CharonY

Just in case it was not obvious. None of that makes any biological or medical sense.

And well, as it has been mentioned before, preventing folks from dying early due to infectious diseases will cause cancer rates to rise.... because folks now get old enough to actually die of cancer.

... what?

Also, this is entirely wrong in an almost spectacular way. Cancer cells are pretty much the opposite of rotting. (Side point: rotting is not a term used with cells, as it usually refers to the act of decaying, typically in context of microbial actions. the only things that comes close would be something like apoptosis, which is a crucial element in normal cellular turnover). They do in fact not die or degrade as they should and multiply unchecked instead. They also do not spread by infecting other cells. They spread by multiplying and moving around.

To elaborate on that it depends really what you are comparing with each other. For example, some estimates first take the genes we have in common (which are highly similar) and then estimate divergence on that level. As genes are more likely to be conserved due to their respective function, the value is expected to be very small (I believe that is where the ca. 1.2% divergence estimates come from). On the other range of the spectrum is just to take the whole sequence and calculate the divergence from there. This will also take areas with fewer or no functional elements, duplications etc. into account. On that end we are looking at ~5-6%. Both are somewhat accurate in what they do. They are just looking from different perspectives.

So, it is weird that you criticize the need to cite literature or existing products or embed patents or publications in existing knowledge. Clearly, your invention was not borne out of an entirely isolated Idea or concept but was well embedded in known functions. That is how science works, too.

I still can't get over the fact that this has gotten to four pages under the basic assumption that folks would migrate according to some difficult to assess benefits (i.e. UV radiation) over the most obvious concerns after societal collapse.

I'd be a bit careful with that, especially around younger kids. Creating sterile plates without an autoclave is a bit tricky (though not impossible). However, especially with non-selective media it is easy to accidentally growth pathogens on it. Without proper training and environment it is not a good idea to have kids play with those.

So, it depends. If you want to take pictures you need a camera (which is the part connected to computer via USB). Depending on quality it can drive up the cost a fair bit. Typically, those microscopes have a mirror that allow you to direct the light path either to the viewport to your eyes or to the camera. Other things to consider are the level of magnification you need. Low magnification with higher quality is often more fun than a low quality microscopy with high amplification, but lousy optics. For sample prepration, it depends a fair bit on what you want to look at. For starters I would recommend tweezers, mounting media (if you want to preserve slides) and perhaps look for non-toxic stains that you could get (or prepare slides for him, until he is a bit older).

Front panel as in where the pilot looks out of? What purpose would it serve other than obscuring vision?

Funny bit is that submitting a patent actually required quite a lot of paperwork to demonstrate why a certain approach is unique, in part by referencing, comparing and contrasting it with similar approaches (which were mostly published lit). I posit that you are not quite clear about what a "theory" is in a scientific context (or that yo are confused about what a speculation is).

Ecologically this is only relevant if those areas would be needed in a plant-based diet and if the ares used to produce feed or used for pasture are unable to sustain other crops. In fact, in many scenarios (including factory farming) materials such as grain, hay and silage are actually harvested from prime croplands. Looking at lit, you'll see that e.g. by shifting beef production exclusively to pastureland will sustain ~42% of current beef production. Using the prime crop land to produce vegetables instead would increase net calorie and protein amount by 2-20 times. From what I can see, it is not quite clear what the most efficient model is in terms of land-use, environmental impact, calorie and nutritional demand is. but a cursory glance at the literature suggests that a vegetarian diet (as opposed to vegan) seems to be able to reduce current land use and reduce emissions, while still allowing a balanced diet. While I doubt that there is a firm consensus on this matter, most data points to the fact that the current (and increasing) demand for meat is unlikely to be a sustainable model for the future. From an ecological viewpoint, a reduction from current meat consumption levels, especially of ruminants seems to have a strong impact, as well as the type of crops being grown (the latter more in terms of water use). It is somewhat clear that reducing meat consumption to the levels found in the USA to roughly half (about the level of Japan) is associated with better health outcomes and better carbon footprints. Specifically regarding veganism, most data point to the largest net reduction in carbon footprint, though the magnitude is disputed. There are efforts underway using meta-studies to score diets according to environmental impact as well as nutritional content. Some of the bullet points from these studies seem to be: - even with lower meat consumption, high diary intake can raise carbon footprints - diets with high nutritional scores that also have decent carbon footprints include Mediterrenean, Atlantic as well as vegetarian - diets with high intake of plant products especially legumes and low intake of animal products (including diary) tend to score well on both axes - within classes of food it is possible to replace high with low carbon footprint choices while maintaining nutritional values (e.g. pork vs ruminants) While the situation is clearly complex and requires studies from many different angles, it is safe to say that sustainability is going to be an important factor and barring massive changes in agricultural practices, at least in some countries diets may have to shift eventually.

Roughly speaking that is a way (and probably the easiest) to do it. It helps to scan it with the highest quality possible. Best use a lossless format rather than jpeg.

