CharonY

Ah, but what about the "drunk urination" problem?

I would prefer to be intelligent enough to pursue happiness rather than misery.

Pain tolerance is also a matter of habituation. People can become stress tolerant by being exposed to pain. How much genetic factors may play into it I do not know, but available studies at least suggest that habituation certainly modulates pain perception.

Any evidence for this claim,. considering processed is quite a broad term.

I would use more precise language here as the chlorophylls themselves are not doing the water-splitting or providing electrons. The whole PSII complex is required, with the components playing interconnected roles. The release of electrons occurs at the oxygen evolving complex, for example at the manganese (not magnesium) core. I.e. oxygen release does not happen on the chlorophylls at all. A more detailed explanation: Dark adapted PSII is in S1, first charge separations leads to oxidized P680 and reduced plastoquinone PQB (i.e. P680+/PQB-). Then electron from the OEC reduces P680 and the becomes to the above mentioned +3 +4 +4 +4 +4 manganese configuration (from +3 +3 +4 +4 at S1). Thus, during the first charge separation the oxidation state of P680 only changes for short amount of of time, whereas the OEC remains until the next step.

That is not quite the correct way to think about it. The charge separation is photon-driven and is best understood using the Kok model (and denoted as S-states). The primary electron donor is P680 and during each photon-driven charge separation event one electron is extracted from the Mn4CaO5 cluster and transferred towards a mobile plastiquinone over a series of intermediate acceptors. Water binding occurs during the transition between S2 to S3 (i.e. when the four Mn oxidation states go from +3 +4 +4 +4 to +4 +4 +4 +4). After one additional excitation the transient S4 state is reached and O-O bonding occurs and an additional H2O binds to move to S0. The role of the pigment is essentially to collect the energy from the photons to allow the oxidation of the reaction center to occur. You may want to look up resonance energy transfer for details on that. In other words, the electron transfer is not primarily through the chlorophylls and other pigments, but they facilitate it. For the more general question about electron transfer between molecules, most models indicate facilitated tunneling processes (i,.e. classic Marcus theory), during which donor and acceptor sites are brought in close proximity.

In addition to what others already said, any large body of water is likely to dilute the components too much to allow biochemical reactions to be happening. One role of membranes is to confine compounds to a smaller volume.

Initially chromophores had their color because their function required a certain structure/composition, which in turn has specific absorption spectra. The use of colors as signaling came around much later.

But is it a fake or a real sculpture?

Depends on composition a bit. But as a rule of thumb sterile media can be stored about 4-6 weeks for complete mixes (i.e.including serum and other supplements). The basic medium tends to be good for a bit longer. Commercial media usually have an expiry date. For self-made ones without any sensitive supplements a few months are likely to work, but then with cell cultures I would rather make fresh media rather than risk messing up cultures.

This also nicely illustrates the point of scientific publications. It is not about making yourself known (if your discovery is significant it will do that over time, though), but to give the community the opportunity to scrutinize and also criticize your results and provide a broader context. Quite some people (also on this board) seem not to understand that part.

I am not sure what you would consider to be fitness, but many activity-related assays are a bit more involved and I would think that the presence of bacteria would skew results. The simplest I can think off the top of my head are live/dead stains just to make sure that the macrophages are still alive, but I am not sure whether that is what you have in mind.

Darwin is a good example of scientific correspondence. The idea of natural selection did not suddenly emerge from Darwin's mind nor was he alone in the development of it. The impression is mostly due to the fact that he published a book on the topic first and created precedence. It is well known that there were serious exchange between him, Lyell, Hooker and Huxley on that topic, and I believe Hooker was first to realize that Wallace came to similar conclusion as Darwin based on existing evidence. Wallace and Darwin then started conversations that led to at least one back-to-back publication of essays on the topic prior to the publication of Darwin's book. This is in fact a good example how science usually works. I.e. it is rarely the isolated work of a single person, but innovations often depend on many lines of investigation. The one putting them together in a comprehensive way gets the credit, but assuming that they did it in isolation is the rarest of exceptions.

