CharonY

It somewhat annoys me that in these kind of reports use "feeding" for respiration as well as nutrient acquisition. Obviously, neither metals nor silicates can provide biomass. Reduced metals could be electron donors, but the question would be what the acceptor would be (respiration). And pure silicates won't do at all.

Demanding context-free discussions pretty much precludes the educated and emphasizes the opinion part.

I suppose you are referring to the small cans used to dust off computers and suchalike? They typically contain difluorethane (a refrigerant) rather than actually compressed. It is slightly toxic, but the label is probably just a general precaution to avoid cold damage (but you would have to dump a lot on it). But as Bignose said, it is pretty hard to harm yourself with it (except maybe trying to swallow the bottle whole).

This discussion is pointless as it discusses not a religion per se, but followers of the religion and then even some random subset at an arbitrary point in time. As others have pointed out, there are so many different islamic countries and societies that a true discussion has to be much more in-depth and cannot be boiled down to Christianity vs Islam. Many things affecting societal values are cannot simply be reduced to one thing, even if it is as influential as religion. For example, it appears that the general conception is that Islam prevents women's rights. But look for example at voting rights. In Iran and Afghanistan they were allowed to vote in 1963, but in Switzerland it took almost a decade longer. But since then in Afghanistan things changed dramatically. So if even within a country values and rights change dramatically without a radical change in religion, how can you expect to be able to distill it down to that simple factor?

Nor did I ever claimed it to be. However, in an earlier comment you stated: Yet an observer of that time clearly showed the opposite. While many moved for other reasons, contrary to your claim quite a number of, Palestinians who did not flee were chased out. And obviously that also means that those that have not been actively ejected, may have fled to precisely avoid that. That, in turn shows that your narrative that you are trying to spin does not conform to the actual events. It is estimated that around 80% of Palestinians left or were removed from their homes. Likewise various studies and estimates point to (near) total destruction of quite a number of Palestinian settlements, concurrent with land gain by Israel. That is the 1948 exodus, btw. The 1967 exodus has a report from the UN which describes forcible eviction following the 6-day war. The fact that Palestinians still remain does not equate the fact that they did not remove Palestinians from their home. In fact, a critical person would wonder why they became a minority in the first place. Just for perspective, Nazi-Germany had definitely an active murder program targeted at Jews (and others). However, at the end of the war there were still had Jewish survivors living in Germany (in hiding or married to non-Jews). Estimates put the survivor rate at a mere 10%. But obviously, looking back one cannot take the survivors as an example that no targeted program ever existed against Jews in Germany.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_exodus:

The thing is that ivy leagues typically have more excellent students than they can accept. Extra-curricular activities are just the cherry on top to distinguish yourself from all the other equally excellent students. If you are not competitive in that regard, there is little that extras could do.

Note that the current evidence is quite weak and likely spurious. That is not to say that there are no interactions, but they are more likely do complex metabolic interactions rather than targeted manipulations as in cases of other parasites.

Solved is a bit strong considering that it is only a model. It is an interesting hypothesis at this point.

Well 1) has not been resolved yet and is still very much an estimate. For 2+3 I would simply go to the indicated databases and perform a search and limit it to Homo sapiens as qualifier. That should give you the number based on what is in the given database. One should note that not all experimental evidence is equal. Some entries are based on sequence similarity based on evidence in other organisms (which may or may not be accurate). Or some evidence is very weak (though it would take a lot of digging to figure it out).

Or looking back at existing data which clearly show a shift in demographics as well as causes of death. Ten years in these kind of studies are insufficient to filter out noise.

CGI can be made very well and subtle. The good ones are those that one does not notice in the first place (often in the background, removing items/ropes etc.). However, there are far too many movies that just go overboard with because they are cheaper than real sets. A realistic skyscraper? Naah make it hundred times larger and copy/paste a gazillion of them all over the place. It is supposed to look futuristic anyway. A scary group of a dozen or so orc? Naaah, make them hundreds. What? there is not enough space, then just copy them to the walls and ceiling.

There are many things. Incubation period is typically not critical per se, but the thing about Ebola is that during that time people are not infectious. Spread can be facilitated if people are contagious while being presymptomatic. This is e.g. the case for many STDs but also a number of (often bacterial) infections including Bordetella pertussis. Another aspect would be slow progression, so that people do not die quickly after being symptomatic, for example. Then there is the transmission rate (which is also fairly low for Ebola) and also the specificity of symptoms.

There are many ways to approach this. But the simplest is to make calibration curve of the peroxidase (how can you do that simply?) and then transfer that approach to an experiment where you add the immunoassay.

I fully agree with that.

