CharonY

I think it is an issue of perspective and it is tricky to figure theinterface between Biology, inner perception, outward presentation (both of which are heavilyinfluend by culture and learning) and what psychological measures we use. As mentioned, most things are gradual, rather than categorical. That is zaoatos' mentioning of averages is exactly. In a given context we can find differences in the means, but some measures overlap more than others. So you could say men are more likely more aggressive than women, but if you could not state with certainty that the woman in front of you is certainly going to be more aggressive (right now) than her male counterparts, if that makes sense. Even social attraction is not 100% sexually coded (as homo- bi- an asexuality exists, but most are heterosexual).

No, absorbing limited attacks was Netanyahu's tactic to keep the Palestinian's down. And this the mindset that leads to more suffering. Again, how does an extended campaign now once for all end Hamas? How well did it go in the past? What about the next generation of Palestinians? It does seem that this strategy is replaying the same stuff over and over again. I am not saying a ceasefire will solve the problem, it is only a band aid to lessen the ongoing suffering. But saying that death now has to continue to stop a future Gazan genocide is odd at the very least. I will also add that I do not recall having called for ceasefire, just that a) there are no good guys here and b) that something must be done to stop the humanitarian catastrophe. Again, the focus on a singular action (ceasefire) evokes in my mind a sports team level thinking that calls to be entirely binary and I reject the notion. As before, my very basic level of reasoning is that actions resulting in the loss of innocent lives, regardless whether they are murders carried out by Hamas or unintended (but expected) casualties by military actions. One could (and maybe should) assign different levels of moral weight to them, but I feel uncomfortable trying the apply such judgements to innocent deaths as it feels to much like trying to justify them. Also, I think it is rather easily established why the onus of action (or inaction) is on the Israeli side, they have the power and there is little expectation of Hamas to do the right thing, they are a terror organization that hold their own (and other) people hostage. One could of course also put the onus on the Gazan people (as you seem to do) and ignore the system they live and grew up in. That is of course unrealistic as the system makes it very hard not to be funnel them into the arms of Hamas. I cannot say what the action should be, but in my mind it should be as limited as possible and at minimum connected with actions that save civilian's lives. That does not seem to be the case (and again, even the US, not famous for their restraint themselves, are calling for more limited actions). More importantly, the actions need to be accompanied by a long-term strategy for the day after, but apparently we have learned nothing form the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, did we? If all we say that we should give carte blanche, because self-defence, what is the end point of the military action? Indefinite presence of the IDF? Displacement of Gazans into a even more confined area? As I mentioned before, self-defence is not an excuse to cause unlimited suffering especially with no clear endpoint. Not to mention that it is not an either/or situation. Also the situation has shown that the current strategy (see also the interview with the ex-IDF soldier) clearly has not worked. And continuing the cycle of violence will end nowhere (except perhaps when the Palestinians are eradicated). Each time folks will claim self-defence and what good does it bring except moral justification for violence? Hamas will certainly claim the same, and why we might not buy it, the kids whose family got killed, will certainly at least consider it. The way forward is something else, though no one can really say what it might be. Again, the only thing we know is the current situation is not the right thing. Well, as you know, we only have an UN because everyone wants it to be ball-less. The major powers would never have agreed to an organization that might decide against their interests . One could always blame (rightfully in some cases) the "bad actors". But depending on the situation and area in the world, everyone was a bad actor at some point. The US was instrumental in reducing the UN actions during the Rwandian genocide, for example. That being said, not having a platform for diplomacy would be worse, but it certainly is frustrating.