DNA tests generally involve the amplification of diagnostic loci via PCR. These methods are very sensitive and considering the pool of DNA a single straw should have more than enough material to detect whether any of the chromosomes carry the allele in question.

But that is precisely the point, they were not alone. Virtually all scientists rely on the information that has been done before them and new theories tend to be evolution of existing ones. Some scientists just become more prominent because of a variety of reasons. A favorite example of mine is the discovery of the DNA structure. While everybody knows Watson and Crick it should be noted that Franklin actually managed to get the X-ray diffraction done. If you want to make the dressmaker analogy, the dressmaker does not make the dress out of nothing. You got people make the cloth, you have certain types of stitches established by others etc. Especially in bio it is hardly possible to make any decent progress with small experiments. The only areas where individuals are doing most of the heavy lifting are probably in certain areas of theoretical physics and mathematics.

I would think that being that famous Einstein would be an outlier in most regards. But I would presume that whether he is arrogant in a given situation would dependent highly on the form of interaction. As would be the case for pretty much everyone. I would thing. Whether something is perceived as arrogant is clearly situation dependent and also depends highly on the social skills of the person(s) involved. It would be strange to assume that a genius would be someone who would constantly tout his/her mental superiority, for example. It requires being a specific kind of idiot to do so. As others have already said, a connection between those features is strenuous at best.

Well animals, at least do share laughter (Davila Ross et al. Curr Biol. 2009 Jul 14;19(13):1106-11.). Figuring out humor is a bit trickier as it is not that easily measured.

Well, as ajb mentioned, the paper is usually only interesting once you get a conclusion based on experiments, for example. Ending with a hypothesis will not get many people interested. Developing an approach is slightly better and may fit into something akin to a grant application (though certainly does not merit a research paper). That requires highly specific sets of experiments being described. Writing a research paper to develop the hypothesis is kind of backwards.

Both terms would be wrong. The reason being that there is no mixing going, as CaptainPanic aptly described. Diffusion is going on, but it is so slow that it has no impact. Again, as mentioned earlier, due to the high viscosity you get laminar flow (i.e. parallel layers with no turbulence). Alternatively you could scale the system down into very small dimensions and you get the same effect without increasing viscosity.

These kind of extrapolation are unfortunately the byproduct of partial knowledge on the subject. Anaerobic bacteria are a problem once they get in tissue, you do not need ischemia or anything for them to persist. Clostridia are one of the main problems after transplantation since their spores are so hard to get rid off. If they embed themselves nicely in tissue they can cause a lot of damage because, as everyone is saying here, the tissue is not really aerated. In fact, if OP's claim were true, clostridia or any other anaerobic pathogens would be unable to infect and kill their hosts unless the host had some sort blood vessel problems. This is simply ridiculous and ignores for example the well-known fact that many anaerobes are part of the normal human flora. They live in many parts of the body, including areas that appear to be well-aerated (mucous membrane of mouth and throat, for example). Again, the reason being that local oxygen concentrations are low (often due to biological activities). Heck, pulmonary infections are often cause by anaerobes including Fusobacterium and Bacteroides. Then there are the vast amount of intracellular pathogens that just live inside host cells. Why? Because there is not a lot of oxygen to go around. If you think carefully, the way the tissue is built up and limits to diffusion rate and the involved binding and release of oxygen to heme groups and compare it to respiration rates, it should become quite obvious that most of the body is, in fact not oxygen saturated. In summary, putting pathogenic bacteria deep into the body is calling for trouble, anaerobe or not.

