CharonY

Uh, under whose orders would they be?

I agree, it is worrisome. At minimum it shows serious gaps in reasoning and one would have to wonder whether it indicate to a general tendency of ignoring inconvenient facts. While I know quite a few religious scientists, they generally are believers in a spiritual sense. I.e. there is no evolution denial. It is rather bizarre, really, considering that even the Catholic church has come out to state that there is no denying evolution.

That would be a bit surprising as it pretty much alludes to the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium as a null. My guess is that a default fallback would be to say that microevolution occurs but not macroevolution, while conveniently forgetting that mechanistically there are no differences.

One could ask the inverse question. How is it possible that a gene pool stops changing. What parameters would need to exist to have evolution not occurring? And are these conditions satisfied for any given population.

Not necessarily. As long as G/C-stacking contribute more to stability, the effect would be the same. One should note that the model has only been tested on relatively short DNA stretehes. But at least in that regime it appears that the contribution of base-pairing has much less influence than previously thought (most Tm calculators use both aspects).

In short, no. Being correct has absolutely no relevance to the matter. Only whether the work in itself is complete and with sufficient details (i.e. with supporting experiments and/or calculations). Even if you posted experimental results, there is little to stop someone else to replicate these findings on their own and publish it. The only way to show that it was in fact plagiarized is when significant parts are actually lifted from the post. Otherwise you do not have much of a leg to stand on. And if it is not detailed enough to be a proper publication it does not account to much. A potential case could be made for certain repositories, such as arxiv, provided that the publication is close enough to count as plagiarism. Proving that for a random blog or forums is quite a bit harder. Again, just using the idea counts for nothing. In fact, relatively free exchange of ideas without expecting credit is par of the course. That being said, scooping is also not that unusual, which is why generally you tend only to present stuff that is either unique or (almost) published. Still, it is not unusual that big labs pick up an idea and finish faster than a poor, underfunded assistant prof, for example.

I remember that there was an old paper (50s or 60s) that proposed that the origin of emotional tears may be found in infanthood. Crying is an important signal for parents, but in cases of tearless crying mucous membranes desiccate, increasing the risk of infections.

Well, the keywords are incredibly broad and one of the most important tasks is to focus a topic to an actionable project. I suggest that you go to pubmed (or equivalent) and use those keywords to find recent reviews. Read until something piques your interest. Then use it to delve into more detail.

To be fair, it is not a thing of the future. In situations where science clash with ideologies of major parties, efforts have been made for quite a while to undermine them. Just remember the creationism/ID teaching at school issue. In climate there is another issue where interest groups influence politics to their end and which requires a weakening of the scientific consensus. Going further back as early as in the 1920s use of lead as anti-knocking agents has been recognized as a health hazard. Yet its health effects were long denied and there were advocates who would downplay toxicity data and researchers were threatened with lawsuits. Only in the 70s did public perception change sufficiently to initiate a phase-out.

Well, the thing is that realistically it would not offer much of a protection of anything. In science, ideas are thrown around and discarded at a breathtaking pace. I have written proposals for certain things (which is more work than put together a post) and failed to get funding and see other more successful people do what I proposed. I have zero claims on their research unless I did it first. It basically boils down to if the idea is so vague that it can only appear on blogs or posts it has not real implications. If it is detailed enough and has enough evidence, it is more suited to be submitted as a paper. I do not see the need for a ban, though. It is more a misunderstanding of the values of ideas and science publishing in general.

So now we have another step not only in denying global warming, but also in dismantling efforts to slow it. Link.

Yeah, the same way I fine tune my car with a sledgehammer. It runs faster out of fear.

It does not have to be organic. After all, oxygen is not, either. There basically two basic ways to generate energy without oxygen. Fermentation, where there is not an electron transport system and anaerobic respiration. The latter is the equivalent to use oxygen. You should read up on these definitions and figure out the principles behind either.

Ask yourself this question: Do all bacteria need oxygen to live?

Specifically for the Bohr model, it was used for a while as it helped to explain the Rydberg formula of spectral lines (if memory serves). As such it was an improvement in our understanding and was altered as new evidence showed up. To make a general point, if you build a hypothesis that accurately reflects the current knowledge (which requires a certain degree of current knowledge, of course), it is considered mainstream. If you extend aspects of it, but are still reasonably close to the current theoretical framework, it is considered speculation. Usually this leads to a particular novel aspect that can be tested one way or another. If you propose an alternate theory that clashes with existing knowledge, you need to have significant (usually experimental) evidence to support it. If you don't it is usually pseudoscience.

