CharonY

As I said before, if you just take individual traits (such as, say IQ scores, height etc.) you will find that the resulting populations are not clearly separated by any boundaries. Also, you are falling prey to stereotypes, as clearly an African will not be automatically a better basketball player. Looking at average heights of various African populations pretty much destroys the notion. It is also a stereotype that people with darker skin are somehow stronger and faster than those with lighter skins (again, there are subgroups that may be, but not as a whole) using sports as an example. There are other biases in play that explain why certain types of sports are dominated by certain groups (with popularity and socioeconomic standing being important ones). Edit: Another important point that some may be unaware of is that taxonomic classification below the species level are contentious and usually used in relatively narrow circumstances. The reason being that, clear categorization remains elusive, especially with the availability of molecular methods, which question traditional classifications. Even on the species level boundaries are not clear and it is obvious that if we go below that level, it is obviously even less clear. As such it does not make sense to use it as universal classifiers (as implied by OP) but may be useful for certain, well-defined questions..

No, the origins of abiogenesis are still unclear, but there have been hypotheses including e.g. peptide nucleic acids and other molecules being involved. My point being that all your proposed experiments would yield no insights into abiogenesis. To make it clear, yes, we can make a mix of nucleic acids with no poblems, and it is trivial to analyze the mix. The thing is, nothing is going to happen. They will not spontaneously form new molecules as a simple trinucleotides have no ability to catalyze that reaction (nor do tripeptides). In order to understand what is needed I suggest you take a look at the following concepts: PCR, ribpozymes, catalytic peptides. Note that there is still a large gap between simple organic molecules (even with enzymatic functions) and how early life has formed.

I am not sure how any of this relates to abiogenesis as they are relatively complex molecules on the one hand but not complex enough for significant enzymatic actions on the other. And the point of science is not to conduct random trials, but create specific hypotheses and test them with carefully designed experiments. Throwing a truckload of of nucleotides or peptides into water and hoping that something might happen, despite our knowledge on their biochemical capabilities seems a bit.... random. As I said, all the technical parts that you are referring to are old news. The issue is more about what you expect to happen wen you conduct an experiment as you describe. Actual experiments that are carried out involve the analysis of potential functions of novel peptide(domains) by creating more or less random sequencing and select for those with catalytic capabilities, for example. But again, what you propose simply does not make sense, but are well within our technical capabilities since a few decades. I am pretty sure that no one wants to responsible for synthesizing kgs of nucleotides or peptides and dump them in a bucket, though. Or let me ask again, what do you expect could possibly happen under circumstances you describe, based on what we know about nucleic acids and peptides?

Actually, I would not discount the usefulness in subdividing the human population into races (or other names) in specific circumstances. However, the historic(often skin-colour-based) classification is usually not terribly useful and often misused and/or misunderstood, which makes them problematic. I would not agree that race is exclusively a social construct, though its understanding is mostly used in this context. The viewpoint that it is useless is mostly based on fundamental issues such as the fact that variation in-population can be larger than between. However, when tracing specific populations using precisely defined characteristics can be useful. However, especially in the context of OP's question, which is a trait that is heavily influenced by external factors (including nutrition, stimulation during childhood, learning experience etc.) a categorization according to e.g. IQ would result in wildly mixed populations with little geographic separation. Sure, for each bin some areas may be over, and some under-represented but genetically it would be a very wild mix from around the world (again we are talking about relative wide distributions here).

I am not sure what you wan to achieve, Could you specify? Or maybe spell out what you expect to happen? What do you hope to be able to measure? Also, I am not sure what the actual solubility limit is but a 10 molar solution of a trinucleotide would be about 15 kg/L. Producing large amounts of these molecules is technically trivial, but expensive.

There are sequencers which use nanopores for long reads, if that is what you are thinking about.

