CharonY

I have heard abou the novel. Maybe time to pick it up. That is strange, I thought it was derived from a city name. Edit: talked to a native speaker, apparently both could be true. It is a rare name, though, with less than 0.2% of the population carrying it.

Hopefully final follow-up: For a week no new cases of Ebola have been reported in the three affected countries. BBC

Ha! When working with bacteria I tell them to put their phones away in order not to cover them with bacteria or other infectious material. You can smell the panic rising. Almost like Sophie's choice. And still I have to shout at people not to put it on the bench/use phones while wearing protective gloves/putting it under the frigging biosafety bench!

Well, other Nobel prize winners clearly had it easier. In addition to the training limitation, the system was just incredibly bad. After graduation it took 25 years to promote her to researcher status and only 21 years after that (age 71) she was allowed to supervise doctoral students. Further, her work was published first at age 47 anonymously (which was typical as self-promotion and similar things were not quite possible after the cultural revolution), quite a sharp contrast to what normally happens (i.e. you scream any finding as loudly as possible at any conference you get to.... And then you have to consider that she carried out much of her work during the turmoil of the cultural revolution with all the dangers of being branded an intellectual carried. Not to mention that she tried out extracts on herself first. Quite a remarkable that, to my shame, I had no knowledge of.

Actually one of the negative aspects that I noticed could be a reduced attention span. It appears to me that students now tend to fail time-critical, lengthy lab procedures more often than they used to. Often it is because they had trouble memorizing multiple steps so they have to stop and check more often, which can fail the experiment. Or sometimes they completely forget elements. Worst case is that some randomly stop in order to check things on their phones. Related to that is that there are more complaints once they fail. I am not sure whether I would call that entitlement, but it seems that the willingness to redo boring tasks is lower than it used to. Not all of the students, obviously. But while a decade or so ago I had at most 1-2 complaining (typically "that guy") now the situation is pretty much reversed. I think it has something to do with a lower frustration resistance paired with a higher expectation if short-term gratification. I feel it may be connected to having almost constant feedback (via phone social media etc.). Being out of a cocooned environment and having to deal with troubleshooting without googling the answer, or getting other immediate feedback probably stresses them out more.

Also, is the course more chemical or more biological. In the latter you can nicely tie in physiology. In the former general themes, branches and variations are sometimes useful to convey concepts. Or, conversely deal more with the proteinbiochemistry involved by highlighting specifics.

I just read her wiki article. Her achievements are quite astonishing considering that China had not postgraduate degrees then and she never studied abroad.

This is one of the weirder interpretations of sexual selection mixed up with other effects that I have seen. I am not even sure how to address this.

That is absolutely true. That is why commonly it is only used within a narrow range of cell concentrations (usually not much more than one order of magnitude) and you use dilutions to get into that range. Turbidimetry is sometimes used, which is technically superior. But since a photometer is more versatile more people stick to photometers. There are other approaches, too, including measurement of protein content as proxy for cell mass.

I am not sure whether you can do that. Typically cell count using optical density is based on scattering of light on the cells. Thus, you want to prevent lysis during the measurement. Sonication is usually too harsh for many cells and you would be better off by just vortexing (carefully). I am actually also not sure how well it works once you dried samples. I have only either measured dry weight or did a quick OD measurement, but never tried drying, then resuspending. My feeling is that drying down and then resuspending would skew results quite a bit (though a calibration using e.g. dry weight could take of that).

I think it goes back to a general misunderstanding of the concept of selective forces. The latter does not necessarily mean that an external force eliminates genotypes. Rather, selection occurs if certain genotype provide reproductive advantages. Even in a niche with virtually unlimited resources, certain sub-populations may be more effective in reproducing in this environment (e.g. they feed just a bit faster or have a higher reproductive cycle). Also consider the opposite. Assume that there is one dominating, overbearing selective force that is the limiting factor of reproduction (say, the ability to forage and use a specific resource or escape predation). Under these circumstances any mutations affecting this specific trait negatively will be heavily selected against. I.e. negative traits vanish quickly but even small advantages would spread rapidly. OTOH, mutations not affecting it can still persist and even slightly negative traits may persist longer than in the absence of the given assumed selector (as the relative advantage would be higher). If a new niche opens up or is explored, a whole host of other effects become more important, including non-selective forces (such as drift).

Re: Freud, it is widely accepted that his main contribution is the realization that a lot of is going in the subconscious. Anything else has been pretty much superseded with finding in neurobiology as well as psychology. As such Freud is more of historic value than anything else. I guess it is somewhat to be expected. There is now too much info. Without some at least some background it is often not that easy to filter out the nonsense and even if you get legitimate sources, it may not be easy to understand it. However, since you can get access to so many sources easily it can give you the illusion that you understand the topic. On a high level I see a similar issue with students. The ability to actually sift literature for relevant info has been declining in the past 10 years or so.

