CharonY

In that case I will condemn the actions of moderators out of principle. I know you stole my box of cheese nips and replaced it with painted cardboard.

What EdEarl said. In addition, 3D printing usually involves the deposition of only one substrate and electron beam lithography is more like etching something out of a substrate. However, a cell has thousands and thousands of different components that cannot be broken down to a common monomer. Thus even if we knew precisely what we need to create a viable cell (which we don't) we would also have an idea how to deposit thousands of different proteins, sugars, lipids etc. at a given position in space.

I think in order to be able to properly discuss it, one has to frame it more precisely. I.e. what is really meant with loving oneself and how does it differ from the proposed "neutral" self esteem? This appears to be a bit pop-psycho and I wonder how it is phrased in actual literature. What I gather from these and similar phrases appears to be that one has to be at peace with oneself. In this context I interpret loving oneself not as being on the higher percentile of the range of self-esteem (potentially bordering the area of narcissism), but rather being within a broad distribution that you termed "neutral". There is (as expected) quite a bit of complexity. For example, self esteem is generally categorized in implicit (i.e. automatic self evaluation) and explicit self-esteem, which is a more conscious self reflection. Both extremes can exist in the same person. Narcissistic personality disorder is generally associated with high explicit self-esteem, but it has been argued that this, in fact masks low-implicit self esteem (e.g. Kernberg 1985 "Borderline conditions and pathological narcissm"). Either extreme can lead to issues in social interactions as one tends to be more involved with oneself and ones inner turmoil rather than with the significant other. I think what this phrase really tries to express is that one is OK with the faults and issues one might have. Think "love" in terms of accepting and understanding and it should about fit the bill.

Sounds like homework, goes to homework.

Cancer biomarkers are quite an issue. The problem is that cancer metabolism is (for obvious reasons) not fundamentally different from regular cells. Since we do not know very well the function and active range of any given protein in all our tissues of interest it is expected that the vast majority of identified biomarkers will be based on spurious associations and ultimately not be diagnostic. One of the important things to keep in mind is the specificity and sensitivity of the test, while the former tends to be the big issue. Even worse, even if some proteins at a given concentration range are found to be well associated with cancer, it does not necessarily provide sufficient practical information to inform on the correct therapeutic therapy. PSA is such an example, which appeared to be a decent marker fro prostrate cancer. However, several studies indicated that early diagnosis of this type of cancer does not lead to better therapeutic outcomes. It may be more important for more aggressive forms, however.

To be fair, this is a well-recognized issue in cancer research (discussed at least since the 80s) and numerous groups are involved in developing analytical methods to resolve (cancer) cell heterogeneity. It is less discussed in the medical area as MDs had no good tools to assess this issue and hence have no way to incorporate that into diagnostics/therapeutics. Now that single-cell analysis is getting traction I assume that after fixing some hitches more detailed information on basic cell heterogeneity will forthcoming in the near future.

If you manage to do that experimentally you are going to have your free pick of a tenured position in biology or biochemistry anywhere in the world.... Currently we are not able to re-create cell artificially from scratch. One of the major things we are able to do is e.g. exchanging the chromosomes (or complete nucleus in case of eukaryotes) but we still require a functional cell as basis.

Hopefully. However, if you insist on it being played on the back of a horse and in a swimming pool I am within my right to question whether you have studied it sufficiently.

The official language is Persian, but IIRC only about 50-60% of the population have it as their first language.

a) be creepy b) post about ways to revolutionize science based on thinking very hard for at most 10 minutes c) ridicule people who are less intelligent than you d) decide that c) applies to everyone e) cover poor understanding of topics with posts no less than 500 words f) use MS paint drawings in lieu of calculations g) demonstrate your superiority by calling other people stupid. Girls dig that. h) randomly call out straw man before anyone else does. That way you win the game. i) do none of the above j) bribery Edit: never correct your spelling. And never read what you just typed. Worked for me every tume.

Well, shape follows function and the molecular machinery in cells has evolved around the conformation of DNA. The advantages are, if you will, that the shape is the stable form under physiological conditions and allows for specific binding and interaction with proteins. That is not to say that a different shape would not allow it, but it would need enzymes that currently do not exist. Also note that the helix shape is only the case for short and free DNA in solution. In cells it is often heavily coiled and does not exhibit the perfect helical shape throughout a chromosome, for example. In fact, one can artificially manipulate DNA to various shapes (see DNA origami), but these of course cannot fulfill biological actions as native DNA.

For now we do not have a good idea how to do it without causing other problems. One target are e.g. telomers, which shorten with the lifetime of a cell. However, if they are allowed to persist it appears that abnormal cell growth may occur, potentially leading to tumors or cancer. As it stands, our bodies are constant change with a lot of trade-offs being made on the way. For complex organisms there does not appear to be a stable state (as imaginable for simple things like cells). From a mechanistic viewpoint we do not even have a theoretical approach.

Also, at the minimum one would have to specify the relationship of this species with existing ones. One would need to sequence the 16srRNA gene and proceed from there.

