CharonY

I am not so sure. The emails, at least do not indicate that Donald Sr. was actually informed of that event (though it was mentioned that the info was supposed to be given to him). Also, there is the claim that nothing of value was really exchanged. I.e. at this point one can only state with certainty that parties in the Trump campaign (Donald Jr, Kushner, Manafort) were interested in gaining information from the Russians and that Kushner did not disclose this meeting (which could be an offense, depending whether the lawyer has any official position, which Goldstone seemed to imply). So while it does not paint a pretty picture, it is still in the deniable area, I guess.

The only thing I can think of is that a) that is the level of exposure to science (i.e. pop sci) and b) there is the underlying assumption that science as a process has ideological leaders whose words are followed. That, of course, betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of science as well as how scientists behave.

Donald Jr. has released some emails (apologies if they were listed earlier already). https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=3892196-Donald-Trump-Jr-Email-Exchange

That is just what a guy turned into a broccoli would claim. Brassicacea are not to be trusted.

No idea what you think the quotes are saying. Sagan (who is not a biologist) merely list things that developed in an off-hand manner (photosynthesis, then sex). It is almost that books have context. And even if his books were inane drivel, I do not see any relevance here.

My reading of the situation is similar to ranger's with the addendum that Khadr was apprehended before Harper. My feeling is without the Supreme Court ruling either government would be happy to let this thing vanish. I may have not seen that Khadr was lawfully extradited to the US. In fact the Canadian embassy sent a letter to request Khadr not to be transferred to Guantanamo. As a whole, I am not even sure what there is to discuss as the Supreme Court ruling makes it fairly clear that this is not a political, but a judicial issue. On top of it, some deeper reading makes the whole ruling highly problematic, not only because of the coercive circumstances, but also because there were very contradicting accounts of the events. The whole thing is a mess with a conviction only following torture and questionable tribunals. The US and Canada have a history of attacking the lawfulness of those convictions and trying to repatriate their citizens if they happened in other countries (there have been prominent examples from Saudi Arabia and North Korea, for example). But even worse, here the government appears to be complicit in breaking their own laws. So what option would they have? The only thing would to try to defend in court, which would likely be more costly and even more embarrassing, considering the Supreme court ruling. I absolutely fail to see how this could be interpreted as a kind of PC move. Harper may have tried to challenge it, but it would just be posturing. Except, of course that is what you think what should have done. I am pretty sure the lawyers were reasonable certain of the outcome. Edit: found an interesting blog discussing the case: http://craigforcese.squarespace.com/national-security-law-blog/

Consciousness is not tightly defined though one important aspect is self-awareness. There are not a huge amount of tests that could be done but brain MRI studies looking at patients that have impairments related to self-wareness have highlighted a number of complex pathways that are somehow involved. Even with the fuzziness of the term, if one assumes that simple structures as found in flies are able to express consciousness would mean that the quality is likely to be massively different and may be better served to a) have a different term or b) redefine the concept of consciousness. I also do not see how the argument regarding number of neurons helps in this regard.

One might also consider that the perception of the relationship between citizens and government is not the same everywhere. After all, Poland established itself as an independent democracy only after the end of the cold war and the experience of government efficiency, corruption, nepotism and so on during the cold war may, unfairly or not, might still affect current perception.

That is not quite so simple. Jews were forced to use modern names in the 18th century and many adopted e.g geographic names. They sound German because they often are, and while some are the same as established names, others became quite specific to Jewish communities. These include those with strong Yiddish influences an/or fusion names. If you look around, there are many of those out there.

Their food is also our food. And sometimes they are our food.

Well, I would add the qualifier of "to its people and allies". It would be kinda disingenuous to entirely dismiss atrocities as slipups. No to mention that attitudes changed over the last centuries (though to be fair, many, though not all, were committed before the US was considered a superpower).

Hey Tar, this is actually not how research funding works. The decision for funding is generally done by other scientists with a review process. It is usually under republican oversight that they put in certain requirements (such as reduction of fundamental research vs applied). Also, fundamental research is usually hardly funded by private enterprises (your daughter may know about that, unless she has a more industrial job, of course). The issue with losing the office is that the government has one advocate less for science funding. My expectation is that in future science funding will be more politically driven resulting e.g. in good projects that have environmental impact being scrapped and mostly those considered business-relevant (and maybe health) being funded.

Well, to me it seems that two very different things are argued with both being mostly correct. Veganism is associated with B12 deficiency, it can remediated with additives and/or fortified food products (though it is one of the reasons why vegetarianism is often recommended rather than veganism). It is also true that various lifestock feed are supplemented with B12 (cobalt is only used for ruminants). Sometimes the addition makes sense, in some cases (again, ruminants) it does not. Both are common practice AFAIK.

