CharonY

What this tells us is that it does not require huge amount of genetic information for a vast biological diversity. To give some numbers: a human has around 25,000 genes. A single-celled simple bacterium already has about 4000. There is not a lot of difference between that, considering the vast difference in complexity. With regards to your other question, the number of similarity depends a bit on the metrics, but it is pretty much clear that they are our closest extant relatives and it also makes it abundantly clear that we are primates. Note that not only genes are relevant, but also non-coding regions (i.e. DNA loci that do not code for proteins). Still, it shows that we are not vastly different from all the other animals and highlighted our common ancestry. It also shows that the notion that humans are something vastly different from all the other animals are false. Below the species level we do not have a clear biological distinction, i.e. we are unable to just look at genetics and draw out clearly human races. As such most regard race as an arbitrary classification scheme that can be useful for categorizing in certain contexts, but it does not hold universal biological values.

It depends on organism and growth phase. For eukaryotes the most precise assertion is that chromatids contain a single DNA molecule. The definition are slightly loose, due to historic reasons I presume. Prior to the S-phase the chromsome has only one DNA molecule, but after replication it consists of two chromatids. What may be confusing is that most of the time chromatids is only referred to the sister chromosomes after duplication, but when they separate they are often not referred to as chromatids anymore, but as chromosomes.

Bioaccumulation is just another term for long-term build up in a biological context. Continuous exposure will lead to increased values in tissues. Most metals should pass the brain-blood barrier with similar efficiency as most other cations (I know of studies with lead and iron, less certain about detailed values for others). Heavy meal exposure can take different forms and depends highly on the metal. Outside occupational or catastrophic exposures ingestion is probable the most common route.

As I said, the actions are very diverse, they may interfere with the action of certain proteins, cause oxidative stress etc. In some cases the actions may be direct or in others indirect. It is not trivially to locate where the metals actually interact with in vivo. E.g. you could just throw a protein and a metal together and figure out whether they associate closely but that tell you little about the actions in the body. For example in rats lead studies have shown altered binding of NMDA receptors to their cognate targets. For some it decreases binding, in others it increases. More likely targets for heavy metal binding are enzymes that normally interact with similar ions (i.e. where the binding site may actually be similar to a heavy metal ion). In cases for Pb 2+ this may include divalent ion channels (such as for Ca2+). If you are thinking in terms of receptors for neurotransmitters I think the affinity would be rather low and would require concentrations at which far worse damage would already be done.

Moreover, the key are not the techniques that differentiate alchemy from modern sciences, but the understanding of the underlying mechanisms or processes. Newer technologies are likely to change the actual protocols and may make certain reactions obsolete. However, the knowledge of nature of the molecules is likely not to be fundamentally revised.

Echoing what Arete said, I assume not many would even know what AFLP stands for. I also do feel that it is a bit old-fashioned and newer techniques have made it a bit obsolete. But to your question: assuming you avoid start activity 8h at RT should be fine, though I would aim to maintain the same time in case one has to start troubleshooting. Since the reaction should be in equilibrium further incubation at 4C should also not be too detrimental, that is always assuming no contamination. The reason for higher temp and shorter time is usually that you can process the samples faster and reduce the risk of some accidents/contamination/whatever on the way. That being said, if there is a contamination 2h at 37C are likely to end as bad. I would avoid freezing if you process the samples in a timely fashion, as freeze-thawing can reduce sample quality. I would set up a time plan that either utilizes the short protocol for immediate processing, or the o/n one with processing directly next day. If that is for some reason not possible, put it at 4C. But I would always recommend having a tight experimental plan in which samples are all processed quickly to save you time. Edit: this is of course assuming relatively standard restriction enzymes and appropriate DNA:enzyme ratios etc.

Heavy metals are removed from the body naturally, but at a slow rate. The results are the half-lives of years (in terms of persistence and not to be confused with half-life in terms of stability). For these reasons heavy metals can bioaccumulate (i.e. if you take in more than your body can remove in that time frame). There are generally no specific ways to accelerate that, though there are measure for acute high-level toxic intakes (mostly trying to get it out of your gut before more gets absorbed.. Once the metals get into your tissue, there is fairly little that can be done knowledge. The way they cause harm are, as mentioned above, manifold and there is not a specific target of toxic effects.

If memory serves it is a siderophore? In that case you could consider a simple CAS (chrome azurol S) assay. Provided as John mentioned that you do not have too much in terms of interfering substances.

On the high school level I would say that it does not make a terrible much of a difference as the material will only be taught in a relatively superficial level. I would probably chose the teacher who is more knowledgeable and interest in the topic he/she teaches.

Are you aware of the difference between climate and weather?

Without cooking, agar pretty much ends up as precipitate. One could try to split suspensions (after vigorous stirring) , and with complex medium it tends not to be that critical. I have never tried to freeze medium though, now that I think about it (fridge would not last long for rich media, though).

All evidence point to yes. For some perspective according to wiki the CO2 emission per capita 2012 is 7.1k tons for China, 1.6 (!) for India and 16.4 for the US. There is still some catching up to do for those large countries.

