CharonY

Well, how about basically all the other exams...?

Actually the average vaccination rate is slightly below the regional average. But there are fewer people around and I assume that in the urban center it is on the higher end (considering that the whole country is less populated than many cities elsewhere).

There is also the issue that folks are consuming more youtube videos or blogs rather than vetted media outlets. And indeed, there are political powers who actively try to minimize the influence of mainstream media ("fake news", and in Germany even bringing back the loaded term "Luegenpresse"). This can only accelerate the process of dissemination misinformation. I fear we are seeing a rise of youtube-personality cults that may be the basis of the worldview of many young people. In fact, I do start to see it in undergrad students where arguments made by these types of personalities (i.e. folks without actual credentials in the areas they talk about) are taken as gospel without second thought. To be fair, it is not an entirely new phenomenon. Dawkins could be seen as one of such personalities which arose during legitimate concern about creationism influence in biology classes. While the initial core where well-educated on the subject, at a certain size there were folks who started to take his words, even outside of his expertise as gospel and it got a cultish hue with got increasingly toxic. That being said, it was relatively mild compared to what I see with some political commentators that are around now. Young folks, such as students are still trying to find their way in the world (not yet realizing that it is going to be a long search with no real answers) and these folks give them a very simplistic world that they can grasp immediately. These shortcuts have always been the selling point of snake oil salesmen, but now they the largest platform imaginable.

Unless of course they get amplified via social media, politicized and publicized by the certain media outlets and shows. I mean, can you imagine that some actors could weaponize social media and put out coordinated fake stories out there to disrupt and destabilize societies? Too ridiculous to entertain that thought right? It would never work in highly educated societies, right? Haha ha... ha.

I think before we enter conspiracy theories we can consider some other aspects (although one could of course consider that the tragedy has been spun for most negative effect). From what I understand the US sanctions have left them with no abilities to buy new planes. I may be reading it wrong, but it seems also include provision to sanction third parties that sell aviation parts to Iran. Once the sanctions had been lessened Iran ordered planes from Boeing as well as Airbus and ATR, though due to potential issues with the Boeing deal they are actually considering Russian planes.

Don't forget how well they performed as stock brokers.

I believe it is actually more due to the thermal treatment of the starch (the dominant sugar polymer in potatoes). Depending on treatment gelatinization occurs, which increases its propensity to be broken down to glucose during digestion. The tricky bit is that amount and composition is already different in potato varieties and quite different in sweet potatoes (which are a different species entirely). In sweet potatoes the GI has been found to vary between 40 (boiled) and 90 (baked), which is roughly comparable to most potato variants (ranging from 50-80). A) Diosgesin is found in low concentrations in wild yams (not the common cultivar) B) The concentrations are so low, you would not be able to eat enough to have any noticeable effects.

Intention requires adding a layer of complexity to it. I.e. it requires additional mechanisms and thus higher evidence level than assuming a mostly randomized process. Of course, there are hotspots for certain types of mutation, but they are not confined to cell-cycle control systems and again, there are more elements than you initially proposed. If we start from faulty premises we won't come to realistic outcomes. Also note that while the processes of cancer, and tissue turnover in general, is complex, there is a lot of knowledge out there and dismissing it and building a parallel narrative based on assumptions is just not going to cut it. Also note that non-coding RNA are still identifiable as they still need to be transcribed. I was more broadly referring to untranscribed sequences which play mainly regulatory roles.

It does not immunize them (which would probably be less of a problem) rather it selects for (multi-)resistant strains. In fact, there are grounds to believe that agriculture may have a larger impact in the long run than personal use (though it is not perfectly established). Antibiotics are used in far higher quantity in agriculture and get into contact with bacteria in very different habitats (e.g. via manure) but which can end up in the human food chain. Certain resistances can be transferred between bacteria, with the result that we are all kind of screwed. But on the bright side, measles outbreak in Europe have increased by 400% this year with about a dozen reported deaths. Much of it is due to the anti-vaccination movements in Romania, Italy and Ukraine (but also Greece, and Germany). Now, measles, is/was on the brink of eradication and this stupid counter-movement is very much trying to bring it back. The good news is that politics decided to start leveraging fines and in Romania kids may not attend school if they are not vaccinated. But I am sure in the age of the internet we will soon have proud parents ready martyr themselves (or rather their children) the the anti-vax movement. Well, enough ranting, anyway.

