CharonY

As an update to the Syrian chemical weapon stocks: Source

It should also be added that the sugar found in e.g. apple is not purely fructose, though it reaches around 50% of the total (simple) sugar content. Other sugars do include gluclose, sorbitol and sucrose, for example.

You are preaching to the choir here. Quiote a bit of my work is in the area of proteomics and single cell analysis and there is quite a lot of things going on that are hard to interpret. I am convinced that more fundamental cellular research is necessary before we can properly interpret and intervene in cancer processes. Unfortunately the funding agencies are more focused on the applied side. At least hypoxia investigations have gotten some traction lately, but I feel a more integrative approach is needed. That is probably quite a different discussion, however.

What? How do these two things relate to each other? We do have neuronal cell lines, which are clonal, but obviously this is quite a different goal than to clone an organism. To enucleate a neuron without damaging is likely to be trickier than a germ cell line, but again, what would be the purpose of it? If you want to have clones of a cell it is easier just to grow them. In addition to what Ringer said, also proteins for general metabolism, energy conservation etc.

This is blatant nonsense. You could use the same argument to argue that chimpanzees were made by aliens. In essence it is a proud display in failing entry-level genetics. But to answer OP: No.

To be fair, your description actually mixes different types of research directions. For example it is mostly microbiologists that look at biota, even in humans. There is certainly a certain overlap, depending on the aspects of human/microbiota interaction. Human genetics has usually different directions, some that may be medical, some that are not. But with few exceptions (a handful of groups maybe) there is little overlap. Also there is the question what you look at, e.g. genetics on the population level, or genetics on the molecular level. With regards to the the actual career, most fundamental biomedical research is conducted in universities. Some is done in companies, usually for applied research (including development of products). Research teams may contain technicians (usually master's degree) as well as researchers with a PhD. In academia there are few permanent positions that are mainly involved in research. Most tenured positions involve heavy teaching loads. And these are usually very competitive. Being actual in the lab tends to be a phase during your career that you have to grow out of to a certain extent (unless you go the technician route).

To further iNow's point, he decidedly rejected the notion of a personal god and considered himself mostly an agnostic.

Well, if we had one on this forum this thread would cause him/her to die from a raging hemorrhage.

Some companies do have grant-like system where several developer groups have to submit a proposal, but many are directly funded. In any case, this is generally applied research where they e.g. develop or improve their product lines. I would not think that they would would cut much out if they want to have a new product line to sell in the coming year(s). It should be stressed that the report is not about general research and science.

As I mentioned, that is patently not true. The regulations in most European countries with mixed models the regulations for the private insurers are stricter that in the US. And there are often also rules that inhibit switching so that people cannot game the public system. Only recently did the US have a minimum what has to be insured, for example, whereas that was always the norm in the European system (at least those that i have a passing knowledge of). Looking at balance one could say that in most (all?) European countries the decision power on health care is under governmental oversight. In the US the industry holds a significant amount of power. Private insurance is therefore more in private hands in the US than in the other countries.

Well, at the minimum you would need a nitrogen source and some other precursors are needed.

If that was supposed to mean that it somehow involves sex chromosomes, then no. PAI is on chromosome 7.

Actually, if one wants to look at fancy energetics, one should not look at animals or plants, but at bacteria instead. They pretty much figured everything out that is energetically possible. Now if you focus on respiration and use methane and hydrogen analogous to water and oxygen then it is clearly energetically impossible. You cannot get energy out of that the way you can from oxygen (essentially like willing a ball to rolll up a hill on its own). That being said, there are ways bacteria either produce or consume hydrogen or methane to survive. As mentioned, some are able to use hydrogen as electron donor (and then something else with a higher redox potential as acceptor). And as in the above example hydrogen production is used to regenerate reduced compounds (ferredoxins, NAD+) that are needed for substrate-level energy generation. For methane we have also something. Methanotrophes are also able to use methane as electron donor (and also carbon source) . Then we have methanogenesis. In these cases methane is emitted as a consequence of the final step of the electron transfer chain (i.e. analogous to the water production in oxygen respiration). In this case electrons are transferred generally to either acetate or CO2. As you can see, hydrogen and methane are only usable really at the front end of energy generation (i.e. electron donors) or are produced as a side aspect of respiration/fermentation processes. Both cannot be linked in a chain to yield energy. It is a bit like placing a ball on a flat surface and willing it to accelerate. However, with additional components it is possible to sustain life with these as core processes (as we have on Earth). Just the analogous use of hydrogen -> oxygen and methane ->water does not make much sense. Typed this in a hurry so it may not be easily understandable. Need coffee.

That is a bit tricky for high-school, I think. The essence is that the author present a summary of how the sound formation in crickets and grasshoppers is regulated on the neuronal level. In the summary special areas are mentioned that, when stimulated, results in the release of the song. It also mentions a regulatory circuit that reduces the propensity to chirp as response to its own song.

