CharonY

Note that these may be negotiated rate with insurance. To pay out of pocket the cost can be way higher, but many are willing to negotiate in case of hardship. I am not sure how insurance companies compare, but there is a study by Anderson (I forgot the journal but he worked at Johns Hopkins) around 2004 which compared the charge for medicare and for uninsured patients. If memory serves the ratio was somewhere between 2-4 (i.e. double to quadrupole) the charge for uninsured patients, depending on the type of hospitals (with for-profits unsurprisingly being at the upper end).

Obviously I meant to say "legally". It is interesting that you make the assumption that he had to know the source- but that runs counter to how they claim they run their things https://wikileaks.org/About.html Thus for some reasons this particular set of information was not processed through their usual pipeline, or Assange is lying. Regarding the rest you really only need to check virtually any news source. Interestingly, the only outlets claiming that it was whistleblower are RT (a Russian outlet) and some alt-right websites (note the Julian Assange Show is broadcasted on RT...) . In either case not citing Assange but Craig Murray. Note that was before the last intelligence report was presented.

Not only that, cybersecurity analyses have shown that a security breach was behind the leaks, i.e. assuming legal access is more than unlikely, and I am not sure why you would try to argue otherwise. Even Assange is not asserting that they were obtained illegally. The only thing he has said is that the source is not the Russian government. However, it is not clear whether he actually knows the source (as WikiLeaks was supposed to be set up to allow anonymous drops). Even so, there is increasing hypocrisy in his actions as demonstrated by his criticism of the Panama leaks. So no, Assange is not a neutral player in this game. The only thing that is not certain is whether the government was really behind it. At this point intelligence points to yes, but short of Russia actually admitting it, it will remain somewhat uncertain.

Yes, I do not necessarily mean you need to pick right now, which is going to be tricky without actually knowing them. But at some point you will have to apply to one and hopefully be taken in. As such it would be helpful to take a look at the instructors for the respective courses and degrees as one of them is likely going to be it (unless you change school, of course).

I am surprised that OP does not take into consideration that the information was obtained illegally and did not actually expose any criminal actions (i.e. would not even come close to whistle blowing). As such the actions of being hacked and the announcement of the FBI (despite Comey's claim now that it is actually not procedure) was the part that may have influenced the election, rather than the exposed information in itself. It is like being OK to someone break in somewhere to expose someone's slightly weird private obsessions in order to discredit them. Also, there are various degrees that one need to look at. The actions of an average permanent resident or even mult-billionaire with international ambitions (the latter being legal, but maybe slightly worrisome) to foreign state actors. I mean, it is not that those provide you with factual, unbiased information, but are actually engaging in the propaganda war that has is increasingly being the regular tone in elections, it seems.

Iirc many cold-like viral infections are more common in tropical areas.

That is a bit of extrapolation of the in vitro study and there is actually one major issue with the finding that the authors do not address. If airway cells are able to express interferon genes as a means of defense, why would there be a mechanism that down-regulates it at lower temperatures and thus reduces the effectiveness specifically in the area where it would be most critical? There actually has been a hypothesis that it is specifically to allow viruses to grow there, in order to be able to raise antibodies before they reach sites where the virus can do more harm. But again, these are just assumptions at this point, requiring actual in vivo data. There are also newer studies that, again in vitro suggest that binding of viruses may be more efficient under low temperatures. But the relevance in vivo is still unclear.

It is not an indicator of wealth per se, as they may e.g. locked up a large chunk in the mortgage for their home or other physical assets. So part of it can be not saving up money for an emergency fund (which is not a good idea). But of course there are alos a sizeable chunk of people who have low-income jobs and/or live in an area with very high cost of living that may diminish their ability to set aside money specifcially for emergencies. There was a nother study (Schneider Lusardi and Tufano, I think) who basically asked whether people could come up with 2k within 30 days for an unexpected expense and found taht about 25% would be unable to and 19% would need to liquidate asset to do so. A big issue are also large medical expenses and other situations that reduce available income that would eat up those saving in a flash. Looking at net worth it is also noteworthy that the general trend seems to be that the for the bottom earners, the net worth has been declining. So wealth is there, but has been continued to be distributed upwards since the Reagan years. That also means that it takes longer to build wealth and that especially younger people are vulnerable (see e.g. RSF: Journal of the Social Sciences: Wealth Inequality: Economic and Social Dimensions, 2016) .

One should also note that frequent or chronic illness espcially by relatively harmless viruses can be an indicator of issues with the immune system. As others have noted, there are numerous viruses that elicit the typical cold symptoms, with the most common one being a picornavirus. As of yet there is no known direct link with actually being exposed to cold, except that being exposed to higher ambient temperature seems to lessen inflammation (in mice).

I would also like to comment that while mutation rates differ between DNA and RNA viruses (though there is quite a bit of overlap), it is not necessarily the only or main determinant of vaccine development (though it makes it certainly makes it more difficult). Rather, it depends quite a bit on whether there are conserved features necessary for the infection process that can be targeted (or, if you will, how many serotypes there are around). There are, of course, successfull vaccines for both classes, though pipelines of development can be quite different. Edit: Somehow I copied a line from a different comment into this one here, my apologies.

