalanced (as it would need to react with Ac-coA and have a loss of two carbons which would not allow a net gain of carbon, obviously). Since in animals you typically even-chain fatty acids the textbook answer is "no", but it leaves out a lot of nuance here (though without doubt, if asked in an exam is safe to state it that way). Odd-chain fatty acid are assumed to be of dietary nature. However, the systems biological view is quite interesting as we can draw up theoretical pathways by coupling a pathway from Ac-coA to acetone and subsequent degradadation to lactate and pyruvate. There are additional possibilities if we assume the incorporation of microbiota-dervied short-chain fatty acids into the system. However, I am not sure whether there have been precise experimental flux data to support these models. But there have been some interest into those mechanisms as natives in the arctic region as they do not have ready access to sugars or odd-chain fatty acids. There is at least some speculation that those pathways may contribute to conserve protein degradation. But again, I think it is still somewhat speculative and quite a bit away from entering text books (or eventually dismissed pending experimental data).

Came across an interesting paper (Allison et al. AjPH 2018). Have only glimpsed through it but there was an interesting part in which they modeled the effect of restricting legal opiates (i.e. painkillers). Here, they predict that over ten years, restrictions on pain killers would increase opioid related deaths. Massively, in fact. Why? It is based on the observation that folks cut off from painkillers seek alternative sources of opioids. Especially when they turn to fentanyl the lethality spikes. In that context legalizing and providing controlled access to safe drugs could indeed save lives.

It is mostly a question for even-chained fatty acids IIRC (animal phys is a bit hazy). However odd-chain fatty acids goes via suc-CoA and pyruvate into gluconeogenesis, unless I am missing something here.

That is easy. The favorite holiday destination of Norwegians is Spain. And there has have been movements from refugees (even daring potentially lethal crossings) from (North )Africa to Europe. So rather obviously White folks want seek sun whereas dark skinned folks try to get away from it. Simple, innit?

In the scientific community this is most likely not a view at all. Typical indicators for late fatherhood are e.g. higher levels of education or advanced careers.

I don't think that it is the lesson. Folks that let it happen were not special or depraved. The big lesson of Nazi-Germany was that otherwise decent folks in a bad system are very likely to just let bad things happen. Also, if you give folks too much power over other folks, bad things will happen. This is something many Germans learned (though some of the younger ones start forgetting). The perpetrators and bystanders were not some foreign monsters. They were ones (great)grand parents and intuitively folks understood that it can't be that the whole population suddenly became depraved. Rather, it is something that is in all of us and lacking vigilance we may give rise to conditions that lead to these atrocities. Rather unfortunately, folks on the other side of the war often deem themselves immune from this danger. Well, considering that Slavs were considered a lesser breed I am not sure whether that is a good argument (see Generalplan Ost). I am not sure what the overall argument is though. Assuming Israel gets to keep its spoils of war, what about the increase in settlements as a means to decrease Palestinian rights to their land? If that is accepted, what prevents any country to annex part of lands, plop down settlements and declare it theirs? After all, if it was alright to do it with First Nations, it must still be acceptable, if you got the military, no? In other words, what is your moral or legal stance on that matter? With regard to OP as others have mentioned, the deeds of a Government should be seen separate of the population as a whole (even if in a democratic system the former is an expression of the latter). After all, there are many Israelis heavily criticizing Israeli policy (as it should happen in any democracy). And it is not that Israel (the nation) is treating all Jews well, either. One only need to look at the treatment of African Jews to see that it their current policy is not based on shared trauma and history. Or at least it does not transcendent regular good old bigotry. Some of the folks that I admire most are Holocaust-survivors who have been outspoken against Islamophobia (in Europe) and/or the treatment. Those folks indeed acting on their history and try take the more difficult moral road. That part goes back my comment to SJ: acting morally, especially if it seemingly is against your interest (or tribal affiliation) is hard. The world will be poorer with fewer of them around to remind us of that. Edit: we could even try to explore the legality of compensation of indigenous people. I am quite certain the situation there is far more complex than we took it and now we get to keep it. But I am certain that both of us have some serious reading to do to if we even want to get a glimpse into that situation.

Of course you can apply physics. However, it only goes up to a certain complexity. I.e. a complete bottom-up model of cells is not possible to date. It is generally limited to small things (e.g. certain molecular interactions) or you have to simplify things massively.

I don't recall that conversation. I don't recall that conversation.

Sadly, there are updates to this story. Related to that 2018 is a record year for measles in Europe. Altogether there have been 41,000 cases in the first six month of 2018 (up from 23,900 for the whole of 2017). Confirmed deaths are 37. The highest rates in European countries include Serbia, Greece, Romania and Italy. The original plan of the WHO was to eradicate measles in Europe by 2007. Luckily for the virus, there are quite a few advocates who want it to stay.

Git off mah lawn! Edit: four words in mock English and still manage to get a typo in.

A) the OP was sufficiently vague to not make it clear what it is about. b) who are the criminals in this scenario? Drug users or drug distributors. If the latter, how about legal distributors who inadvertently promote addiction? c) for either case legalization appears to be associated with reduction in drug-related crimes (other than possession and use itself). However data is limited to draw strong conclusions and as others have noted, will depend on the economic system associated with a given drug.

While it will not accomplish abolition, it does not mean that it will have no impact on the overall dependency rate. Data is not quite consistent and it will depend on a number of factors (including the drug itself). However, removing stigma and punishment from drug use seems to have increased the rate of folks seeking rehabilitation in many areas. I am not sure if current evidence points to a net change in addicts, as for example decriminalization also increase the rate of honest self-reporting. Nonetheless, there are potential ways where legalization/decrimininalization can influence dependency rates to some degree.