Synthesizing short DNA fragments even de novo is quite feasible today. Multiplying DNA using polymerase has been a standard technique for decades. I have no idea why you want to drop DNA into a bucket of water, but sure, you can. It won't do anything, but you can. Amino acids are just amino acids, you can synthesize artificial ones, though. Or do you mean proteins? It is a bit trickier as you need some form of expression system to create a proper protein efficiently. But still these are not new technologies. If you are curious what is commonly used take a look at the pretty much standard book of lab protocols: Molecular cloning (used to be Sambrook and Maniatis). What you describe is also pretty much covered by the polymerase chain reaction and protein expression systems, which are surely covered by some wiki articles. They are simplified to the point were you have simple kits for these reactions, you could check companies such as Qiagen who produce sell them and read their manuals (some are surprisingly good).

I have checked some statistics about the job market for college graduates and actually since are looking up with levels coming close to pre-recession numbers. The issue is probably still that a lot of people that did not get a job during the recession may still be on the market. Still, cranking out applications now is likely to have a much higher success rate than in the last ~10 years or so. So keep sending them out.

If you think that becoming a professor is easy, I have some very bad news... That being said, many biotech/pharma companies had hiring/expansion freezes after 2007 and have only recently starting to expand again. The issue is basically that due to those freezes there is higher surplus than usual of qualified personnel. The situation was already pretty bad before the economic downturn for job seekers, really bad during the crisis and now it is probably somewhere in-between.

Well, but that is just a consequence of how it works, right? I mean in the resume stage (or stages) you start pruning down applicants, and when it comes to the interview you have a relatively small candidate pool. I.e. the likelihood of getting selected increases after each pruning as the pool gets smaller. But you are right that actually getting to the interview is the first challenge.

I guess it is a matter of familiarity with the science publishing system and contextualization of findings (or lack thereof).

As already said, networking typically has the most influence on landing a job. That being said, seven applications are really not that much in the modern economy. Also searching locally can be quite limiting and one would have to need quite a bit of luck to be successful under these circumstances.

I think very few researchers accept papers in their area of expertise at face value. It is generally accepted that peer-review is a relatively low bar that indicates that it has roughly the qualities that makes it worthwhile to scrutinize and utilize further. Edit: I should add that even in hard science and even in reputable journals every now and then papers go through that clearly shouldn't. This includes at least one molecular biological paper that promoted creationism in a very weird way. It was subsequently retracted when other researchers pointed out how stupid that was, but it somehow still passed peer-review.

The problem is that in order to overcome your fear you want assurance that something has zero likelihood. In truth there are many non-zero risks, for example a military transporter getting of course, having a malfunction and accidentally dropping a tank on your head. However, these chances are so ridiculously low that it does not really make sense to think of them as likely options. I am pretty sure you are more likely to choke on your own toothbrush, for example. If you go to a science board you will have to expect that people try not to lie to you in order to make you feel better. Rather the only difference that you need to do to overcome your fear is trying to obtain a rational perspective of things. As you mentioned repeatedly, your OCD (assuming it has been diagnosed as such) prevents you from doing so. Based on that there is little one can do to assuage your fears. Of course you can ask the medical staff whether they follow proper procedure which any reputable medical provider will do. However, if you do not believe them, there is little one can do (though some may have experience with this situation and may even be willing to show it to you).

To be fair, it was going to end horrible after the first couple of drops as the viable candidates (including Cruz) were pretty horrible choices to begin with. Not that this makes it any better, of course.

And to add (or rather repeat, as it has been stated earlier in this thread) it is a balance between the risk of having a gun, having a gun but having it secured or not having a gun at all. Each year according to the CDC there are about 500-600 unintentional firearm-related gun deaths (see Fatal injury reports). Using FBI data this report mentions that in 2012 around 250 justifiable deaths using firearms were recorded. Considering that more people die from accidental than justifiable shooting it seems to be safer that securing guns (as I believe it is done in Canada with a 4 fold lower incidence) may be a better option. It should be noted that firearm-related death due to accident as well as justifiable use are rare events, and framing the discussion exclusive in the context of self-defense seems a bit odd. They will be used far more commonly for sport or hunting. For example, other rare events (that could have been prevented by better handling) include gun-shot injuries (and deaths) committed by toddlers and dogs.

Actually, I think that in many fields the age for postdocs is not much of an issue. At least in experimental fields the actual technical expertise is usually more valued. On the grad level it is usually even less of an issue, as some maturity (should it exist) can be seen quite positively (I had students or know . On the faculty level competition is much fiercer. Yet, I rarely find that age in itself was ever an issue. It can be seen as a negative with everything else being equal, though.