The nature of DNA sequences (not code, that refers specifically to sequences that are being translated into proteins, which, in eukaryotes is often only relative small fraction), makes it rather useless to look at by eye. There are a large number of computational approaches to train algorithms to find certain patterns (such as hidden Markov models). But either way that would be at the back end, after sequencing is done, which cannot be done at home. A spectrometer would only allow you to measure how much DNA you e.g. isolated from a sample (say, mouth swab). Also note that if you have DNA information stored, it is not a full genome sequence, nor is it normally sequence at all. Rather, they amplify specific markers via PCR and based on the pattern (i.e. absence and presence of specific markers) they are used to identify you.

Trying to predict a decent science career based on a given course is quite useless. There is almost no way knowing where jobs are going to be once you are finished, and even so, it is more important to be connected in the right community with the right people. What you should do is look at the programs and see what sounds most interesting to you, as it increases your chances to be at least successful in your studies. But also check out who you eventually would like to pick as a PhD advisor.

According to current law only permanent resident non-nationals are allowed to contribute. However none of this applies. The act is unlawful (breach of accounts) and from a foreign entity.

Depends on where you are. In the US going to the doctor whilst uninsured or having high deductibles can be prohibitively expensive. Likewise, if you want to see a medical specialist outside of your insurance network. On the other hand, some centralized systems may limit your abilities to see specialists or get additional opinions, especially if the primary physicians does not think that it may be worthwhile and does not give you referrals.

I am not sure why it would matter, as one would test the owner directily for the infection. Also, assuming the parrot is not outside for extented period, the likelihood is still that the owner either caught the infection elsewhere, or, even more likely, got the immune system somehow compromised allowing a the Streptococci to turn pathogenic. Edit: seems I misunderstood the timeline. I assume the bird showed symptoms first and is confirmed to be a Streptococus infection? And it is certain that it is specifically S. pneumoniae?

I am not sure what the Streptococcus community thinks (my guess is it depends who you ask), but most consider it a potential zoonotic disease. However, current lit. indicates that it is far more common in humans, which makes a reverse zoonotic transmission more likely, if at all.

That is a good point. Writing and speaking out loud are certainly very useful techniques. I find giving out memorizing exams incredibly dull, but unfortunately you get in all kind of troubles if you try to test understanding on subjects instead. Rather unfortunately that further promotes rote learning well throughout undergrad courses.

I was actually pleasently surprised for a change.

I disagree. What I do think is that in order to appreciate beauty in something it is necessary to have a connection with and/or insights about it. If you know nothing about art, you are likely only able to appreciate the basics (such as likeliness to real objects) but you may miss the point in more complicated, expression in art. The same goes for science. I do not think I can properly tell you how mind-blowingly fascinating it is to view how stupid squishiy biomolecules are able to work together in a cell to react to an almost unlimited amount of cues and result in appropriate responses the functioning of one of the simplest and yet one of the most complicated machines we know of. We have those tiny things that appear so fragile, and yet we can nuke its inside and it still won't stop working. We can even rewire it and yet it works differently to what we expect almost every time. And while I am first to admit that I envy mathematicians and theoretical physicists for the elegance of their work, I also have to acknowledge that I simply lack the knowledge to properly see and feel it. To address OP, obviously you need a different set of skills for whatever you want to do, with some overlaps, even if you just compare art forms. But a basic understanding is also require to appreciate either art or science.

If you do an immuno-precipitation assay like that, you usually pull down quite a few protein unspecifcially. However, often a 1d gel with digest is able to resolve that. Direct MALDI MS can work sometimes, especially if your target is very dominant part of your original lysate. However, I would not bet on that. If you have access to a decent LC-MS you can omit the gel.

And considering how tight the academic market has become, there are sufficiently desperate people somewhere.

Also, afaik it does not need another name as it is pretty much the same cause (i.e. mismatch of visual and vestibular input). The symptoms are lessned while seated at the front as you have more cues as to the expected movements, and even more so as the driver (as you initiate the movement). Similar to all other car rides there are factors that help (such as sleeping or focusing on a point in the distance) and things that make it worse (e.g. reading). Consider that still a sizeable proportion of people are using cabs or otherwise ride as passengers, I would agree that this is unlikely to be a fundamental issue.

You got it somewhat the wrong way around. Synchrony is part of how information processing seems to work. As such the authors interpret the increased synchrony is because they draw from more information and may process music differently and (spatially broader) as compared to non-musicians. While one could argue that sufficient exposure may eventually lead to musical expertise, and hence increased synchrony, they did not test that nor can they extrapolate from their results to make such conclusions.

Based on the quote I read it as both good and bad, depending on the outcome measured (short vs long term).

Actually, electrical synapses are rather rare. When thinking about brainwaves one usually considers coordinated oscillary patterns of whole populations of neurons. In that regard the connection between neurons and the way those circuits interact is relevant. But ion flow between cells is not really that relecant here. The major flux is due to action potentials and local changes in field potentials. Threre also oscillations on the cellular level (which are the basis for the coordinated patterns), but those are generally not what is meant with brain waves.