You read the concentration in your test vial (the diluted sample) directly from the calibration curve. Then you multiply the result. The reason is that instruments (and hence, created standard curves) have a certain dynamic range (and may not be perfectly linear). Also, if your measurement of your diluted sample falls outside of the range, you have to adjust concentration.

I'd argue that in science the stylistic choices are even less stringent. So far I have not seen a single journal demanding one or the other and the various style guides also dissent. As others said, as long as the sentence is not ambiguous it is fine.

The question is too broad to have any meaningful discussion. The population of chronic cannabis users is broad, and as such they differ in many relevant aspects. Some may be embedded in large social groups, some may be loners. Some may be affluent, some struggling. Some are old some are young. As such each of them would be subject to different kinds of social pressure. There are, however, a lot of studies that show a correlation (though not necessarily a causation) between chronic use and e.g. mild cognitive impairment and poor mental health. There is specifically a strong association between high level chronic use especially among teens and development of schizophrenia and psychosis. However, it is not clear whether it is caused by cannabis use or that people susceptible to psychosis are drawn to cannabis use. Some studies focus on the mechanistic link (e.g. Malone et al Br J Pharmacol 2010) but others look into the societal area. So the first question cannot be answered and the follow-up is just a non sequitur.

Unfortunately getting decent images from bacteria typically requires relatively high-end equipment as they are so darn small... I think you may have left a thing out. Maybe it refers to aerobic anoxygenic phototrophes? You are basically correct. The aerobic refers to the the fact that they require oxygen for respiration. The anoxygenic means they do not preoduce O2. However, that would only be expected if they do something that actually produces oxygen, such as during phototrophy. Also, am glad you like the book. It is a nice and easy read and provides a nice overview of what these buggers are up to.

A few pointers, simple peptides have found to have enzymatic reactions (less effective than large proteins but still) the same goes for RNA. There are various publications that speculate how relatively simple chemistry could lead to replicating molecules (such as e.g. Huber et al. 2003 Science). In that regard I have to ask, do you know the difference between peptide and proteins? And that enzymatic reactions are not exclusive to the latter? Other models include the formation of a peptide nucleic acids (see e.g. Nielsen 2007 Chem Biodivers) Do you understand that having a dominance of one isomer over another is just because of selective processes (potentially before the first protocells were formed) and therefore is unlikely to be relevant at the earliest stages where both forms are likely to exist? You seem to be under the impression that only one form can lead to life, but that is clearly not the case. Or in other words, if in early stages there were both isomers, what would have precluded the development of replicating systems? Sure, we do not not with certainty how it happened, but I do not see a model that postulates that it must have started exclusively with one or the others. If you have evidence, feel free to present it. And no, I do not need to present a complete model of all steps that may or may not have happened. Rather I would like to see that you propose something that has more explanatory power than we currently have. At least that would be educational.

Aside from the obvious flaws I would like to add that early one most likely enzymatic peptides and ribozymes existed, rather than complex proteins. D- or L- isomers are not really relevant to the discussion (why would it?). Only because organisms only use one isomer as the major building block (though both exist in metabolic pathways) has no bearing on early biomolecules.

Actually, Trump does not annoy me. He has been unwittingly honest about his whole approach to the presidency (i.e. he assumed it consisted mostly of posing). At no point did he actually try to demonstrate a satisfactory level of understanding of complex issues, nor did he present highly qualified surrogates to make that case. As such his presidency is precisely what he promised to deliver. What annoys me is that a lot of folks thought that that is a good idea.

Again, people use all kind of beliefs as basis for religion. I do not see evidence that people ever used relative knowledge to do so. At best it would be a weak justification, but only after people already decided to believe in something. Take evolution, for example. Some religions (such as Catholicism) integrated it into their belief system. Others (such as creationists) just deny it. The level of evidence does not play a role (and it does not get much more firm than that). So lack of evidence is unlikely to hold a lot of sway either way.

And I ask again, what would be different from the current situation? And why do you think would it lead to an increase?

Then what relevance does it have whether science figure out how it may have worked?