Not if on a population, which is generally the case. A predictor based on an individual is usually not terribly helpful. It does not even matter if there are additional variables, the quality of a predictor is based on how strongly it is associated with an outcome. This comparison really only makes sense within populations.

I would agree with that assessment.

Many heterotrophic plants actually do not have digestive systems, they obtain nutrients from their host/partners parasitically (e.g. mistletoe or dodder) or symbiotically (e.g. lichen or mycorrhiza). Carnivorous plants are usually an adaptation to nitrogen limited soils.

I should add that iron deficiency on the serum level can, but does not have to be present while displaying symptoms. It is assumed that even transient deficiency can cause the tissue levels to be depleted. IIRC it is hypothesized that activation of MEIS1 leads to partitioning of iron into the mitochondria, causing cellular deficiency while serum levels can be back to normal levels.

I do not think that a direct mechanistic link can be drawn at this point. More recently low serum zinc levels have also been associated with restless leg syndrome, for example. Also, the precise pathophysiology is (to my knowledge) not completely elucidated which makes it harder to develop a coherent model of the role and interaction of iron and dopamine in this disease. That being said, the tyrosine hydroxylase actually has iron as a co-factor, but in animal studies actually increased hydroxylase levels were found in neurons with diminished iron content (rather than a reduction, as one may expect due to the limitation in co-factor). The most complete model (again, derived from animal experiments) indicates that activation of the HIF pathway by iron deficiency may be a key element. Increased HIF was found in the substantia nigra and could increase the expression of the HIF-responsive tyrosine hydroxylase. Another part of the model deals with how HIF activation may still lead to intracellular iron deficiency which probably happens via the MEIS1 hub. There may be more complete models out there, but that would be outside of my expertise.

It is half right, but probably a bit too restrictive as it does correlate, usually moderately, with other factors which implies that it is also a (potentially weak) measure of these factors or at least are a confounding factor that can be considered. For example, a number of papers by Duckworth have stressed the importance of self-control and discipline. These factors significantly affect life success outcomes, but also scores in IQ tests (~10 points). I.e. those with high IQ scores also demonstrate strong motivation in doing well in the test. Thus certain correlation with IQ scores, such as a moderate correlation between life success measures and IQ are also explainable to a large part by general high motivation in the subject. It also means that IQ tests could be used as an proxy or composite of the motivational contribution and whatever abilities the IQ tests are testing (see e.g. Duckworth et al PNAS 2011). Likewise, IQ tests are also a decent indicator of academic (undergrad and below) performance, probably as the test setup follows similar principles as exams. After that phase differences diminish markedly. The important bit is that the IQ score does not indicate some static biological measure, nor is it alone predictive (potentially) intelligence-correlated outcomes. It does not mean that it is totally worthless for certain types of research, though.

It is neverbtoo late to learn. In fact most academics (and other white collar workers) will agree that constant learning is part of their job. You do not get to learn something and then are done with it. It is an ongoing process.

Actually the differences in brain functions and anatomy are not a terribly good explanation as a whole when it comes specifically to maths tasks. There are tasks which show strong gender differences, such as memory recall (stronger in girls/women) or spatial tasks (stronger in boys/men). With Maths an interesting issue is that the gap in testing scores in children is very small (and in some countries and certain years girls outperform boys; again, based on PISA data). At least based on older US data the gap seems also to be present in college, though the gap is still fairly small. The major difference seems to be that more males are at the right (high) end of the distribution (see Xie and Shauman 2003, Harvard Univ. Press). I.e. while there is a broad overlap the highest performers seem to be males. Now while this points at some biological source, it is not that universal, after all the vast majority actually overlaps. So it is not that the male brain as a whole is better at performing these types of tasks, but that a subgroup among the male group may be. That is what I meant with outliers earlier. Is there a reference with regard to abstract and linear thinking? I imagine that a proper test system would be rather difficult and I cannot think of a study off-hand that tested it (but then obviously it is not field). It is curious that traditionally it was believed that women are actually incapable of abstract thought, for example.