CharonY
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What is it when enviornment can "hide" a genetic disorder
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in Genetics
I assume so. At least I autocorrected it to that in my brain. -
I think you have are acknowledging the uncertainty but do not make it a part of your ethical argument. Let me see if I understand you. You say aborting a fetus is unethical as it should have the same right and protection as a newborn as it will become one if nothing happens. However, during normal gestation things happen all the time and in an argument regarding ethics this has to be included. I.e. the uncertainty is always part of the process and cannot be summarily dismissed. Another issue is that all pregnancies place some degree of burden on the mother. Some more, some less. Again, we are dealing with various degrees of uncertainty here. As such, I do not think a binary answer is at all possible here. To answer your latter question: I think it is more ethical to abort during early stages of the pregnancy than in the latter. I think it is more ethical to initiate an abortion the more the health of the mother (and child) are at risk. I think it is more ethical to allow a person to make choices regarding their body than have others make that choice. I think that mother should have all the choice of the beginning of the pregnancy, but with increasing gestation concerns have to be more and more balance with that of the newborn. I am unable to make a stringent cut off to make a binary answer that satisfies. In cases of doubt I would defer to the wishes of those involved.
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What is it when enviornment can "hide" a genetic disorder
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in Genetics
That is quite different to what was described in OP, though. -
You seem to believe that you have addressed the points repeated by many posters regarding the the likelihood of miscarriage. I think you are confused about what it meas, as from your post it appears that you think that the normal process is that a egg is fertilized and then it becomes a human. Miscarriages are just eliminated along the way and are a different category. is that correct? If that is the case, you are misunderstanding what various posters have mentioned. At any given time during the development of the child there is a significant likelihood that it will not come to term. These are the values that I have mentioned. I.e. after an egg is fertilized there is about a 50% chance that it will develop a child. Is aborting the pregnancy at this point as bad as later in term? Then during the first trimester the chances rise to 70%. Is it ethical at this point? There is a 30% chance that there will no live birth. Should that be enough to put a mother (and yes, I the ethical question cannot be asked in isolation) through pregnancy, even if it is clear that she does not want it? What if there is some health risk to the mother? What if the likelihood of life birth is low (say 10% for some reasons) but it will almost certainly (say 90%) lead to some harm to the mother. Is that alright? At which point should the the mother be protected over the child? See, the main point is that you have neat, absolute categories in mind for your argument (if child is alive it is unethical, if it is going to be dead it is not). But in truth there will be a continuum during development. You will need to have prophetic properties to be sure what each case is. And also your arguments have zero balance for the person who is going also going to be affected by the decision, i.e. the mother. And I may have overlooked your response, but do you think that society should then share the cost for the child once we deem abortion unethical? If not it basically boils down to the fact that in your argument we should moralize the actions of unwilling mothers, penalize them by forcing to carry to term, potentially threaten with sanctions if an abortion is initiated and yet do nothing alleviate the burden. As others have said, this would be a very hypocritical stance. Edit: Crossposted
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However, if they are racist they usually rely on either wrong, or heavily extrapolated data as current research is riddled with uncertainties, whereas those heavily invested in an ideology usually are not. I understand that it is significant work to digest literature and figuring out the issues, but in the end I find it far more rewarding. Discussion of ideological bias may be interesting in itself, but all to often they are best treated as a separate issue as the really important issue is what the data can or cannot tell us.
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You seem to have set in your mind that once a fetus is formed it inevitably results in a human being. However, that is clearly not the case. Many pregnancies are likely not detected as after fertilization the zygote does not successfully settle. Roughly 40% (though some estimates are higher) of fertilized eggs miscarry. After that point the miscarriage rate is about 30% and decreasing with time. These risks increase with the age of the woman. If we rigorously consider potential, regardless how small it is, we would need to start collecting sperm and egg samples as they all represent potentials. If we only consider time frames where we are, say 90% certain that the infant survives we are looking past the second trimester. And what has been excluded so far is the overall burden on the mother. Regardless whether birth is successful or not, it is a huge strain on the mother's body. And it really boggles my mind that there are passionate views on the potential of children that may never be, yet at the same time ignore the burden on the potential mothers who are most definitely there. We do not even need to venture into the area of horrible crimes. Why, should the choice be taken away from the person who has to bear all the costs? Or let me ask it differently: would you be alright if we ban abortion, but society has to pay for all costs associated with it. That includes medical bills, lost job opportunities for the mother, potential health issues as well as all child rearing costs? If the answer is no, I cannot see a ban on abortion as anything close to ethical.