I'd suspect the rules would be very different, especially as the referendum was not legally binding (well, and in a different country). However, the leave campaign has been fined for violating electoral laws

Well he addressed that in an interview: It is fair to say that the worst part of the predictions were off the mark (specifically the recession bit). Yet, he is in pretty good company with many other economists. Why that happens is of course due to the unpredictability of the situation. There is not a lot of data one could model the predictions on (as it has not happened before) and as such assumptions were made that turned out to be inaccurate to various degrees. Yet some other aspects were rather robustly predicted. That being said, predicting economy is always challenging and I would not quite suspect malice at that point. Papers are starting to appear which discuss why certain predictions were inaccurate including the use of flawed analyses that overstimated certain costs. That being said, a lot of the actual cost will remain uncertain until the actual form of Brexit is revealed. Approaches that focus on tariff models under a hard Brexit still predict significant economic loss by 2030, for example.

Not as such. The Selfish Gene in itself is not much of detailed theoretical framework. Rather it is intended to reframe the perspective of known mechanisms of evolution. I.e. it is essentially highlighting the role of genes rather than on the organismal level. In a way, you can think of it as the study of molecular physiology vs e.g. animal physiology. Modern molecular techniques clearly assisted in shaping this view and it has been influential to those work more on the genomic side of things. Neither supplants the other, but adds a different perspective. Discussions on this topic are clearly mainstream.

The way the visual system works is quite heavily investigated and the somewhat garbled version you presented seems like like what one would derive from high school/ first semester reading of the topic. I.e. you are unlikely to find scientific references on that level as science has progressed into much finer details. Where you would find info to better educate on these processes you'd find in basic bio text books. Some deeper information on the underlying neuronal processes in entry-level neuroscience books (e.g. Kendall). There are very good high school bio text books, too. There are also more and more open text books, but I have not found one yet that I really, really liked.

TBH, I'd already be happy if it wasn't playing with the cellphone all day long.

Not really. Gene expression commonly refers to transcription of genes. While the transcript levels will rise, it does not necessary result in significant translation rate. And even if it does the, increase may not be biologically relevant. There can be several layers of regulation that make direct correlation between gene expression and protein levels quite difficult.

Perhaps. I really need some competent help in the lab.

I think we should start looking into prolonging their lives. Considering the growth potential I am almost sure there is something...

Generally you would use whatever protocols are established in your lab, or what your supervisor suggests you to do. There are a variety of options and suitability is determined by the precise question of your project. Expression can be manipulated by manipulating cis-or trans-regulatory elements, have them in (overexpression)-vectors, make inducible or not etc. The question is also whether you just want pure gene expression or whether you also want the protein numbers to increase (both are not the same).

You need quite a large amount for that to happen. More than accidentally trapped bubbles in syringes.

Jesus. Does this apply to Muslim-dominant areas outside of Northern Nigeria? Again, if Islam was the driving factor you would see it everywhere, and probably especially in countries with more than 50% Muslims as in Nigeria. Do you see that? If not, what could be the reason? (It is honestly not that difficult, provided one does not start with a conclusion and works the arguments backwards).

A few pages back you acknowledged that economics has a huge effect on birth rates. The former explains the rapid decline of births per mother in many Muslim countries in the last 1-2 decades. As noted, Iran went from one of the countries with the higest birth rates (6 per woman) to less than 1.7 today. Similar trends are seen e.g. in the UAE. So there is an enormous spread from below or at Western levels (who, btw have also a significant religious population) to above. In almost all cases there are massive declines from ca. 60s onwards). The problem is that you neglect that point and revert to an absolute "religion causes fertility" based on one data point (current fertility rates). The error in your reasoning is that you fail to understand that this data point is the accumulation of various effects. Rather, you used that one point in time to create a narrative (Islam specifically oppresses women, denies them education and therefore increases number of children). Yet it is entirely based on opinion and completely ignoring socioeconomic and political factors. This is not to say that there are no effects. However, whatever effects religiosity exerts has to be understood under the context of existing socioeconomic conditions. And of course, precisely the same argument can be made for traditional Catholics with conservative gender roles and prohibition of contraceptives. Yet that was never part of your original argument. While you have pruned it down to general religiosity, it kind of blows your own original argument (specifically the role of Islam) out of the water. To provide an example. Religiousness (though typically only Christianity, specifically Catholicism and Islam, other religions tend not to show up that easily in statistics) is associated with a slight increase in fertility. E.g. in Western countries Christians as well as Muslims have slightly higher fertility rates than unaffiliated or other religions. However, there is again the strong impact of economic status. I.e. high education Christian ans Muslim women have slightly lower number of children than their peers with lower educational attainment. To complicate matters, there is an inverse correlation between educational attainment and religiosity. I.e. women with higher education tend to be less religious (though the matter here is also not quite straightforward). Birth rates are also coupled with urbanization, a process that has happened in most Western countries quite a while ago but in some Muslim countries only started to increase massively in the last couple of decades. Another important aspect is demographics. Some of the links you provided are not controlled for age. As Muslim countries had higher birth rates in recent times, they have a larger pool of women in child-bearing age. Essentially you can see the trend precisely as what happens to Europe but delayed, yet with a steeper slope (i.e. faster declining rate). Yet another key aspect are policies. In Indonesia the decline of birth rates from ~6 per woman before the 60s to ~2.5 were attributed largely to implementation of family planning whereas the decline in China is attributed to the one-child-policy. The issue here really is (as often) highly selective reading based on a pre-built, extremely simplified model of a complex situation, where relevant information is simply discarded if it does not fit.