CharonY

There is nothing that beats doing some actual lab or field work. The only thing you can really do is talk to lecturers and ask them whether e.g. there are some summer or other projects that you could do or things you could assist in.

Not at all, the buggers accumulate massive amounts of mutations under routine cultivation conditions. In fact selection for new resistant strains or other reverting auxotroph mutants is something we are often do as in low-level microbio courses. It is actually quite a bit of a problem for cases where you create mutations to investigate stress-related responses. Sometimes they are only sensitive for a few generation and then somehow regain a wildtype phenotype. In the olden days that was it, but nowadays sequencing has become so (relatively) cheap that you could look at where the mutations are. I envy the kids nowadays.

Actually it is not. But it is more of a technical kind, but there is one thing that I find not precisely expressed. What you need to know what cDNA is and how it is produced. Based on that It is weird that it states that the restriction enzyme does not cleave the cDNA when you digest the genomic DNA. Can you tell me why? Hint: it probably means that the restriction site is not found in the cDNA sequence. Revisit how the cDNA may differ from the actual genomic sequence. Based on that, what are potential causes of multiple bands to which the probe hybridize to? Why would labeling the different end make any difference? It should be noted that the interpretation may be different if you have a pro- or an eukaryote. I assume it is the latter, though. (Also, not to be mean, but ignore the stuff above it is incorrect and has no bearing on the question whatsoever). Also I am going to move it to the homework section.

It is far to early as your exposure will only be on a very basal level. At this point there will be very little similarity to the actual research one would be doing. It would be best to get more exposure before any kind of decision is made. Another important point is to consider if one actually want to take the PhD route (as at one point or another you will have also to think about what jobs you could get).

It is in some way far easier. What was mutated was not the flagellum itself but a central regulator. Loss of it stops the bacterium from initiating motility. However, there are homologs (related genes with similar sequences) that were able to have a similar role (i.e. initiate motility) once the right mutation(s) hit. In this case only two steps were needed. One, to increase the expresssion of the homolog and a second to allow it bind the regulatory sequence of the flagellar system. This goes into the larger (known) aspect that regulatory mechanisms are a the main source of rapid changes as few mutations can result in far reaching physiological changes. If the whole flagellar operon (i.e. the genes that actually synthesize the flagellum) was lost, it would have taken much longer.

Also, at least from the crop, I am not even sure how level the camera is, relative to the persons. So it is not even clear where the center of gravity precisely is (at least I cannot clearly see how her legs are positioned). That being said, it is incredible that we are page two already.

While we got into it, I would like to throw out that even before that Reza Shah introduced secularism into Iran in the 20s. At that time religious clothing, including hijabs were banned from public places. Also he was deposed by the British and the Soviets. Also in that light it is quite hypocritical to demand other countries to become secular democracies in a shorter time frame (but obviously only the right type of democracy that favors certain economies). In Iran there was always the balance act between the modern, urbanized centers and the more conservative, religious rural areas (hence my mentioning of socioeconomic issues).

That is appalling for any country leader, and much worse for the (then) leader of the UK. That also means that his aides did not clue him in, which in turn makes me wonder what their intelligence platform for dealing with Iran or other countries in general is. Do they reset their intelligence after each election? Geez.

That is an excellent point. With English being the de facto lingua franca the anglosphere does have an advantage to begin with.

I try not to think too much about that line of reasoning. I am pretty sure that it will result in brain cancer.

An interesting take on the whole Muslims and enlightenment thing: Guardian. The article provides a timeline of modernization events. An interesting comparison one could do, from the perspective of enlightenment as a constitutional viewpoint is to contrast the development of Muslim-majority countries with e.g. African Christian-majority countries. Especially Iran in early 20th and Ottoman empire in the late 19th century would be interesting comparisons to their contemporaries. Again, it would be very shortsighted to try to understand the current geopoltical situation without its broader historic context. Unfortunately, that is not a format that is very conducive to internet (or other) fora of non-specialists. I do think it is important not to discuss a caricature of one's belief and take it as reality.

IIRC the Tamron SP90 is a macro, isn't it? They are typically quite sharp and rather, well not nice in the wrong/right light. Best to take a pic across the street and crop to taste ;p I would agree to that. But personally I would consider that more as a lie from the photographer's side, as he/she actively creates the image (both during shoot as well as post) rather than a lie of the camera (it does faithfully what its optics determines). One could say that all photography is a lie and it is about taking a moment out of context. In the end it is semantics and what one would like to define as the reference of the truth.

It depends on how you define lying, I think. Of course there will be various levels of distortions and it will not represent the real thing, but that is true for all types of sensing, including our eyes. And if you think of it that way, then all detection methods have some levels of lying built in, and the photographer only selects the type of lie. What the photograph can do is create an image (potentially with further software manipulation to remove lens distortions, color balance and similar effects) that mimics the image that is most similar to the image you would see with your eyes. But is that closer to the truth or just closer to the lie your eyes tell you? Edit: Severely cross posted.

I see what you mean. Just have not heard it referred to as dodging and burning. For the rest I will just say that I disagree that device is capable of lying, it will just produce data based on a given input and leave it at that (and even then you typically have to at least activate the device).

What is sad is that the same energy could have been spent to learn something. Instead it is used to deny knowledge.