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What is it when enviornment can "hide" a genetic disorder
CharonY replied to Elite Engineer's topic in Genetics
Good answer. It shows how important frames of reference are. For example, in a population where the vast majority would be able to synthesize a compound but say a few lack that ability and it results in a given disease phenotype, one might call it a disorder. How it is called is more dependent on the phenotype (or symptoms if you will) than the actual biochemical pathways. In microbes one would call it auxotrophy. If, however, the responsible allele is similarly common or even more common than the intact variant and there is no obvious disease phenotype (due to nutrition), it generally would not be classified as a disorder. A simple example is lactose intolerance, which can be considered the "normal" phenotype (as a mutation allows it to remain active during adulthood) and is not considered to be a disorder, despite the inability to perform a specific metabolic step. Again, in biology context is extremely important. -
Can brain grow new neurons in the cerebrum?
CharonY replied to Omair's topic in Anatomy, Physiology and Neuroscience
There is an increasing body of literature looking into the effects of concussion and strategies to help recovery. What I can say is that there are still a lot of open questions but degrees of recovery are possible, as plasticity is larger than expected. However, things you read in fora are going to be anecdotes where recovery may or may not be related to things someone did. What I would recommend is to go look for specialists that can help you with issues that you may have. I have not found lit that indicates that a diet without further intervention would do anything, except perhaps being overall beneficial if you choose a healthy diet. Also there is evidence that e.g. alcohol consumption delays recovery, thought that is true for most injuries. -
There is no denying that for the longest time euro-centric views have heavily influenced academia and quite a few historians/anthropologists/archaeologists etc. that are specialized in the non-mainstream groups (for lack of a better work) often face an upstream battle against misconceptions. That being said, I feel that partially do the increasing internationalization of science people on average tend to stick closer to data and are slightly more careful in extrapolations. For example, in the cited multi-marker study the authors were careful to point out that they could use a clustering algorithm to separate groups, but also mentioned areas with low resolution and the fact that they could have chosen any other number of clusters (depending on sample size and, potentially, need for additional markers). It is more that the internet crowd and media extrapolate wildly on the findings. I also think that policing is the wrong word as all we should have are scientific discussions in form of publications, which is precisely why Rushton, Lynn et al. are heavily criticized for how the interpret some of their data, but not necessarily summarily dismiss the data itself (at least in cases where the study was well-executed). What we in science is not policing, but data-driven self-correction. And if you want hope, you should compare the discussion (or papers) from the 80s, 60s and 30s with today. Pay especially attention how strongly few data points are extrapolated to full-blown theories. Obviously, scientists are also children of their respective generation. And many come into academia with a set of values and world views. What differentiates a good scientist is how effective they can change when confronted with more info. Or, in other words, how fast they learn new things. Especially for younger scientists one driving factor is the fear of being wrong, and they tend to be more careful in extrapolating data. This is not necessarily true for those closer to the end of their careers or coming from a different field.
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is finding the right person science of belief based?
CharonY replied to Lyudmilascience's topic in Other Sciences
While that is true, one should also consider that people, their goals, and their circumstances change over time making it difficult to predict outcomes. But that is alright. The idea of soul mate most likely is just a type of back-rationalization of successful relationships. I.e. it worked out because we were soul mates, rather than the more mundane: it worked out because we did the work to make the partner an integral part of our life. Or even simpler: we were compatible because we made us so. -
There is actually no need to venture into fantasy on this one. There is a large body of work available on anoxic metabolism in sediment and water, though it is far from complete. For nitrogen cycles I would check into Anammox, for example. Or you could read up on anaerobic respiration for starters, In terms of books I would recommend standard microbiology books (e.g. Brock) and check out the anaerobes section. For bacteria of interest I would look specifically for deltaproteobacteria (e.g. Geobacter, Desulfovibrio ) and/or archaea (such as Methanosarcina) as typical model organisms on which you can find a lot of details.
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I am not familiar with that plasmid. Is it a pAC derivative? Usually the backbone contains amp resistance. If it is something else, what is Cap? Carbapenem?
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Can brain grow new neurons in the cerebrum?
CharonY replied to Omair's topic in Anatomy, Physiology and Neuroscience
I am not an expert in this area but from what I understand it is a somewhat non-directed process. I.e. progenitor cells move to the area of lesion and start differentiating depending on the signal molecules present. I imagine it more of a patch that eventually can take over some of the lost functions but it is not a perfect rebuild of the initial state. I.e. you will see that the tissue is distinctly different from before the lesion. -
I always found the electorate system slightly weird, as it does not necessarily reflect the popular vote. However, if this election was based on the popular vote, it seems that Clinton is less than 3% up....
