CharonY

You are misunderstanding something here. Scientific research is not based on sides. Rather, the researches ask the question such as, "if I take this model and use that data, what factors have have the strongest explanatory power on the observed increased in temperatures". There will be various approaches that may yield slight differences. If you have a vast body of contradicting results, you would posit that there is something else that we do not know. If most approaches (and remember, in order to publish you cannot just do the same, you will have some differences in your approach), highlight the same results then at this point quantity does tell you something. Note that even those that diverge can be of interest, as by e.g. analyzing the model or general methodology one could be able to figure out whether there is something else or whether the methods have less explanatory power. Both aspects could be interesting, even if it just tells you why you do not get stable results. No proper scientist will start off with to prove that warming is anthropogenic (or disprove it for that matter). With regards to the paper in question, one warning sign is that if the model was of sufficient quality, why is it not submitted to one of the mainstream journals. If the data casts important doubt on an established finding, it is of high significance. Provided, the presented data is good enough to actually challenge other studies.

I would say it depends a lot of familiarity, too. If you are familiar with methodology, you can just glimpse at the graphs to assess the quality of data and what level of conclusions can be drawn from them. If the paper is from a different field, I am much more likely to read it completely and then add further paper to fill my knowledge gaps, before reading it again.

Considering that the vast majority of bestsellers and movies that I can think of have a white male lead, you may want to check the demographics again. The only female scientist lead in movies that does not require saving from a male lead that I can think off the top of my head is in "Contact". But I think this is heavily off-topic.

Well, crispness is hard to assess, in wine, it typically relates to acidity, but in your case it is not easy to predict what you may perceive as cristp. Taste of water does change with the dissolved salts or oxygen, but I doubt that a change of the filter will have tremendous effects. The reason to change filters is often down to bacterial growth, which is somewhat independent on how much you filter, but more temperature dependent.

It depends how deeply rooted in known science you want to be. Gender-specific responses to viruses are known, but they are mostly the result of differences in physiology and/or regulatory responses rather than something on the chromosomal level. For instance, in mice difference infections to HSV-1 was the result of differences in the response in immunoregulation (IFN-gamma). which exists in both genders. Why the response is different is (to my limited knowledge) not elucidated yet though IFN-gamma does respond to estrogen exposure. IFN-gamma has also an interesting role in immunization. Again, gender differences were found in HIV immunization trials in mice There are also well-known differences in susceptibility to infections, which, in some cases are simply down to anatomic differences (e.g. in cases of many STDs). So realistically it is not a highly unrealistic proposition, but if you want it based on hard sciences I would simply use the immune response hub as the distinguishing mechanism. I am not even sure that you need it justify much. Also consider that many symptoms are not caused by the actions of the virus alone, but by an interplay between viral particles and the immune response (e.g. fever, mucosal secretion etc.). Thus you could have them only causing mild symptoms (due to initial immune response) or no symptom at all, but still shed viral particles (as it does not have to be destructive to the host). In the other group the immune response could lead to death (cytokine storm is a good example).

John and ajb have the right approach. You do not utilize a paper efficiently by reading them front to back in a neutral way. You have to know what you want to get out of it (is it the method, the outcome, they hypothesis?) and read it accordingly. For example, if you have a specific claim and support it with a citation, you may either want to look at their conclusion if it is really what you claim, the discussion, where they at least hypothesize something like that or even in the results section, if your claim is based on their data.

In that case you have just not been searching enough. Also note that Paramecium feeds on bacteria.

Superficial at best. Also changes of regulation are typically changes of sequences- either in non-coding regulatory sequences or the regulators themselves (or due to duplication events, etc.). None of which is different from the canonical view.

That is actually a discussion long in the making, and it boils down to usefulness for the respective sub-disciplines (IMO). The modern synthesis is, actually quite old and was developed before the rise of modern molecular biology. The biggest issue is that we have so many approaches and so much data that it has become problematic to unify all those into a nice cohesive model (again, to my knowledge, but maybe Arete could comment on this). Instead, people tend to use the basic backbone and develop specialized models for the type of question they are looking at. So the overall conceptual narrative mostly remains the same, but the complexity has reached a point where one can look at evolution at various resolutions (ranging from molecule to complex organisms) and that the applied methodologies vary for each vantage point.