Actually, I would say that the photographer lies, as he controls the elements that create the final impression. The camera just captures the light under the given settings. I do not quite understand the inserting body part thingy. With dodge and burn you just locally change exposure, how would you insert elements into a photo (do you mean as shadows?). Or am I misunderstanding something...?

Yeah things are a bit in flux. The amount of genetic information we can produce as increased massively over the last decade and sometimes we find things that indicate more recent relationships, but then one could also find rare variants that push the timeline further back.

Sorry, you do not understand photography. Shutter speed (among others) control for subject movement. Note that the motorcade is in focus and shows no motion blur. The lady is actually blurry, but it is likely because she is out of focus (i.e. the focus point is closer than the hyperfocal distance). It is not strong, but noticeable as everyone else around her are also starting to get out of focus. The right hand at least shows slight motion blur, but it is also going to move faster than the body during shifting. The hand in the foreground is almost sillier, the subjects are way out of focus (i.e. too close to the camera in this case) and also waving around. Motion blur is here exacerbated as it is close to the camera (or to put it differently, the hand moves through more distance across the frame for a given time). Both issues (out of focus, motion blur) contribute to that expected artifact.If they were headbanging, you would wonder why the people appear to have deformed heads. Considering the time it is likely that Kodachrome film was used (pretty much the dominating color film in the US market at that time, at least afaik). Either 25 or 64 (both daylight film). Assuming it was a somewhat sunny day the shot would be done typically with around 1/125th shutter speed and f-stop around f/8-f/16. At that speed small movement is certainly frozen, whereas only rapid ones can start to generate blur. Shifting body weight will be frozen. In the end this is a physics question, and you may want to read up on hyperfocal distance to understand when blur occurs and how shutter speed freezes motion.There are actually some means to guesstimate the distance, but I guess that would not really be very interesting at this point.

That is true. However, the common ancestor would always be in or at the same species boundary, assuming that the population has been around for sufficiently long. The most recent direct ancestor would be found sometime after that. Most calculations seem to estimate roughly 4-5k years under somewhat conservative assumptions, but I do not really know what the current consensus may be.

While we are admitting things, sorry for commenting before I actually watched the video. I really got the context wrong. Also my comment was directed against the first video. If he had said that we all have a high likelihood of finding our direct common ancestor by moving about 2-5k years back then it would have been less objectionable. Confucius is one much more likely candidate for reasons he pointed out (though I admit that I stopped listening a few minutes in). Although I am not sure whether he mentioned any genetic analyses of which I am not aware of. What delboy is missing is that migration at that precise time was not actual necessary for the spread, but extensive genetic exchange is likely to have happened via trading enterprises such as the silk road. One has to remember that one shared ancestor would merge lines at given point in the tree.

After listening in it appears that John is indeed right. Qualifying with the notion that he should have some illegitimate children somewhere and they will also have progeny sounds like severe backpedaling. The overall idea is right, tracing back long enough and we will find a common relative (and using some models it is actually not that long ago). But the example given and the way it is presented is sensationalist, to put it mildly. Also the argument seems backward, because we share common relatives you will have to demonstrate that the descendants are traceable to present time (as John asserted earlier). This has been done for Temujin, maybe Confucius but not for JC. In the former case (using the Y chromosal analyses) it indicates that about 0.5% of all men alive are his direct descendants. The timeline (~1000 years) is of course shorter than the other examples given in the video, but at least substantiated. Moon, are you sure he is scholar and that is area of research. Most researchers fee uncomfortable with that level of simplification.

I do not think that short of making a world-wide poll there is an easy way to directly measure desire. There will always a mix of circumstances including political and geographic situations (how close is it, how easy is it to obtain visa legally from your home country etc.), extreme situations like wars or catastrophes, economic situation (how much does it cost to immigrate, relative to the the money you earned in your home country) etc. However net migration is a decent indicator of the relative desirability within a sphere of influence, I would say, although some weighting would be necessary. Do you have numbers about illegal border crossing to the US from Canada, btw.?

Nope that is not how it works. If the research already has a forgone conclusion it will not be considered for funding. You need to test a novel hypothesis before it is even considered. The actual review is typically done by peers, not by the funding agencies, if we talk about public funding. Finally, dissemination of the information is the job of the researcher and not of the funding agencies nor of the referees, who will be busy with other things at this point.

To go back to op one thing that is interesting is the use of social media by Daesh/ISIS to propagate their atrocities. Obviously this seems to be part of a propaganda campaign, though I am wondering what or whether they have precise goals. To demonstrate and attract followers while concealing that they actually have not state building plan? In this context it is relevant to remember that in many wars, especially civil wars these levels are atrocities are not that rare. I still can remember the news stories of the war in former Yugoslavia. The difference was that it took some digging (in some cases, literally) to find the things that were done. The scope of the atrocities are quite a match (though precise numbers would are probably not easy to come by for the current conflict). As such, the savagery may not be unique, but the use for propaganda using modern technology is.

A number of random things that it could be relevant for would maybe be capillary membrane oxygenators for extracorporeal lung support, where leakages are an issue. I am not sure whether all systems have temp control, there still could be temperature drops during movement through the capillaries. Likewise it may also have influence on biocompatibility of other biomedical devices through which blood may pass? Another point could be analytic systems for blood analyses.