I am not sure what you mean with In the US health care is highly privatized. Do you mean to say that the US is the only one where the private aspects are under governmental oversight? In Canada the health care is almsot exclusively publicly funded. There are aspects that are also privately funded, but with strict regulations. Sweden is also mostly publicly funded. Private providers also exist, but are also strictly regulated (much more so than in the US I would assume).. I think the pity from Europeans is mostly due to the fact that there are US Americans that are not or under-insured.

The part in bold is simply wrong, again hydrogen is not an electron acceptor. Whoever wrote it clearly misunderstood the process of hydrogen use (as electron donor, i.e. pretty much on the opposite side of the role of oxygen). With regards to hydrogen production, as I mentioned, it is a byproduct of anaerobic energy generation. One way using substrate-level phosphorylation (i.e. a process to generate ATP that is independent of respiration). I am not an expert on the precise pathwys that hydrogenosomes take, but looking at the scheme it appears ferredoxins are being reduced (assuming that the graphic on wiki is correct). Then the transfer to H+ and generation of H2 is for the regeneration (i.e. re-oxidation) of ferredoxin and drives the production of acetyl-coA. The actual energy generation happens in a different step. Again, we have microbes producing hydrogen (often to regenerate e.g. NAD) or which utilize it as electron donor. Just not as the role that oxygen has (i.e. electron acceptor. The redoxpotential is simply on the wrong end of the spectrum.

Some neurons do proliferate. But beside that a nucleus is also needed for basic functions as proteins have to be produced continuously (i.e. the the assumption in OP is wrong), and a lot of regulatory functions act on the DNA level, etc. Only cells with very limited functions. especially with regards to the reaction to stimuli and are easy to replace could function without a nucleus.

I am afraid that this is not how genetics works. You have to introduce the DNA into the germline. Not the protein.

Actually hydrogenosomes produce hydrogen as a byproduct of energy generation. They do not actually respire it. Respiration involves the transfer of an electron from a donor (usually NADH) to an acceptor, such as O2, nitrate, fumarate, Fe3+ to name a few examples. The redox potential between donor and acceptor drives the process, which in turn powers the transporters involved in creating a membrane potential necessary for ATP generation. As such hydrogen can be an electron donor in some organisms, but not an acceptor.

The proteins will get lost pretty fast. The only way to do it is create stable transferctions. I.e. have the organisms produce the protein. Injection the protein into them is not going to achieve that. In addition RFPs (there are quite some different flavors around) have excitation maxima around 550-600, which is well in the visible spectrum (i.e. UV would not do much). Finally the quantum efficiency is mostly bad, so you need quite a strong light source. I.e. there would not be much of a beautiful glow in the dark...

I do not think that the molecular basis are actually known and hence, the study of the evolutionary background would be a bit premature.

From my point of view abiogenesis per se is not a fundable and as such oftentimes information that may illuminate our knowledge gaps tend to be byproducts of other research. I think it got a bit of a boost recently with research in the area of synthetic biology and protein evolution together with improved structure analysis tools at our hands. I would be kind of surprised if there were a lot of specialists claiming that we know a lot (or anything) about abiogenesis. But I guess it depends on the specific (sub-)discipline one gets into contact with.

The death of an 83 year old adjunct professor has sparked a discussion on the position of adjuncts in academia. Traditionally adjunct positions are offered as means to associate oneself with a given department without being a full faculty member and it generally (but not always) involves some teaching duties. Now why is this a matter of contention? And: While I am not in favor of her tragic fate being politicized, it does show an ugly underbelly of academia. Due to budget cuts many universities have or had hiring freezes and instead opted to hire adjuncts instead of lecturers (with full benefits) or tenure-track faculty. At the same time, tuition rates and fees increase. There are certain elements to this story that make it so delectable for media (she was battling cancer and virtually homeless, though got intermediate housing on campus for a while), but I would like to focus on the broader discussion about what you think is important in higher education and the role of adjuncts. Universities in most countries have become a business of sorts. The administration (as important as their role is) seek to increase revenue by creating position that make them more attractive to students and to increase student success (including dorms, outreach officers, advisers, recruiters, public relations etc.). To many, this is a clever business model. Coming from the other side the expansion of administration and administrative services while keeping faculties at roughly the same size in most universities and using adjuncts instead is quite troubling and may endanger the core mission of universities (i.e. providing higher education and research), not to mention the exploitation of highly qualified personnel. What are your thoughts on the matter?

I do. But I presume it is because you actually agree with me. If you do not, I disagree. Also I love random scatter plots through which I can draw arbitrary lines.

The description is not clear to me. What does the 10, 14, 23 mm refer to? The inhibition zone? Or do you mean that 2mm is the zone of inhibition, how does it look for 1? What do the number in brackets refer to? Also I do know what you mean with chosing? The goal is to establish which ABs they are sensitive to, no?