CharonY

If you envision small automatons in the nm scale, they do not exist. Complex nanoparticles, however, are sometimes referred to as nanobots. Mostly because it sounds more advanced.

Dawkin's book are written for laypersons, which is fine for high school level. These books do not have the level of details that would change within a few years.

Well, my interests would be more in the area of molecular toxicity, which involves molecular (e.g. transcriptomic/proteomic) analyses of toxic effects. I am not sure how feasible such a setup in this context would be, though.

Never. Xrays are way shorter than visible light. While you can use false colours the idea of using it for colour imaging is meaningless. Same goes for ultrasound, they are sound pressure waves. I have no idea why you want to render it in colour. They are getting better for 3D imaging, though. For nanobots there is no real concept (unless very simple structures that have been termed nanobots, but they are often not what the popular lit. describes as such. With 3D printed organs, again, it depends on what target organ you are thinking of and how big the involvement of 3D printing is. A complete functional organ such as the heart completely 3D printed is easily way more than 50 years away. A simple 3D structure with little internal complexity such as outer ear (basically 3D printed scaffold seeded with cells) could be within 15. The rest is anyone's guess. There are plenty of those around. Usually specialists but also larger joint practices have at least x-ray but often also ultrasound (especially gynecologists) around. It is not that common for family doctors, but then you have to keep in mind that they are often there to send you to the right specialist. When you talk about different rooms, it is about efficiency. It does make sense to have a dedicated X-ray room that can be used by everyone rather than buying multiple instruments that are only being used for a few minutes at a time.

That would be the wise thing to look out for. Especially things certain businesses are notorious for hiring unpaid (or minimally paid) interns solely as cheap interim workers. Obviously, these should be avoided.

Actually the selection is a bit odd as it mixes things that already exist with things that are still in development. Phage therapy has been proposed as treatment of bacterial infections, though their use for cancer treatment is not as advanced. Ten years would be a very optimistic view (IMO). Targeted drug delivery is partially there for certain areas but typically not at the desired "breakthrough"-specificity. Nanobots are even more sci-fiy, as mentioned. Lasers and various means of heat treatment are already in use for tumors and cancers, for example. Handheld ultrasound scanner can be bought, they are not that expensive, anymore. Same about handheld x-ray scanners (for quite a long time, depending on the definition of handheld), though they tend to be on the bulky side. The latter typically not used for medical purposes, though.

From which perspective? For the most part it depends on the business it is their decision to offer payment. There are various consideration beside cost that may determine whether internship at a given company is paid or or not. For example, in areas where cost-efficiency is paramount and turnover is accepted to be high, unpaid are probably more common. Or when the number of applicants vastly outstrips available positions. In others, where attracting and retaining personnel is seen as a competitive advantage, payments are more likely. Even within a company there can be different divisions that do things differently. Edit: since it is is posted in computer science I should add that I have no clue how tech (i.e. non biotech) companies operate.

Chromosomes consist of two sister chromatids that get separated to the respective cells. Then, the chromatids duplicate in the S phase again.

It does not mean that they are meaningless, as they do agree with experimental outcomes. Whatever it is that allows the perpetuum mobile exist may not impact the other models in their respective domains of application. The most important bit about models is that they are useful, not necessarily that they cover every aspect.

But it isn't much different from the current state of science. Whether you look for something new or to try to refine/revise something old that does not seem to work out, it tends to take quite some effort.

AFAIK asbestos litigation started with workers being exposed to asbestos and suing their employer for compensation. I.e. harm was done by specific companies to specific targets. For litigation to environmental toxins (say, a leak in some production line), typically a causal link between the source (and hence the responsible) and the victim has to be found. I cannot see a possible way to do so for CO2, otherwise people would have been able to sue everyone else for air pollution in major US cities (before the clean air act and other measures).

What is the purpose of fundamental forces?

It appears that there is the assumption that intelligence is unique to humans. Disregarding the issue with defining intelligence for now, behavior associated with what we commonly associate with intelligence can be found in a wide range of animals to various degrees. It is rare that fundamentally unique traits, if adaptive, are not at least somewhat spread around. Exceptions tend to be adaptations to extremely unique niches or specializations (and in a way, intelligence is just the opposite of that). When the paper came fresh out I almost lost it. With one simple experiment they could have debunked it (and eventually someone else did). I use it as an example why peer-review alone is not enough. There were so many things wrong with it, starting from the composition of the group (had some famous senior authors on it, but from the wrong field, including e.g. engineers and physicists with little to now knowledge of bacterial physiology). I have been ribbing my physicist colleagues about it since then. Yeah, it seems I cannot stop ranting about it even after all that time. Also, if it was the same paper that I was thinking about it, the claim was that phosphorus could be replaced by arsenic, not carbon (the latter would require even more mental gymnastics).