MigL whole point was that a) Palestinians put Hamas in power and failed to develop themselves out of the mess. In fact, he claims that they had many exit points but failed to utilize them (such as building resorts and get oil rich). How else should I interpret the overall point as, the situation is entirely their fault, they put Hamas in power so whatever suffering comes there way is no one else's fault. In other words, because Palestinians had these moral failures, they do not deserve a ceasefire in order to reduce the deaths that are currently accumulating. I.e. because Hamas did not adhere to agreements, therefore it is morally correct to have Palestinian (non-combatants) die. Note that I have nothing against decapitating Hamas, in fact, I do think that this is a necessary step. But I do not think that one can make the moral argument that this can be done at the cost of unchecked (or minimally checked) deaths of civilians. It was wrong during the Iraq war, and it is wrong now. Don't get me wrong, Hamas is in the wrong here. But even the fact that Hamas is so powerful is not entirely the Palestinian's fault as outlined above and I am fairly sure that especially children had little say in that matter. As I mentioned in the beginning: can we agree that any outcome resulting in children dying should be considered morally wrong? And the answer it seems is no, we are able to justify it just fine. Sure, the actions happen in the context of self-defense, but still children and non-combatants die. And at least morally I am unable to make myself feel better about human suffering by identifying moral failures (real or perceived). I fail to see how such an attitude does anything but to make it easier to allow suffering to happen to other folks I should add that a ceasefire should not be seen (as many appear to in the internet ) as a taking sides moment (politics has become so stupid that I feel the need to express this). Rather, all reports indicate a humanitarian catastrophe with little resources, a massive death toll and worsening health situations. I don't care whether there is a ceasefire or other way to implement humanitarian help. This is not a team sport, folks are suffering and at least in the short term there is only one party that controls the situation. And even from an utilitarian view (also outlined above) it is not clear whether the large-scale war effort will have long-term positive effects. This is likely why the US has tried (perhaps with some irony) tried to rein the offensive in a bit. And I should also add that in the face of human suffering the glib statement that they should have used their beaches better just a tad on the a callous side (not to mention unrealistic). And I also acknowledge that my attitude is inherently hypocritical. Obviously I only care about this particular conflict because I happen to discuss it on this forum and because of the news article I read. I know that I am not really doing anything against it, nor do I spend a similar amount of time to think about all the other ongoing conflicts. It is part of the human condition, we are unable to even mentally deal with the breadth and depth of suffering in the world. After I write my little diatribe I am going to make a coffee and go back to work. But at minimum I want not to feel good about it.

So the argument is that the Palestinians have screwed up and now everyone there deserves to be bombed? I will also address some of your arguments, but again, these are not solutions but just an effort to place blame somewhere. As I note, you do not mention the West Bank, which shows that even without presence of Hamas oppressive activities happened. Now to your specific claims: They did not drill for oil and gas, because they were in dispute with the Israeli government. While I believe the Oslo Accords place it under Palestinian jurisdiction Israeli forces have prevented access. Building resorts, yes an isolated enclave with in a shaky political situation is clearly where tourist want to flock to. It is disingenuous to compare the Israeli blockade to a passport issue. They effectively restrict natural commerce and instead drove an active black market via the tunnels controlled by, you guessed it, Hamas. I.e. Hamas is not only a terrorist organization but eventually became the main source of economic power in the region once they pushed out the PA and the blockade devastated the local economy. I mean, it is clear to say that Hamas wields dictatorial powers and yes, perhaps the Palestinians, which fed up with the corrupt PA should have not chosen the radical alternative (though again, as we can see this is not a Palestine-specific tendency). But once they did Hamas established themselves, and inadvertently (or eventually intentionally) together with Israel, they created a system that makes them hard to dislodge them. So again, blame them if you want, but what do you think are their realistic options? Edit: there have been past analyses by UNCTAD on the blockade and here is a recent re-iteration: https://unctad.org/press-material/prior-current-crisis-decades-long-blockade-hollowed-gazas-economy-leaving-80 And now touching again on what to do: similar to the war on drugs, whatever the Israeli restrictions intended, the result was clearly not an ousting of Hamas, but instead resulted in solidifying their position by effectively making Gazans dependent to them (and again, with the help of the current Israeli government). So again, what are the options for Gazans?

The idea of the longshots is to look at potential scenarios because the only other ones I have seen in this thread is basically Israel commits genocide or the Palestinians submit fully to Israeli rulership in a rather nebulous but forever peaceful way. Saying that killing any number of Gazans of any age is alright because Hamas does nothing except to make folks feel better about the ensuing suffering. The US is currently urging Israel to switch to more targeted "commando-style" attacks (similar to what some of the folks in the above link suggested.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. What onus do you want to put on them? Yes Palestinians are worried that they may get wiped out. So why should they think that throwing themselves at the mercy of those with the power to wipe them out will work out? And why is the discussion focused on Israel? Well you just argued that one party is in the position to wipe the other one out.