Wealthy nations are the one to benefit most from medical advances (not least because they can actually afford it). Increasing standard of living and education will arguably benefit more people, increase average life expectancy (e.g. by decreasing infant mortality). As an added side-effect this tends to decrease birth rates. Also I think that many medical advances are not really increasing our maximum life span (there is too much going into it) but rather keep us in better shape till the day we die.

Well, some Gram positives have a thick outer layer, which sometimes inhibits Gram staining. I have not heard about a Staphylococcus sp. to exhibit this, however (more commonly found in actinobacteria). In addition, they often also do not counterstain well. There are of course also halophilic Gram negatives, as well as other Gram positives. Sarcina has some halophilic members, some do not stain well and some are part of the skin flora. But I do not know off the top of my head whether there is one to which all of it applies.

It is not too bad for basic and general biochemistry. It will depend slightly on the use of the book, though. I assume it is for an introductory reading and as such I would agree with HI. Heck, I just realized that the biochem books I bought as an undergrad were even older...

Depends a bit on location and the water standards, though. If agencies such as EPA are there and enforce water standards, the water should be safe (or warnings will be issued if there are problems). This is not necessarily true for all countries. A worst issues with chlorination is usually the taste, which can be handled with a simple filter. It should also be noted that not all water sources are necessarily chlorinated (it depends on contamination risks, but is probably done more often than not). If one wanted to be really paranoid one should be wary of contamination of drinking water with unregulated chemicals released by industrial and agricultural activities.

Canada seems to be an example where the opposite is true (two languages, one country). Also there is a massive amount of nations in which English is taught as a second language. Should they go into the mix? It also appears to me that you assume that most people are monolingual, which is not the case in many countries. Language tells us about the history of a nation, but does not in itself necessarily reflect the rules set forth in a country via their constitution. These kind of rules and beliefs are easy enough to translate, if needed.

First of all, I would think that regardless of religion every leadership would be OK with lying and misleading if it serves their purposes and/or if it is to the benefit to the people they represent. The part about true believers appears to me to be an assertion more than anything else. I could make the same argument to Christianity, which actually calls for proselytizing (as opposed to Islam). With regards to the attitudes of Iranians, I am pretty sure there is better data out there. But one interesting tidbit from a BBC poll conducted 2004-2006, shows that the view of Iranians towards US influence is more positive (26% mainlly positive to 65 mainly negative) than the US view on Iranian influence (7% mainly positive, 81% mainly negative). Talking to Iranians it does appear that there is a clear distinction (at least among the better educated population) between certain US policies as opposed to Americans or the country as a whole.

Well, there are a lot of factors that determine contaminants, which may include airflow and humidity. Another thing to thing about is also what kind of plates and growth conditions are being used and whether they are slightly selective for either one. What you grow is not necessarily the only thing being on site. For example, if you have a fast growing bacterium but a slow growing fungus, there is a big chance that initially you will only see bacteria, whereas it may take a while until the fungi start growing visibly,

Image is not good enough to tell for sure. What you saw directly is probably a better way to guess (i.e. whether majority are round or slightly elongated in one dimension). It also helps if you see them diffusing through the droplet for a little time as rods seen from the front can appear to be perfectly round, but reveal their shape when they start drifting.

Neurology and neurobiology are quite separate career paths. What you need to take for either depends a lot on where you are (i.e. which country). You do have it backwards, though. You would have to think what kind of job you want to have and thing about what degrees (if any) you need to get there. Also a neuroscientist is not a well-defined career goal per se, There are for example academic positions as well as industrial ones (though I am not sure what types of position there are in these areas). A medical career has quite different requirements, mostly aimed at getting into med school in the first place. Just to reinforce, "scientist" is not well defined as a career goal, and especially outside academia (though to a certain degree it is also true within) a science degree holder is often not a bench scientist or may not be actively involved in research. Think more in terms of project managers. But I would think that you would have to sketch out the vague direction (medical/non-medical etc.) take some courses, look at job offers on science job websites, go to job fairs etc. to find a career that suits you.

Pretty much no.

The article lacks in detail to really make an assessment, but what little is being provided does not convince me at all. E.g. it is asserted that meteorites brought lipids to Earth and resulted in the encapsulation of biomolecules. I am not too familiar with the research in that area, but from what I understand, the amount of lipid-like compounds (afaik no one really extracted significant amounts of lipids from meteorites...) would be minuscule. I am not convinced (without further data) that even at the proposed time scales it may have happened as described. I would like to see some calculations about the timescales needed at a given dilution factor to have the assembly happen. Maybe there is some data out there that I am not familiar with (again, not really my field), but from what I can see right now it appears that a thick primordial soup is more an assertion rather based on any evidence. But if there was some more evidence I am happy to change my view.

Our perception is nothing more than the recreation of reality in our brain based on a limited number of inputs. Even mundane things (cups, pencil, whatever) are recreated in your brain to get a good enough approximation so that you can interact with it. Get different types of receptors, things appear different. Have lesions in your brain in the relevant areas, perception changes again. We have working models of our environment. Nothing more, nothing less.