There are too many misconceptions in OP to address them all. Just a short list: - error in replication/repair are common and spontaneous while not being targeted. - there are more than on or two genes that are relevant to control cell replication - mutations in non-coding areas can also contribute to tumorgenesis (mostly by altering regulation) As a whole there is a need to understand that proliferating cells are common and essential in our body. However, the do not do us harm because of a host of things fantastically not going wrong. Cancer cells have reverted to some of these features, but with the checks and balances off, so to speak. Overall the premise is inherently faulty and does not justify the amount of extrapolation.

I am afraid, the situation is only going to get worse from here. In the very near future most antibiotics used to treat primary or secondary infection will be ineffectual. Which means that outbreaks have the potential to be much more deadly than they are now. It is especially frustrating that ca. 30 years back we thought that with vaccinations and antibiotics we are on the brink of eradicating infectious diseases. Now by being stupid with vaccines and overuse of antibiotics (like, tonnes to fatten up livestock instead restricting it to treatments) we are throwing much out of the window for no good reason at all.

But gun-related death rates are important as others have pointed out. Either way it is part of the general public health issue and research is needed to guide what needs to be done. Even if measures have high support, it does not mean that they are effective. Ideally, one needs to have access to fine-grained data, similar to other epidemiological studies to establish risk factors. I am not sure, for example what needs to be in a background check to minimize gun-related deaths. While one could certainly argue that any restriction is beneficial to a certain degree, there are likely to be more or less effective measures. But again, data is scarce on that. Overall, there seems to be a general difference in attitude with different threshold at which it is deemed acceptable to use them (outside of suicide) even among countries in which guns are prevalent.

I will note again that although mass shootings are the most horrible outgrowth of US gun culture, the other elements, including "regular" homicide, suicide and accidental death are connected to gun ownership. Thoughtful analysis is required to figure out what can be done to curb those deaths. Otherwise, regulations, even when done in good faith, may not have the desired results (and not doing anything certainly does not address the dismal state of affairs). At least one major issue inhibiting thoughtful discussion is the fact that the CDC is effectively prevented to investigate gun deaths (since 1997!). Moreover, there was an NIH program initiated after the Sandy Hook shooting that does address specifically violence and allowed the investigation of firearms (with an envelope of ca. 11 million) but that got shelved. Most initial studies were descriptive with no strong conclusions. However, that is expected when one starts looking into a phenomenon. But now it seems that even that foray is getting stonewalled. Of course, lack of data is something that many politicians actually like, as it makes it easier for them to take ideological rather than fact-driven positions (not that facts do really get in their way too often, either).

Actually there are potential scenarios in which hierarchies could exist, though I am not sure whether examples exist. One case would be the isolation of a small subpopulation which would undergo rapid speciation (say, due to strong selection). At the same time, the original population maintains a stable gene pool (e.g. because of size, free gene flow etc.). After divergence, the original population could still be indistinguishable from the ancestor population, whereas the isolated one would become new species or sub-species (depending on divergence in the given time frame).

I am not sure about the natural history of how folks first determined it. But rather obviously it was known that dogs are a domesticated species and that it would have to originated from some wild forms and the most likely candidate (geographically and morpohologically) were wolves or perhaps coyotes. As genetic analyses have shown that grey wolves and dogs are most closely related, the conclusion seems rather obvious. However, if we want to be very precise, it is actually quite a bit more complicated. It is not clear, for example if the ancestor of the dog is actually the gey wolf we see today, or perhaps a common ancestor of the modern grey wolf. Also, there is potential admixture afterward. I am not sure how well that has been resolved, though.