Skimming through the thread I did not find much information regarding the questions at hand, i.e. nutritional value of the respective diet, their associated health benefits and risks, the environmental impact and total nutritional production. If interest persists, I can drag out paper that discuss at least some of the issues, but until then I am going to provide some info that I vaguely remember and which are hopefully correct. Total production. Even in old paper from the 2000 it has been shown that the total production was sufficient to feed everyone (estimated 2700 kcal/person Alexandratos 1999, PNAS). Since then food production, especially in developing countries have increased much higher than the world population (with a net increase of over 10% more per person). It also been mentioned that in some non-arable areas using livestock could be more economical, and it is certainly true for small-scale farming with hardy animals, such as goats. I have not seen decent calculations for intensive farming or large herds (although I am quite curious about that). Health benefits. There is no strong consensus for a general recommendation, but there is a lot of literature that suggest, on average, health benefits over an omnivorous diet. Meat generally provides benefits in cases where malnutrition can be a risk factor (e.g. elderly which have issues with nutrient adsorption). So overall, there is a case to be made here. That being said, the benefits seem to be almost the same for a primarily vegetarian diet with occasional meat (which was/is practice in many Asian countries, for example) over a strict vegetarian diet (I forgot the paper I saw the data, though, and will have to verify). These benefits are most pronounced in developed countries, where cardiovascular diseases are a higher causes of morbidity. Certain groups, including pregnant women, children and elderly may benefit from meat uptake, though. I am a bit at a loss what the discussion regarding B12 in livestock is about. In many formulated animal feed B12 (and a lot of other nutrients) are typically added. The issue is that in ruminants it is mostly useless, other simpler cobalt compounds are more effective. This is because ruminant biota is quite effective in synthesizing B12 and technically ruminants are feeding on bacteria. . Does not mean that feed producers or farmers apply that knowledge. In other animals, addition of B12 have shown various degrees of benefits and that is why producers add them to sell it up to the farmers.

I think it is common procedure. Instrument failure (even if it is not that terribly expensive, though it often is) tends to get kicked up to admin. Discomfort does not. Though I managed to get facility management to repair the temperature sensors in my office once I made the facility supervisor to sit in the room with over 40C and drink coffee with me.

How well do these financial plans work in cases of catastrophic diseases, such as breast cancer, with an average reported cost of ~125k? And if you have some form of insurance, you are betting on healthy people to bail you out. And if everyone is deferring small(ish) problems due to financial burden, it can eventually lead to larger issues, such as e.g. infections which are going to much costlier in treatment. As someone having worked in the health industry one should be aware of those risks.

Actually uptake of stuff and intracellular trafficking is very complicated and the response to harmful substances is not terribly precise. I.e. it is probably not accurate to assume that if encountering really harmful substances the cells can easily get rid of it (or that it is even able to identify those as harmful). In fact, endosomal trafficking is a major route hijacked by many pathogens to eventually enter cells. Most particulate removal happens on the tissue/organ level, meaning that you need a decent mucoid layer to effectively remove particulate and other harmful substances.

It is also more worrying if a person in power (including politician) does it (and gets an invite).

Actually, if you couple it with LC (or even without if you have low complexity) it is a much better way to judge purity. Takes a bit more work, though.

Among women between 29-44 with Bachelor's the number is around 30% IIRC. That does not mean that all in this group remain childless (except those at the upper boundary), but it clearly shows that it is not high on the priority list.

You are comparing two entirely different tools. A PAGE does separation, whereas a MS is basically a m/z analyzer (if we ignore specialty things like ion mobility). It does not really do any separation by itself. In fact, a common workflow is to couple SDS PAGE with subsequent MS for protein identification.

Anglicization of German names happened in a big wave in during/after WWI, IIRC. But there are still plenty of examples around (Koch, Muller, to name two very prominent ones). Also, Jewish names, while German, are typically quite distinct (but there are Jews who have changed their name).

At best for a subset, considering how many people are childless.

You see, outside of Canada people do not need to bring their anti-bear and moose spray, so they can carry around man-purses with the usual essentials, such as laptop, tablets, newspaper, paperwork, pens, croissants, assortment of bratwuerste, a demi-baguette, prosciutto, thermos with coffee/tea, and beer. And of course all the chargers. Especially for the baguette.

I had a solar bag with some integrated LEDs in the main compartment at one point, but it was rather cheaply made. But aside from camera bags I have seen quite a few free-standing messenger bags (often sold as tech messenger bags) that could fit the bill. I like them a bit squishy so that I can put them under the seat in planes more easily.