And which party is able to present themselves as viable alternative if they are not supported or otherwise seen to be able to talk to Israel as equals? What should they do in response of getting displaced by Israeli settlers, for example? Yet Netanyahu was not the only one responsible for propping up Hamas. Some excerpt from the opinion series linked above that focus on potential solutions and way forward, rather than playing the blame game. Peter Beinart Ehud Olmert: Limor Yehuda, Omar Dajani, John McGarry:

Also, some thoughts from folks who have thought more deeply about it: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/12/opinion/gaza-israel-palestinians-plans.html

The answer is simple: proteins are complicated. The gold standard is crystallography, which involves purifying proteins and create protein crystals of high quality and to use powerful X-ray lasers to explore their structure. This has many, many challenges, including the fact that many proteins do not like to form ordered crystals (especially membrane proteins). While there are approaches to address it, it remains slow and time consuming. There are hopes that in silico approaches using machine-learning can accelerate the process, and according to some publications, the quality of predictions is getting close to being useful. How well that works with novel structures is in my mind still unclear but might prove itself eventually. In addition, in many cases having a static structure is not enough. So you want actually see how things bind (once you got the structure you can use models to simulate things, but they might be off, if the binding has unexpected properties), or interact under a given condition (say, within membranes). That increases the complexity even more. Forgot to add, the reason why they are important specific for drug development is because they are targets of drugs. If you want to inhibit a certain receptor protein, for example, your drug must be able to bind that receptor under native conditions and thereby block their activity. Without knowing the structure of the receptor you are basically designing blind. With some docking data, you will have a better idea what might theoretically work (whether there are useful in practice is a different matter).

There are numerous publications investigating the decline of terrorism. While there is not necessary broad agreement on how to fight terrorism and how unique each case might be, there is evidence that repressive military force has little evidence for being a solution. Most effects were found to temporary, counterproductive or export the issue to other countries. Targeted elimination of leadership will (hopefully) reduce Hamas' capabilities in the short term. In the long-term only a lasting peace agreement can end the conflict. And this has to include violence in the West Bank (again, where Hamas is not a major player). How do you remove Hamas? Present the Palestinian people a viable alternative. Something that promises peace and self-determination. Netanyahu understood that, which is why he bolstered Hamas. And who comes after him? If folks are sufficiently afraid the idea of suppression is likely to continue. And where does it leave the option for peace?

OK, this result is really weird, as it might suggest that ROX is dependent on your sample, rather than the MM. Not sure if it is related, but I do wonder whether the position plays a role. Your Positivkontrolle is on top and your NTC is on the bottom of the plate (and the increase affects all samples in the middle). Perhaps a silly question, but in your method, ROX is selected as the reference dye, rather than target? Generally speaking an increase in the reference tends to be indicative of evaporation and concentrating the MM. Quenching could affect ROX, too, in theory, but in your case I fail to see how that would work. I am especially unclear sure why you see all three effects in the same run in a seemingly well or template-dependent way. One thing to check is whether the ROX traces are similar in all your runs. Also ROX seems a bit on the low end (close to 0) though I don't know if your software normalizes the values somewhat. At this point I would check your reference runs/SOP to see what your expectation of the raw fluorescence levels are and/or discuss the issue with the manufacturer (after checking that the software settings are correct, of course).

We can start a new thread, but I just wanted to mention that the economic model is not what necessarily creates dictatorships (as evidenced that we have basically five countries left that call themselves communist, but far more dictatorships), so I would not be particularly interested in rehashing that argument. One could make a thread discussing the difference between ideologies (which is structured in Marxism, but fairly empty in Fascism) and contrast it to the respective movements (which both were autocratic either from inception or increasingly became thus). But I suspect that neither of us has the background to fully flesh those discussions out in detail. To move things on topic, a fourth reich or whatever is certainly hyperbole, but there have been active discussions in Israel (prior to the current events) regarding a possible slide towards fascism. Following the election in 2022 some have argued that despite a right-wing slide (far right bloc with 11%, Israel is still lagging behind Europe in that regard with the far (not sure whether that is reassuring, though) https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/08/opinion/israel-election-fascism.html. Other articles in a similar vein claim that fascist characteristics in Europe are not present in Israel. Conversely, some folks, including former prime minister Ehud Barak have argued that the the government under Netanyahu are indeed showing signs of fascism https://www.timesofisrael.com/ehud-barak-govt-shows-signs-of-fascism-mass-non-violent-revolt-may-be-needed/ Also: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-democracy-rule-of-law/673469/ I.e. if one focuses on the end points, it is easy enough to find distinctions, and some are probably trivial (such as anti-Semitism). However, looking at the mechanisms, such as dismantling of judiciary systems, the similarities start to show. Not only in Israel, but also in countries with increasingly powerful right-wing populist movements. It is detrimental to use terms such as fourth reich or concentration camps, as those are loaded and inevitably invite a rather meaningless discussion in semantics. The real questions here in my mind is what happens to democratic safeguards with the rise of populism, what are the reasons for that rise and are the long-term consequences. I do think that this is a global challenge and relying of the relative peace in the Western world after WWII as evidence that all is going to go well forever, is somewhat shortsighted. To be sure, the events in OP are not necessarily connected to this particular issue, but the jingoist sentiments that put Netanyahu in power and encouraged him to support Hamas to further weaken the two-state solution shows the risks of such sentiments. Peace should not be taken for granted.