No, even without knowledge we would know that they are a kind of wolves (i.e. same species). The distinction into subspecies is somewhat arbitrary. I do not know specifically on the genetic level how divergent they are, but the morphological differences would be quite obvious. But again, subspecies distinctions are a wobbly concept at best. No, dogs are a subspecies, i.e. they are wolves. They are just a specific sub-group of wolves. They are not a different species. It would make more sense you if you look at e.g. jackals, foxes, coyotes and other canidae. If you look at relationship on this level you will see that dog and gray wolves group together as one species, the next relatives are coyotes, then the golden Jackal, then the Ethiopian wolf and so on. Maybe this can help you in looking at these things. No, molecular clocks are only good in measuring large divergence. For short-time changes they are usually rather unreliable. And again, wolves and dogs are too close to each other to make real distinctions on that level. Edit: I should add, that it is not impossible, it just requires very careful calibration of mutation rates. What one need is basically genetic information from ancestors of current wolves and dogs (which would be found ca. 20-30k years ago) . While that has not been traditionally possible, nowadays one could obtain such information from somewhat well-preserved specimen (especially dry and cold areas).

Just skimmed through the thread and I see two concepts being confused here a bit. The first is ancestry. I.e. direct line of descent as e.g. determined by paternity testing. Here, we look at very closely related individuals. It can be extended to populations though then it becomes more diffuse. In all cases it is contained to closely related groups but with sufficient genetic information we could build, with relatively high confidence, the relationship between individuals within a population. Standard techniques being used currently are based on a handful of genetic markers, so depending on method it will a varying degree of resolution. Dogs are a subspecies of wolves. For all intents on purposes, they are the same species. However, we do know the timeline when dogs arose (as they are domesticated). However, in natural populations defining timelines for populations within a species is always problematic as there is usually a lot of genetic flow between populations (i.e. interbreeding). That makes classification and especially timing a very difficult proposition. When we talk about phylogeny, we are looking at relationship between species. Here, it is important to note that in most cases the different species arose from a common ancestor, which is usually not around anymore. I.e. existing (extant) species are not derived from each other and therefore are not the ancestor of each other. With regards to how to reconstruct phylogenies, you will need to delve a bit into concepts of DNA, its mutation rate and population genetics a bit. In short, typically conserved sequences (e.g. genes or genetic loci that are found in all species under investigation) are compared. The basic assumption is that the farther they are apart, the more the sequences diverge. There is also the concept of molecular clocks where we can use the divergence as a means to estimate when the respective species split (though that is even trickier).

Ketoacidosis is primarily caused by the accumulation of beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate themselves. The accumulation of these acids in the extracellular fluid lead to loss of bicarbonate ions, thus reducing the buffer capacity of blood. Keywords you may want to look up if you want to see the viewpoint from the medical side are the serum anion gap and the delta-delta gap.

Cryptocurrency mining.

To be fair, Pinker is not well regarded in historic circles and he is one of the cases where folks (in this case again a psychologist) ventures far outside his/her area of expertise. One of the issues is poor sourcing of material and data. That being said, more recent statistics have backed up a decline in armed conflict deaths in the beginning of the 21st century. However, recent conflicts have resulted in an uptick in deaths. Before you guys take another swing at it, why don't you both look at some UN data (e.g. this one here for starters). The overall state is actually rather complex (e.g. democratization does not automatically result in less conflict, especially during transitional phases).