Could work for a certain time, though re-heating agar changes its qualities slightly (especially with very cheap agar pouring plates with re-heated medium can be a bit iffy). Again, for routine cultivation it would work for some time, do not expect quantitative reproducibility.

Very very odd advice in this thread. One major thing to do to increase mental capacity is reading. You want to remember something? Get interested in it. Increase oral skills? Join a debate club or just talk with someone about advanced topics. Studies on students taking a variety of drugs that are supposed to help them focus have shown little to no benefits in terms of test scores. Another thing to note is that the ability to cram (memorize) facts will help you through exams, but believe me, they are not that relevant as you may think they are. If you want to study physics. get into physics text books. If you have genuine interest and devote time to it in trying to understand some fundamentals (rather than memorizing them) you will have a leg up over easily 80% of your fellow students.

Depends on when you intend to use the rest. The dishes could get contaminated over time or simply dry out, so you cannot store them indefinitely. If you want to measure it out you have to ensure that the powder is well mixed, which is a bit tricky. For routine cultivation that should not be that big of an issue, but if you want to perform quantitative assays, I would rather use everything.

Among microbiologists there is a joke with regards to antibacterial soaps. How do you call cheap antibacterial soap? -Soap. Really, just washing hands (regardless of types of soap) has shown great benefits, but in many hospitals adherence to hygiene protocols are lax. In private households the overuse of Among alternatives to antibiotics it appears that phage therapy, with all its issues appears to be furthest in actual use. Other alternatives (such as sortase inhibitors) are currently of unknown therapeutic value.

Depends a lot on the type of presentation under consideration. For that matter, providing context is always a good start.

If you read the abstract (if you cannot access the full article) it appears that there is quite a variance in how they do it, which indicates a somewhat learned behavior. At least one of them appears to have figured out that it only really works during nest building season (thus reinforcing the lure aspect over potential camouflage).

Well, bottom line is that the use of metabolite creation in organisms only works well if the compound of interest is a protein, that is not modified much and can be produced and extracted effectively from the host. Alternatively, the metabolite is already present in the organism or only requires minute modification to regular (usually secondary) metabolism without disrupting too much. While the technical steps are well understood, finding the right targets is a matter of much ongoing research (i.e. the time investment to figure out whether it works at all is quite substantial, much less the actual realization). Setting up this kind of research requires significant amount of funding, too. And by now most companies (after an initial hype roughly in the late 90s) have shied away from these programs (with very few exceptions that already have sunk a lot of money) or have outsourced it to unis. Also as I alluded in my first post, chances are you mean organic compounds....

It is not quite that trivial. The uptake of amino acids in form of digested proteins (i.e. peptides) can differ quite from pure amino acids. We have essentially evolved to utilize proteins as a nutrient but are not quite as well in utilizing pure amino acids (some metabolic studies showed differences in utilization of different protein sources and amino acid supplements). On top of that (and note that I am no expert on it) it appears that the regulation of protein/amino acid uptake and metabolism can be somewhat dependent on the way it is taken up, but I do not know whether there are detrimental effects. Overall there has been various attempts (usually from the industrial sector) to break down food into its constituents and rebuild it to create artificial food or nutrient supplements (baby food is an obvious example). The issue is that rarely it provides benefits over regular healthy diets. In cases were essential components were missed (e.g. lack of taurine in baby food) or when pure components were utilized differently the results could be detrimental. With regards to risks, it is not clear whether protein intake is a higher risk factor than anything else we eat. From a clinical viewpoint carbohydrate are properly the highest risk, considering the diseases and issues associated with it. Food allergies appear to be rising, but that is obviously not due to dietary reasons (i.e. if it was our food, we would expect it to be fairly constant).

This is the picture from the paper. They use it as a lure (nesting material) and not as camouflage (they are rather log-like while drifting, anyway).

I fail to see how it is an advantage or categorize societies into different groups and assign them positions within those. Why should background matter? Should you not become a carpenter if you enjoy the work but come from a white-collar family? Shouldn't education not enrich everyone's life regardless of actually applicability to a certain career? Should we not provide children the opportunity to succeed in whatever they want to achieve regardless of where they come from? And doesn't require to teach them the opportunities that exist? I think there is a strong romanticized view of the "impoverished" working class present in the post that is a bit remote from reality. Certain working class jobs have a better salary than academics for example (certainly so early in the career), so I do not think that income is a big issue here. The background of a person forms his/her history but should not determine his/her future.

Potato

In your description you are missing oogenesis. The primary oocyte is diploid, but then matures into the haploid ovum (via secondary oocyte).

These assays are useful and I know of a number of approaches that try to automate this. For the clinical settings a number of aspects are relevant. It requires to have a readout that is easy to interpret for non-microbiologists, it has to be accurate and reproducible and the workflow must be fairly straightforward with little room for mistakes. Usually the new approaches tend to be a bit rough on the last part. Fundamentally there is the issue that during an infection smears can have a mix of bacteria with different resistance profiles, therefore the workflow ideally should also answer what bacteria there are so that the most pathogenic ones can be targeted first (though usually abundance itself is also a fair indicator).