Antibiotics. Bacterial diseases were a major killer, where even small wounds could be fatal or lead to loss of limbs. Use of antibiotics made us mostly safe from bacteria (at least compared to what used to be the case). Now, we managed to throw it so much around that it may very likely not work in the relatively near future. Most of us had to use antibiotics sometime in their life and even if someone did not, the fact that other people around them were not chronically sick assisted in that (a bit like the herd effect for immunizations). Labeling seems to have no effect whatsoever considering that the amount of use has increased over the years. I do think it is likely that more regulations (and actual enforcement) may come up. But I am pretty sure that until public opinion changes (i.e. consumers vote with their wallet) the food industry will fight tooth and nail. I am not even blaming the farmers as on their end Ag is a cut-throat business. Not using any advantage they can get could sink them.

First, as StringJunky indicated, ABs do not create resistance, they select for it. Resistances emerge by mechanisms such as mutations and horizontal gene transfer. I.e. resistance has to be present in the population to begin with. However, without ABs they do not confer any fitness advantage and will stay in low amounts (which reduces the risk of multiple resistances, which is the real issue here) and do not spread further or may vanish over time again. At lethal doses the selection is strong, killing off all sensitive strains while only those with resistance survive (there are exceptions like persisters and biofilms, which I will ignore for now). However, at sub-lethal doses (what that level is may differ from strain to strain), it still creates a selective advantage for the already resistant, but gives the sensitive ones still the chance to gain resistance (e.g. by horizontal gene transfer) or to accumulate sufficient mutations that they spontaneously become resistant. So while the selection is weaker, it still exist. And considering that the pool is much larger, as the concentrations are found in wastewater, aquifers and soil, whereas lethal doses mostly at point of application, the overall impact is likely to be higher (as newer research starts to suggest). For example, the amount of resistance genes in soil increase significantly after applying manure. Also, it has been known for years that wastewater sludge is a massive pool of rseistance plasmids that are able to spread resistance rapidly. These plasmids have found to confer resistances to a wide range of ABs at the same time, which, again is the real issue here. The food improvement seems to be due to the actions of ABs on gut biota, therefore as long as they affect bacteria, they will affect resistance. The only way to stop it is to use something else (such as hormones, which is also not ideal). Also there are not good regulations in place that I know of. E.g. in Germany the use of ABs for livestock was banned, however the actual use has not decreased a bit. Farmers just declare it for therapeutic use and continue to use it to fatten up livestock. The amount of ABs in effluents has, increased in most countries rather than decreased. And yes, it has been used for years. And that is one of the reasons why we suddenly find multiple resistant strains popping up in many places and slowly and steadily run out of antibiotics to use. There are some last-line antibiotics that are only used if the patient does not react to any other treatment (such as vancomycin). But recently strains with resistances against those have been found, too. From a disease standpoint, this is nothing short of a disaster. About 10-20 years ago we were in good spirit and were talking about the arms race between chemists and bacteria to develop ever new ABs to combat resistances. The arrival of multiple resistant strains, coupled with high genetic mobility has show over the last few years that we are losing. Badly. In the 90s about 10% of infections were resistant to treatment. Today we are easily above 50% and last-line antibiotics have seen a rise in use (which means they are not last-line anymore). At the same time, the development and production of new antibiotics have been declining and there are many reasons for that. Although crucial, it has become harder and harder to develop antibiotics to which bacteria are sensitive but does not harm the patient too much. The Obama administration has initiated funding for development of new drugs (which is mostly claimed by small companies). But most working on this field know that it is just a band-aid. If we continue to do what we are doing we are promoting resistances at a vastly higher rate than we can hope to cope with. Alternatives to ABs are being developed, but there is nothing that is no killer treatment yet (and even then we do not know how resistances may evolve and how we may screw it up again. We had the means to overcome bacterial diseases in our hands and we manage to turn it into shit (almost literally). If that sounds gloom and doom to you, I feel like that because I have been following the lit for years. In contrast to things like ebola scares the numbers, unfortunately, add up. Almost all areas imply resistance increase and we see little incentives for us to reduce it to crucial (i.e. therapeutic uses). It is a sad fact that most likely people will only start thinking about it once we actually monitor deaths related to resistances in more detail. Current clinical practice does not always collect this data. But estimates in the US are on the order of 20k deaths (2013) associated with resistant strains, of which over half are Clostridium difficile. What is worse, however, is that in non-fatal diseases the number of reported multiple resistances are also increasing, not only locally, but globally (the WHO gave a report last year, I think). Unfortunately I think the time to react was about 15 years ago.