Well, if starvation is added in, then there are actually good news as the rate of undernourishment has been reduced by almost half since the 90s (see various studies from the IFPRI). Virtually every country has made improvements and in some, these improvements were extreme. As a whole, the economy-related issues have been improving (which does include food safety, disease prevention etc.). I do not see how that could not matter. Also, I think there is evidence that by working with the respective governments and the local people has shown to improve the situation of people much more than the still rather colonial attitude exhibited in the 20th century. If you look at the policy of successful intervention they are all based on understanding local systems and e.g. support local farmers than simply drowning the market with goods, increase education levels

As I said, individual examples don't account to much. Otherwise one could see Hitler's rise to power as a failure of democracy. Likewise, Mao's failing does not explain away the economic successes that China had since Xiaoping. And make not mistake, it is still very much a dictatorship. That being said the number of countries with a democracy has been rising between the the postwar time (ca. 30%) to about 50% in the 2000s (depending on data set and definition of democracy). Your definition of of enlightenment does not make help to clarify your position, either. Enlightenment contain a number of different ideals, but one important thing was the idea of liberty in opposition to absolute monarchy and religious dogma (with the catholic church being the representative of the latter). Within the era of enlightenment and the eventual rise of science different thoughts arose. Science resulted in a materialistic view of the world. There are those such as Descartes who advocated a kind of dual approach in which there is things have an innate essence (i.e. essentially allowing an a priori method of knowledge). But as a whole the development of enlightenment carried a strong materialistic direction. Humanism then follows a different, but connected trajectory. While secular from its conception, it was meant more as a criticism of the institution of the Church, rather than of faith itself. Yet through merging of ideas probably most exemplified through Hegelian philosophers such as Feuerbach it morphed eventually into a rejection of religion of sorts with strong roots in a materialistic worldview. In other words, where you seem to see opposition, there is a strong interconnection. While this is a very short and likely incorrect account of the various terms, it should illustrate why I do not think that using the term(s) is particularly helpful in this context. With regard to violent deaths, if we look at battle related death there is info (the dept. of peace and conflict research in Uppsala has some nice graphs, for example). Essentially post WWII there were peaks in the 70s and 80s and smaller peaks around 2000. Until ~2010 it was fairly low, but the recent wars have increased the numbers somewhat. One could argue there is a general decline. Yet, it is also possible to see the recent times as expected dips between conflicts. The data on poverty as a whole is more indicative of a relatively clear trend.

This is a big question and it really depends on what you mean with "enlightened". The term has been used and abused to mean virtually nothing. Also, while dicatorships are problematic if the endgoal is to have a free population, it should be noted that some do indeed try to improve the lives of their population (if only to maintain power). Without doubt, the conditions in China have massively improved. Other countries with dictatorship but high economic success include Singapore, Qatar and Brunei, for example. On the other hand, we have countries sliding into authoritarian dictatorship (such as Russia and Turkey). So there is not a direct conflict between dictatorship/authoritarian regimes and economy/wealth. The issue is probably more on the axis of stability (though improving living conditions is a step to maintain it) and of course, personal freedom. My major point is that the premise in OP is seriously flawed.

The general world trend since the 80s is, in fact favorable on many levels. The amount of people living in extreme poverty has sharply decline. As of 201 ~700 million (or 10% of the world population) are living in extreme poverty, down from a peak of 2.2 billion (~60%) in 1970. Part of it is because at some point strategy switched away from destabilizing nations (either due to neo-colonialism or in proxy conflicts within the cold war), but much was also improvement in self- governance. Other indicators of improved living conditions are the reduction of infant deaths cut by half between 1990 and 2016 as well as a slow-down in population growth (the latter being strongly correlated with women's rights). Further, the participation of women in education has increased worldwide and so has their participation rate in work and governance. So if we take the bird's eyes view, the situation has been improving, in some cases massively, compared to about a generation ago. It is, however important not to view it exclusively from a Western lens. On that note, it should also be acknowledged that even in industrialized nations a fraction of the populations lives in extreme poverty. Almost exclusively those with extreme income inequality or recent economic issues. Eexamples include USA and Italy with about 1%, Greece ~2%. Germany and Canada have about 0.2 and 0.3% (using 2013 data). Though it should be noted that due to a variety of factors the consumption level (and thus living standard) is still higher than in poor countries due to welfare and other mechanisms.

It should be noted that in microbiology a strain can be distinguished by minimal differences. Everything not being genetically identical (i.e. clonal) can be considered a different strain. For example, every mutation you introduce into a given bacterium results in a new strain.