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That is exactly what is also being seen now in third-world countries. Birth rates decline with increasing education and career opportunities for women. Additional factors include access to family planning and reduced child mortality. The latter may be slightly counter-intuitive but shows that when parents are certain their child will survive they tend to plan to have fewer children.
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Can brain grow new neurons in the cerebrum?
CharonY replied to Omair's topic in Anatomy, Physiology and Neuroscience
There is limited potential for regeneration. However, there is some evidence that upon injury growth factors can, to some degree, stimulate neural progenitor cells. -
to patent and some extraordinary approaches.unfortunately need help.
CharonY replied to blue89's topic in Engineering
Not necessarily. You can publish and then file for patent (and reference you publication) though there are some limitations. I.e. others could file before you, though the publication can help you with a claim of IP (though there is a time limitation on it). At least this is the case in the US. I think in Europe there is no grace period, so people can file basically the moment they see your stuff (provided that there is enough meat there to fill out a patent). -
I have read many of the articles. The point that you may have overlooked is that due to length restrictions it has to be very concise yet quite clear. However, doing that requires skill. Advanced language skills are not demonstrated by using long, convoluted sentences. But in order to do that you have to have a decent grip on the language. In other words, good papers are easy to read because the authors have a good grasp of the language. This is in sharp contrast to your posts, assuming that they are any indication of the language you use in papers. Others have already noted it, but essentially one has to work hard and guess quite a bit to figure what you probably mean in your posts. The issues are no just spelling or grammar, but also structure. Also, if the rejection came back within a few hours I can guarantee you that they did not read it past the abstract (if at all). Note that my use of language on this forum is also very sub-par. I tend to post without (much) editing and often have a stream-of-thought approach to it. It would be absolutely inappropriate for anything official.
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I think Canada had also restrictions on voting rights for prisoners up until relatively recently . And there are restrictions for citizens who live abroad for more than five years, I believe. Voter ID laws have a different history in either country, so while they are mandatory in Canada, they are generally not seen as that restrictive.
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Actually, writing a scientific paper requires more language skills than everyday conversation. Even native speaker can struggle with writing a halfway decent paper. With deficits in language skills it is almost impossible.
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Details to the keys if someone is interested: Link
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Actually that is not quite true. There are limitations to voting rights, some of which are pretty universal (only naturalized citizens, regardless whether you pay taxes) whereas others are a bit more complicated, such as felon voting or voter-id laws.
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Is there any guideline for dealing with sampling loss?
CharonY replied to oshznim's topic in Engineering
It depends what you mean with medium loss. Do you mean loss via evaporation? Or due to sampling? Is it a time-course? It also depends whether the effects result in systematic changes. In case of doubt, doing more biological replicates can address the issue to some degree, as it would tell you a bit about the reproducibility of the procedure. -
It appears that you assume it is derailing because in your head it somehow makes perfect sense. I.e. there is some level of relatedness and if we assess these values e.g. by grouping frequencies of certain alleles magically you will have clear and distinct clusters of populations. Those with even passing familiarity with the concept will note the issues with that as the stability of clusters is depending on the distance (dissimilarity) of whatever markers you use as well as the method to measure distance. Likewise, they will also know the basic issue that the outcome of the analysis is highly dependent on the factors you are looking for. Even looking at the species level, which presumes significant genomic distance the DNA data sometimes has issue to resolve geographic populations properly. It does not mean that there are no (geographically) isolated human populations that are distinct from the rest of the human population nor that, equipped with sufficient info, we may be able to resolve populations with almost arbitrary resolution. However, the repeated claim therefore that a vague notion of ancestry can deliver clear, quantitative info that somehow negates the use of the more accurate term of "(geographic) population" is therefore presumptuous and betrays more a lack of nature of these types of investigations.
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And that is what we have been doing for a few decades. The thing is that it is far more complicated than you think it is. After all, despite all the progress we have made, even for simple cells our understanding is still lacking. And we have been mutating those buggers for quite some time now. If we add multicellular interactions, the complexity goes up exponentially. I am not saying that we will never understand it, but quite clearly CRISPR is not some magic bullet. The closest we thought we would be to one was probably on the onset of the omics era somtime in late 90s but now we are still cataloging the challenges more than being able to address them. My point, however, is that you make call to ponder the last of millions of step, while we are still figuring out the first couple ones. Or to use an analogy, it is like dreaming about an utopia in a different solar system, whilst having no clue how to even leave ours.