As already mentioned, the question in OP is too vague and is unlikely to yield any results. Also there is apparently a misconception what molecular cloning can achieve. If you are interested in playing around with methods, I would limit it to just the molecular work and skip the steps which are safety concerns (such as the use of selective vectors or transfer of those into bacteria). What you could play around with is simple DNA extraction (with some precautions as the chemicals involved can be harmful), restriction, PCR and electrophoresis. But anything else would requires means of safe disposal.

One should also note that addiction is a complex condition, with genetic as well as behavioral aspects. There is not one thing that determines it. The genetic basis would for the most part determine how strong drugs would affect you at a given dose, yet that alone does not mean that you would become an addict (e.g. if you do not come into contact with the drug in the first place). It does not mean that your brother actually has any genetic reasons for being susceptible to opiate abuse in the first place.

The water would change much faster than for the lettuce to literally degrade. Biological activity are ongoing and one month or so is plenty to change water quality (just ask someone with an aquarium how it is going to be without filtration). Obviously this is speculation, as it is not clear how exhaustive your search was.

I have never heard of that species. But certain Actinobacteria and Chloroflexi have been found in desert soil. But there are also other common soil bacteria, such as rhizobia oar Arthrobacters that have successful members surviving in arid areas. Generally I would start looking at soil bacteria (as they are typically very tough bastards to begin with) and go from there.

So you have a bowl or something similar with lettuce in it? If the water just sits there for a longer time, the water quality will change. It is unlikely that bacteria are directly killing your eukaryotes, they are present all the time. However, they actively degrade the organic material in your water sample, resulting in unfavorable growth conditions, if the water is not replenished.

To be fair though, when HIV/AIDS was discovered and making the rounds in media, the hysteria was the same. Despite the knowledge of transmission, HIV positive patients were stigmatized and discriminated. There was the widespread belief that you could get infected by body contact such as hand shaking of even being in the same room. The new and spectacular is what the media and the audience likes (to fear). Whereas the persistent killers and risk are just the things we already got used to, even if they are much more likely to end your life.

I do not see anything recognizable in that image. What magnification is it? Where do you get your samples and is it possible that the water quality is degrading?

Hehe, goodness, just imagine that people would go further and try to understand science. That could end up in a futile loop, though, after understanding science they may realize that Americans have little to fear and turn away from science until they forget and get afraid again.

Why is that a bluff? Precisely for that reason HIV can spread further than ebola. If the latter is contained, spread will die down. HIV is much, much harder to contain. It is the same thinking with air crashes. If one plane crashes hundreds of people die. Yet what kills more people? Plane crash or automobile accidents? I understand that movies and other media like to use these rapid epidemic troupe. Yet, the majority of deaths are actually caused by endemic, re-appearing and consistent deaths caused by diseases that we kind of ignore. Year after year, more than a million people die of HIV, malaria, pneumonia and some diarrhoeal disease, each. Ebola has serious catching up to do and, as it has been noted on this forum in several posts, because it acts to so rapidly, it has limited chance to become a successful endemic disease.

HIV spread at a higher rate than ebola. The estimates for secondary infections (i.e. how many people are getting infected per patient) are around 2 for the current outbreak. For HIV it is estimated to be around 4.6-5. That means that on average more than double the amount of people are getting infected for HIV are double that of ebola. It just now sounds high as the media makes quite a fuss about it. Looking at actual numbers paints quite a different picture.

Two things: the causative agent for bubonic plague is a bacterium (this is why antibiotics work) and there actually is a vaccine. However, the incidence level is so low that it is generally not used, unless there is some kind of indication. For example, if you are a researcher of health care worker that is likely to get into contact. As to OP, media like ebola, as it is so gory and lethal. However, precisely due to this reason it is less likely to spread on a global scale. The big killer in Africa is HIV with over 20 million infected and over a million deaths per year. The situation is improving, but it is still orders of magnitude worse than the current ebola outbreak.

Also, it should be noted that aside from very simple things, transfer of a gene does not necessarily result in phenotypes. Moreover cell-cycle control is even trickier.