Actually, that entry is rather bad in this regard as the source it cites is rather poorly sourced itself (not your fault, rather a general issue of encyclopedia). It is based on estimates that are themselves based on estimates within surveys. But that being said, it hints at a different problem, AB use almost worldwide is not regulated and monitored well enough (although countries, including China are starting to pick it up since the last couple of years). But obviously it would make a lot of sense since India are the most populated countries and are also areas where production is outsourced to. It is likely that the US would be roughly next on the list. But as John mentioned, stopping the use of AB for meat production would cut shit tons of ABs from the environment.

I am wondering why you are specifically naming India and China. This practice is common everywhere. Ca. 75-80% of antibiotics used in the US are used on livestock (as opposed to medical use). Or are you talking about production? In that case it should be noted that these are US or EU-owned. They just moved their manufacturing sites overseas. A few countries in the US are starting to ban the practice but from I have heard it is still in common use (I think either Denmark or Sweden being one of the exceptions). But blaming countries is just silly. Rather, blame our desire for cheap meat.

Also, at therapeutic concentrations it is actually harmful for growth. Also even if used only at lethal concentrations, manure and other effluents would still be a source of sub-lethal concentrations of antibiotics (as it is quite stable and will be released to the environment. I.e. there is no use of AB that would entirely prevent the rise and spread of resistances (though rate is, as pointed out, likely to be slower if minimized). Or to make it more specific, the largest (in terms of total volume) reservoir of resistance determinants is not in a treated person/animal or meat (even if applied at sub-lethal doses) but rather wastewater and similar effluents. In these matrices a massive amount of e.g. resistance plasmids and similar sources of mobile resistance elements have been found. In terms of impact the direct transmission in hospitals is of course the largest concern.

Well, now it is moving from the microbiota to infectious diseases. If that is of interest to you maybe start a new topic? While common it is as much a normal part of the human microbiota as, say Plasmodium palcifarum (causative agent of malaria).

Well, OP seems under the impression that therapeutic use of ABs are the reason for the rise of multiple-resistant strains whereas John highlighted that we actually throw massive amounts of ABs around for production reasons. Also jajrussel still seems to ignore that point and thinks it is about keeping cattle healthy. It is not as the amount used are too low dosed to have therapeutic effects. It just makes them fatten faster (the same way growth hormones were used before bans),

Absolutely, and there is more. Antibiotics are released as waste and manure into soil and aquifers and create selective situations there, and I think that these may even be larger pools of resistance determinants. Also, in many mass production facilities animals are culled rather than treated as it is cheaper that way.

Well Toxoplasma are parasites spread by cats (and also they are not bacteria). But the point is that as many other pathogens they infect host cells. This is what the normal flora is not able to do (provided the host does not have some severe condition, which would disrupt the flora). The same argument can be made for viruses (e.g. infected blood samples) etc. But again, it would be a topic separate from the normal microflora.

I think we start off on a point of agreement but the conclusions you draw and especially the extrapolations you make(people would die if they exchanged floras) are quite different. There are various degrees of what you may perceive as chaotic interactions and there are underlying mechanisms. For example, every birth incorporates transplantation of the gut biota, so to say. It is by far something drastic. Every time you take antibiotics you re-arrange your flora as another example. The process of establishment of biota is under investigation and it is not a total random process.

I am not so sure about the rigid part. It depends on how you are able to carry them and how strong you are. But assuming you try to move a body of roughly your own size and are not terribly strong it is easier to have some muscle tone to assist. Unconscious people for example are very floppy and it is hard to get a good grip on them.

The thing is that most companies often do not care too much about the content of your degree, provided you fulfill their basic requirements. Some positions require technical skills that you should demonstrate but other than that just layering degrees does not necessarily make you a more attractive candidate. Rather, you should check what they want (go to job fairs, read job postings, get into contact with companies, network) and position yourself accordingly. A degree is just a badge, that alone will not sell your person.