The relative fitness is the important bit here. If you have low selective pressures it still means that over time those with even slight advantages will be more prevalent. It extends the timeline, though. The main issue is of course that if talk about diversity we cannot simply use a simple one-dimensional approach focusing exclusively on selection as drivers. If you inspect biodiversity at any time point it is relevant whether the selective force has been present for a long time, or whether it is something that arose recently, for example. It is well known that changes in the environment can lead to rapid evolutionary responses (e.g. by opening new, or closing off ecological niches). Well-studied recent examples include invasive species such as can toads and how the invasive species themselves but also the native species change due to adaptive as well as non-adaptive processes. See e.g. Shine 2011, Evol Appl. 5:2

I am not even sure about the tech savvy part. Similar to earlier generations it is true for a certain sub groups (which may or may not be larger than the last generation), but what I noticed is that many are rather used to simple tech solutions (simplified software, googling answers etc.). I think tech actually got easier and people have to deal less with workarounds or need to know less about certain fundamentals to get things to run. As a consequence, it seems to me that younger people actually give up faster when trying to troubleshoot or solving tech-related problems. Of course there are still coders and real tech-fanatics, but I am not sure that I see more of them. But maybe it is indeed me getting old. I should add that there is the added of issue that job prospects are pretty bad for the last years so those entering the work force likely have to work harder for the same result. I think that in at least some cases being overwhelmed by this task can be misunderstood as entitlement.

Same here, except I do not have the luxury of a super-computer facility (just got a few servers with Tesla GPUs). In addition to sequence data, MS is even worse but also for the analysis of high-resolution microscopic images (especially time series).

Yes they do and to some degree during tissue regeneration also in adults. I think OP is confusing cell membranes with tissue. Also, stem cells are more likely to end up in lumen leaking out from blood rather than vice versa.

Eh, stem cells are cells. They are as large as other cells. How would a cell pass through a wall of intestinal cells (you are aware that our bowels are lined/formed by cells)? Also cells contain lots of molecules, so they are always larger than them.

I think the problem Europe has is that for the most part they have a protectionist view of their heritage (typically summarized under the fuzzy concept of culture) with a xenophobic undertone. I.e. if "they" come in they will dilute "us" (with they being what is currently assumed to be foreign and us). As such, integration has always been a bit of an issue in many parts as it is tricky to be accepted as part of the native population. I found countries that are more accepting of immigration (such as USA or Canada) do be easier feel comfortable in and feel to be a part of. Despite the fact that the situation for asylum seeker is quite different (e.g. there is typically no official path to apply for asylum in many countries, IIRC) it creates the same issues. Moreover, there is also a disconnect as shown in OP what a refugee is and what they want. Many seem to have the idea of starving people bombed out of their huts and are outraged that those that arrive do not conform to that image and may even have cell phones! You have just imagine the situation if your country has been in a civil war, what would you take with you. Typically those with some more resources make it all the way to Europe and of course they will have means of communication and money. The reasons is, as already mentioned is that refugees are not only trying to survive. Typically they want their life back, which may be running a small (or large) shop or having some form of employment, not spending years in a camp. Failing that, they try to set up a new life elsewhere. I know that if I was fleeing war I would try to do that. Of course there are potential people living off welfare (though if they did go through perilous paths towards asylum at least they are motivated), but similar to all the reports on welfare abusers they are probably far less than people think.

First of all, none of the following should be taken as medical advice, just as basic microbiological info. One should distinguish between bacteria and viruses as the infection processes are quite different. Viruses can be inactive and asymptomatic for a long time after infection. A common example is the Varicella zoster virus that causes chickenpox in children, then can stay dormant until it may result in shingle in the adult. In-between, there will not be any irregularities in the bloodwork. In order to detect it, you would have to search specifically for antibodies against that virus. For bacteria this is rarer, but some have dormancy states or otherwise extremely slow turnover (prime example is Myxobacter tuberculosis) which may be present, but asymptomatic for a long time. But it is generally true in order to have symptoms, there must be an outbreak of sorts, which in these examples would be shingles or pneumonia, respectively. In fact, there is a whole range of chronic infections which can be almost non-symptomatic and have various degrees of progression (or lack thereof). A systemic infection is independent from the whole matter. I just means that it affects the whole body. Obviously serious local infections can also result in symptoms up and including organ failure. What can happen is that chronic infections are the source for occasional breakouts. But again, it would require medical tests in order to sustain this and I would be very careful to use internet sources to self-diagnose.

There is no standard progression for the various forms of cancer, and even for one particular form it can vary massively between individuals. I am no medical specialist so I won't speculate on what happened to your father, I can only extend my condolences. Quite a bit is dependent on what complications may occur and where metastases go to. Cardiac metastasis is rare as a result of lung cancer (to my limited knowledge) but can result in sudden death. If anything, lung cancer is associated with a wide variety of potential causes of death (see e.g. Nichols et al. Arch Pathol Lab Med—Vol 136, 2012).

Also note that a) preservatives are very diverse in nature (sugar and sodium chloride are also preservatives, for example) and b) monosodium glutamate (which, btw. has not been found to be detrimental in any studies) is not a preservative. All of the mentioned are also present in unprocessed food, obviously.

In Germany wearing certain types of uniform (such as police uniforms, but also clerical garbs) in public can be punished, if there is a chance of confusing it with the real deal. Costume parties in private are fine, however, carnivals can be an issue. Nazi uniforms are legal, if they do not contain specific insignia such as swastikas or if the there is a context that clearly demonstrates no incitement to hatred (such as e.g. art installations, theater or equivalent).

Lenses are generally considered the major investment (compared to the bodies). So the line of lenses you are interested in can be a major decision factor. I have to admit that I am partial to mirrorless cameras, however, as I do like vintage lenses (and the flexibility it offers over DSLRs).

I would recommend to take a look at the material and methods section. It will be outlined there.

Also, I think the question was for long-term investments, so getting out in the short term would be less of an issue.