Sound like a red herring to me. There are more than two autocratic governments and neither of those two actually have a communist economic system. Moreover, there are many good arguments that have argued that Russia is in fact fascist. https://theconversation.com/yes-putin-and-russia-are-fascist-a-political-scientist-shows-how-they-meet-the-textbook-definition-179063 My point is that because we have all this long history, one would expect that no one sane would ever want to even dip their toes into this mess ever again. Yet here we are discussing trends and nuances and the best we can come up is that it ain't that bad as before? Before the Great Depression the Germany economy was in recovery after reigning in hyperinflation. And basically it means that economic hardship (plus threats from black and brown folks in Europe) and we all goose-step right into the abyss.

I noticed that your wells say 10CFU MO. Is your template dilute to about 10 CFU? If so the Ct range makes much more sense to me. But as you can see in your multicomponent plot, you have got technical issues. See the ROX signal? For some the signal increases, which could be an evaporation issues and for two it actually drops into the negative (i.e. below initial baseline). There are really only two samples that show the expected flat line. Considering the very low amount of template, these issues can compound the result a fair bit. Also, to check the amplification curve shape, it often helps to plot the signal over ct rather than the delta rn. But even there you can see that it barely passes the threshold, aside from the positive controls. But first I would check the plates/tubes. Are they properly sealed, for instance, are there droplets/bubbles etc. Also is the cover heating activated?

Many things are comparable and it is dangerous to only focus on the most extreme outcomes. Keep in mind, we have a examples what happened when fascism reigned (in its various forms) and the fact that folks look at it and think, yeah, we want something like that is dangerous in itself. In fact, you could argue that due to the social upheaval at that time (after WWI, oppression of the working class and associated rise of socialist and communist ideals, Russian revolution, Great depression, novelty of democratic systems etc.) it was excusable that folks desired a strong leader type and were susceptible to populist appeals. Now with that lesson learned, even inching toward that again, is a huge backslide, especially for the Germans (for historic reasons- heck courts have verified that the leader of the potentially second strongest party is a Nazi). What we do see is that once in power those parties start to erode checks and balances. Not at the rate nor necessarily as brutally as in the interwar period, but it is like putting your small finger on the hot stove after burning your whole hand and thinking this is so much better. The reasons are quite similar to a large degree. Fear, misinformation, and the associated desire to be ruled by a strong ordering hand that make things great again. If we only focus on the genocidal aspects, we won't notice the erosion of democracy right under our noses. Well fascisms was a new thing, but in both countries the groups were originally "just" agitators, and while Mussolini had a rather fast rise and was asked by Italy's king to form a government after they basically incited an uprising. Hitler at the same time was seen more like an upstart and after the failed putsch was seen as a controllable asset for the establishment right. They were wrong, of course. Now today folks still find whatever that was appealing, but aside from a much smaller militant wing most cannot be arsed to perform violent actions. And the nice thing is they don't have to. Instead of firebombing press and political opponents, they can do that now from home on their cell phones (Luegenpresse, anyone?). Again, the bad thing is not (only) that they are making a comeback. The bad thing is that I don't think we are learning from our past and are also forgetting things at an incredible pace.

This is also very much the lesson you get, growing up in Germany (well perhaps not anymore, things are changing, unfortunately). But ultimately the perpetrator were the the (great)grandparents of the folks in class. It is trivially easy to understand that Nazis are not something alien and evil. And over the last decade or so we have seen the allure of fascism in the Western world, suggesting that lessons were not learned.

Well, it has been described (by Jewish journalists and researchers) as Jewish supremacist and fascist group. That's two for two already.

There are difficult paths and none that are obvious. If the war has any chance of securing long lasting peace one might make the tenuous argument that the civilian deaths might have been worth it. Yet everything points to further escalation, so my question is now what purpose does it serve besides ringing the bell for the next round of deaths. Ehud Barak has discussed the need for a path toward a two state solution, which includes opening lines with Palestinian Authority and showing that there is an alternative to Hamas. Instead, the settler violence I the West Bannk tells folks that whatever you do, you are screwed. And at that point a blaze of glory might just sound right. And off we go to another round of bloodshed. Because we cannot think beyond an eye for an eye. Unfortunately we have been blind for some time now.