I think ebola is of significant local concern, but much less on a global scale. The reasons being: - it has a very aggressive progression which actually limits undetected spread - it is not that easily transmissible and require quite some extensive contact with body fluids (transient contact does poses a very low risk) On the opposite side influenza has a much higher spread, but lower fatality rate. Yet, due to the sheer amount of infections fatality estimates even in highly developed nations such as the USA have higher yearly fatalities. In other words, the very thing that currently makes Ebola so scary (high fatality rate, aggressive) is currently limiting its potential to spread. Due to its relatively low reservoir (in humans at least) there may be also a smaller potential to get nastier, but I would have to do some more reading to be able to evaluate that...

And depending on how old they get, it may be more than one point.

Funny bit is that the last quote given from Barfbag was based on that reference and virtually stated what I posted (repeatedly) earlier. Reading and comprehending are two different things, it seems. But I do applaud the willingness to learn about it (assuming that one really does read upon it rather than filtering websites through ones own bias). That would include informing oneself about the role of pain receptors in the Thurnberg illusion and getting a better idea what "hot" in this context actually means (and why the attempt at backpedalling does not make much physiological sense). This is indeed part of the whole system. Sensors react to stimuli but then the actual transmission circuits which ultimately determine how and which part of the brains are reached cause the actual sensation. This is why mechanisms such as the Thurnberg illusion are quite interesting as it helps deciphering low to midlevel interactions within these pathways. Identifying the actual sensors and stimuli they react to (which is often curiously unspecfic)is typically the easy part. But how they interact can be quite tricky to figure out.

It is funny since the quote you have just restates what I wrote earlier in a more compact form (you bolded the less relevant part): Your misunderstanding is based on the fact that you seem to confuse the Thurnberg phenomenon with how normal (heat) pain sensing works. If you re-read your quote you will see that the illusion is based on a disinhibitation in that particular setup. Just trying to make it clear: your claim is that pain is due to activation of heat and cold sensing at the same time. This is a slightly misunderstanding of how the Thurnberg illusion works, but the illusion is, in turn, not the way the pain perception normally works. The latter is based on direct activation of nociceptors. You see, the issue is not that you lack the knowledge to understand complex processes like these. The problem is that you half-guess your way through and present these as established facts. For example in the last post again: Yet another bold claim, in which you equate the mechanism of the Thurnberg illusion to yet a different situation. But note the following: if your claim was correct, the pain would be the result of hot and cold receptors being triggered (which, as has been established by now, is not how the Thurnberg illusion actually works, either). Yet here you have a sequential situation. The Thurnberg on the other hand, requires both stimuli at the same time (as that tricks the circuit to trigger the nociceptors). Here, the change of temperature is now the source of pain. The snow ball situation is actually a far more complex problem and IIRC a quite a bit of the pain is actually based on vasoconstriction and relaxation thereof (though I am not familiar with precise pathways myself and I am pretty sure that quite a bit more is involved). Again, the core of the matter is that lack of expertise made you believe that these rather complex mechanism are trivial and hence, justify your claims. The truth of the matter is that the actual mechanisms are far more complex (and many parts also beyond my expertise) and even experts would be hesitant in declaring things with that certainty that you do (or maybe it is the Kruger Dunning effect in action?).

The difference is that the Palestinians lived in the area now held by Israel. Yet they are only allowed movement in a part of the country. One of the original demands was the right to return to their original settlements/property prior to the 1948 (and 1967) exodus. No similar situation exists with Egypt.

Even 30+ years ago they did not state it as strongly as OP did 2014 (i.e. they hypothesized that this may be the case, among other possibilities, but lacking evidence and knowledge they did not present it as fact within the community).

Actually that is a myth (albeit a popular one). At that time the Spaniards already had potatoes. More interestingly there have been genetic studies and I believe that they were able to trace the origin someplace Peru. But my memory is hazy and I may mixed up the precise location. Definitely South America, though.

Yes, a pressure cooker comes close, though it tend not to maintain the pressure as stable or as high. I.e. the claim that a pressure cooker would work equally or even better is simply wrong. Some commercial heavy duty, regulated pressure cookers may come close, though I would still be uncertain. The exception would be very very old, leaky and crappy manual autoclaves a few decades old and a shiny new heavy duty pressure cooker with excellent pressure control. But I would not call that a proper comparison.

Typically that is not enough for quantitative sterilization. I.e. you kill almost everything but what is left may start growing again. Typically an autoclave or something similar is needed to sterilize liquids. Filter sterilization (0.2 um) can also work, provided you do not have spores or some of the more exotic but tiny buggers.

Maintaining a pure culture can be tricky and there is always the chance that you cultivate something undesirable and spray it on yourself... Typically the medium is spent after a while unless you have system that drains old and replenishes new under sterile conditions To minimize that one could use a minimal medium that at least partially inhibits growth of other bacteria, but I do not any off the top of my head. You would need the means to sterilize the medium, though. In short, unless you do invest somewhat in creating a bacterial cultivation system and media it is likely not going to work well. It is trickier than cultivating yeast.