Unfortunately this is very typical. Risks of gory or spectacular events (plane crash, space shuttle explosion, mass shootings etc.) tend to get massively overestimated compared to "everyday" but much more fatal risk. It is especially problematic when these things gets prioritized in policy-making. Actually, I could imagine that they are actually quite attractive for policy-makers, as they can roll out some silly (and most likely ineffectual) laws and regulations. Due to the rarity of events they can claim the almost certain drop after an event as a clear victory and nicely tie them into things that furthers their agendas. And people will happily support that as fear trumps logic every time.

A number of things are relevant to understand this. One has to differentiate between how infectious an agent is (typically assessed under controlled conditions) and how effective the transmission is. It may be a bit confusing that ebola does not require many particles to affect someone (at least under lab conditions), yet transmission is rather low. Even in the worst hit areas in Western Africa, on average less than two people get infected per patient. Obviously, this still will lead to spread, if not contained. Nigeria and Senegal were able to contain the current spread, and are now ebola free, for example. It should also be noted that flu is not that contagious either (a bit more than ebola, but not by that much). However, as its symptoms are often very generic, people do often do not take proper precaution to limit spread and that is why it takes a while until the flu season burns out. So there is also a behavioral component to it. Edit: I realize in my earlier post the comparison between flu and ebola could be understood as comparison of infectious mechanisms, rather I meant it in the context of behavioral differences, both in terms of containment, as well as public fears. Flu is more of a risk because it is much more prevalent, i.e. your chances of actually getting infected is much, much higher. Even with lower mortality the overall risk of complications and death are therefore much higher, unless you are in one of the hotspots. Ebola is different in that regard, too, as in the strong viral shedding phase the symptoms are rather extreme. With regards to mechanisms, it has been established that aersols outside of lab situations as well as casual contact does not lead to infection. Even the likelihood of living with a patient is low, unless there is close contact throughout (sleeping in same bed, for instance) or direct contact with fluids. Skin contact carries low risk, mucosal much higher, which is mediated by the fact that aerosols and droplets carry low risk. I would be worried being coughed at the face, however. Treatment seems to work somehow in the early phases, while I am not sure how individuals were treated, there are experimental antibodies (also produced by a Canadian group) and blood transfusion from survivors (which may contain antibodies). The rest tends to be symptomatic treatment. In contrast to HIV (which is more contagious as it can be transmittable while being asymptomatic) there is not means suppress viral activity. It is mostly down to clearing it before it spreads to organs. Recently, a health care worker was treated successfully in Germany, and the infected nurse in Spain is now also virus-free. It appears that the key is early treatment. The vaccine you mentioned needs actually being tested for efficacy and estimates point toward 2016 at the earliest point for general use, I assume through an accelerated process. However, there is also another being developed since 2011/12 by a Swiss-Italian company (now bought by GlaxoSmithKline) also in phase I (scheduled to be finished by the end of the year). I should add that phase I tests for safety and only in phase II and III the actual efficacy is assessed.

In this context I there is another tidbit that should be added. Measles is one of the most infectious diseases that are currently known (order of magnitude higher than flu or ebola, for example). The good thing is that the majority in developed countries are immunized preventing larger outbreaks. But it is obvious that even lower lethality rates large-scale outbreaks would be devastating. One worrying element is that compliance is not only dropping in the US, but also in several European countries. Almost all outbreaks that could be traced identified unvaccinated people (mostly children). From the CDC:

Actually it is not only about procedure. It is also the ability to apply them. Full coverage helps little if you are inexperienced in disrobing and contaminate yourself at that point. In fact, partial body protection (depending on situation and condition of point patient) that is applied correctly, is better than full protection done wrong. Due to the rareness of the diseases chances are that average health care providers are not well trained in these protocols. Even those that are can make mistakes. The nurse in Spain most likely infected herself while accidentally touching her face (to her credit, she realized that). Protocols do not replace situational awareness, but in situations like this (where you deal with a dying patient) lapses are not impossible. That being said, the infection rate outside of West Africa are less than a concern. The situation of the swine flu pandemic in 2009 was far worse and with many more deaths.