Just to clarify, what you indicate as standard in your list are the extracts from counted cells? And the difference you see is e.g. between B1 and B2, which contains template from the same sample? If the difference are all >35, you are likely looking at noise (again, check the curve to verify). However if they are e.g. 30 and 35, and nothing is suspicious with your MM, then the most likely candidate are pipetting errors of the template. Is there a trend (i.e. is the first typically higher/lower than the other) or is it random? As part of your SOP, are you using low-biding filter tips?

Well, ultimately what has to happen is that the voices of consensus builders are elevated. I.e. having the Likud and Hamas in power (and by now it has been extensively discussed how Netanyahu's anti-two state strategy has empowered Hamas) the cycle of violence is likely only to continue. The other aspect is the one of outcome. Sure killing folks now eliminates them as immediate risk, but with a longer view it is abundantly clear that this also creates a vast (international) recruitment ground for Hamas and their allies. I am not saying that doing nothing is a great strategy, but we also know that a violent outburst is not solving things easier (just take a look at the US wars in the Middle East). I think the Israeli policy of isolating the West Bank is also not to be underestimated as an issue, specifically the state-supported settler violence: https://www.npr.org/2023/11/14/1212836719/ex-idf-soldier-calls-for-international-intervention-to-stop-settler-violence In other word, the discussion cannot only be about the current violence, but also the paths leading to it. Again, a blame game about who is justified to what level of violence just reinforces bloodshed. The system that has been implemented supposedly to protect Israel, clearly have failed and there is little reason to assume that escalating the violence will improve situations. As many folks have stated, this is similar to the US lashing out after 9/11 and as expected, we fail to learn from past lessons.

Normally some standard DNA/QC for QA/QC is in place to ensure that the qPCR works as expected. However, rather than just looking at pos/neg, it is often worthwhile to have a more concentrated standard (e.g. synthetic target DNA) and run a dilution series to establish PCR efficiency. This is more important for quantitative approaches, but variation in batches of master mixes or probes are not that rare. So if you have minor changes in PCR efficiency, and you are operating near detection limits anyway it might not be that unusual that you dip in and out of the detection range (and anything >40 is almost certainly a false positive). In that context it is important to consider is that we are not looking at a normal, but rather a Poisson distribution which is limited by sample volume (roughly speaking you might have have somewhere between 1-20 copies in your reaction). Since you use FAM you won't have melt curves, but you could plot the fluorescence data to see whether you amplification or perhaps issues with noise which might justify a shift in thresholding. I.e. check the whether you can see an exponential signal and where it sits relative to the noise. Considering that you are using a fixed starting material and have established protocols, one would expect fairly consistent results, but of your Ct of your actual samples also is around 30-35 it suggests that out of 13 million host cells you get somewhere around 1-100 Mycos, if I understand you correctly. Is that expected?

Seems like a convoluted way to state that all extant species have a common ancestor somewhere. And the helping hand is a combination of selection and chance. The main issue is the direction, i.e. the assumption that it is guided toward something.

*Sigh* need to make faster progress on the time machine, then.

This is also highlighted in the New Yorker piece here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/11/the-inside-story-of-microsofts-partnership-with-openai It is a bit worrisome that a company initially set up for ethical AI development combats attempts to develop a governance system for it. It looks like openai is going down the Google "don't be evil" path. Move fast, break things and let others pay for it.

You can read up the interpretation of CIs here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_interval Specifically: A 95% confidence level does not mean that 95% of the sample data lie within the confidence interval. A 95% confidence level does not mean that there is a 95% probability of the parameter estimate from a repeat of the experiment falling within the confidence interval computed from a given experiment.[16] Because a) in terms of safety we only look for certain defined endpoints (e.g. death, cancer, etc.) so potential other effects can be easily missed, and b) experiments are set up to test the null (i.e. no effect) so it is not really possible to calculate the likelihood of no effect. For the extremes and for short term you can establish a measure of safety (i.e. no one dying within 6 months of taking a medication). But if you want to look all effects (liver, kidney, inflammation, immune modulation, cardiovascular health, and so on) or for effects in the long term, confounders will have an increasingly bigger role (such as diet, lifestyle, age, health status etc.). Controlling for all these factors is near impossible (there would be a near infinite list to track for each person). I brought up the issue of diet, which had over the years huge cohorts and long-time data, but the effects have not been reproducible.