I do not think that anyone is thinking about pushing people to do science if they do not want to. But I wonder why in some countries less females perform better than their peers. Or why they receive half of the doctorate (which should indicate that they have interest in science) but only 20 odd% are professors. Family wishes could be a point, but is it that they (for some reasons) lose their interest to go back to science (which is fine) or is it that the system makes it impossible to return once you decide to have children? I have seen quite a few successful couples doing science and raising children, and it usually involves both parents taking turns. And again, the "just make sure it is what you really want" is just what gender stereotyping criticizes. The assumptions is basically that by promoting the assumption that women are doing worse in science, you make them believe that this is not what they want. I believe the inverse, i.e. that somehow women are forced to chase a science career is more of a non-issue. And let me talk openly for a bit now: higher in the hierarchy there is gender bias. No one will admit to it, but especially in male dominated areas (which is almost all of science), after a few beers and no females present some will let things slip that indicate that they expect women to stay home and take care of kids. This is not bad if that is what their wives want BUT it also spills over to female colleagues who may not be interested in having kids or even those that are single. You will here much often a (in my opinion somewhat sexist) comment that young female researcher should find a husband and/or get kids rather whereas for the young male researcher the pep talk involves sacrifice your time and life for science. In do not believe that any of that is done with any malicious intent, but it is a simple fact that people tend to use their life as reference point. And if you have a management that is male dominated with wives at home, the assumption is that this should be the norm. But it can make things unnecessarily difficult for women who actually do not want to confer to this stereotype. FWIW I do believe things are changing somewhat. It is now also OK for males to stay home and watch the kids, for example and I think the attitude as a whole to gender roles may be in for a change.

Well there is no cold virus per se, but a range of viruses (and bacteria, actually) that can cause symptoms associated with cold. Rhinovirus is probably one of the most common viruses involved. There are some studies on rhinoviruses. Shattar et al. (Can J Microbiol. 1987 Sep;33(9):802-6.) placed their survival from rhinovirus suspended in nasal discharge to about 0.09-0.25 h, depending on relative humidity. Viruses are essentially protein encased nucleic acids and many are not terribly resilient. However, there are exceptions, including norovirus, which can survive on dry surfaces for an extended time.

Send it to me. I am not sure what your doomsday device is and how it works, but I am pretty sure that adding a few lasers on it will not hurt. The wrong people I mean.

At the level of a technician that is not an issue. Depending on the system that may even open up more possibilities (including instructor positions), if the unis in your area have them. Research commitment at that level is not a biggie. Again, it is more an issue if you are going down towards the faculty route, but you are still far away from it. The same goes towards being a student. It is not really a career at this point. You see, most people would just see grades at this point, maybe a letter of recommendation and that is about it (most PhD students barely know how to handle a pipettor). If you can demonstrate good abilities in teaching (e.g. an evaluation sheet) that could actually paint you in a more positive light than the majority of candidates. Just to emphasize, technician, PhD and even postdoc are not really competitive positions (unless we talk about the high-flyer lab with weekly nature articles). There is little that can limit your chances there beside admission policies maybe. Edit: with not-competitive I meant in comparison to real jobs.

Well, I am in favor of understanding gender imbalance and I think that we will do a bad job addressing or knowing whether we have to address it. That being said, I still think that a good foundation in natural sciences will be to the benefit of most, regardless of the structure of the reproductive system. I also would like to focus on education rather than career for a moment, because early experiences in education will influence your career choice (how often have you heard that a student chose topic X because he/she thought they were good at it?) One of the most important things about science is that almost everything is skill based. You do not have to have a certain height or muscle mass. To become at least competent you really just have to invest time and practice. But what is the impact of societal factors such as e.g. of stereotyping? There are studies that indicate that stereotypes (girls are bad at math) may lower their performance (Beilock et aL PNAS 2009). I have to add that these findings are not uncontested. Also female kids actually can perform similarly as compared to boys as PISA studies have shown, but there are also countries with strong gender differences. Taking the 2009 study it shows for example that in 35 countries boys scored higher, in 25 there is no difference and in 5 girls showed higher abilities. So already on that level there is disparity but it does not appear to be biologica (I should also add that in countries in which girls performed well they also often outperform boys in other countries eith larger gender gaps). What I am saying is that if there is a possibility that we as society cause one half of our population have lower interest in "hardcore" sciences we should figure out why. There are also other issues when it comes to hiring for higher positions but that is probably good for another post. .