CharonY

Oranges win, hands down.

Why don't you try to start a conversation here instead of just linking to your blog?

Ants are frickin amazing. They are farmers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leafcutter_ant, raise aphids as cattle, , engage in slavery (and rebellions) http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/04/01/the-rebellion-of-the-ant-slaves/, developed boating (sort of) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A042J0IDQK4, engage in warfare , can take on spiders , or really, about anything http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LE2DSXBOgg, are amazing builders http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLHAdwxLD-I, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O05javlMW6k. Just to name a few things.

a) this is odd b) stop hurting your penis c) see a medical doctor d) websites are not good for medical advice e) cancer f) see d

Yupp. Kids are big picture people. That is why we let 6 year olds write all the grants. The problem is that for some reasons we only apply for chocolate.

Well, on the analytical side the error is very low (any half-way decent lab can perform it accurately). The only real issue is that samples could have been mixed up during sampling or processing (should also not happen).It wold be even more conclusive if the mother was also tested but it is more likely to (falsely) include a parent rather than exclude them. Four mismatches would require mutations in the respective sites and that amount is highly unlikely, as you already mentioned. If the result is wrong it would really require mishandling of the samples. The lab is reputable (and is also offering services in the UK) so I doubt there would be a high likelihood of errors on their part. Obviously, a repetition should erase any remaining doubts (using the same set of test alleles).

Nope, during sequencing you can take either strand. In most cases you will actually sequence both. The question regarding coding strand and mRNA is thus not related to Sanger sequencing. If you had the finalized sequence and were to derive the mRNA you would obviously need which is the coding strand.

Awwww. It is patently unfair that they have so low life expectancy.

I am sorry, but as already mentioned, the assumption that the first organisms had three base pairs is pretty much flawed and any argument starting from this assumption is not going to go anywhere.

Depends on the eukaryote, but in most multicellular ones the role is more of a regulatory and cell-cycle-dependent nature. Examples include involvement in apoptosis, modulating autoimmune response.

What I found over the years is that kicking yourself to do stuff usually does not work (at least for me). I am also working in an academic setting (roughly on faculty level) and have to keep track of a lot of projects and administrative things on a long time scale. It is easy to forget things, or just put them off until last minute, when everything has to be done in a rush. What worked best for me is to use a time tracking and prioritization and tweak them to the way I work. By allocating time in a bit more rigid manner I ensure that I get progress in all the things I need to keep track of, without having to constantly think and worry about them (which may lead to further procrastination). So I would for instance figure out which tasks require more creativity (e.g. papers, grant applications, to some extent talks) and allocate more or less on a daily basis a larger, coherent time slot for it, usually at a time when I am mentally most active. Within in these time slots I would e.g. read papers, bounce ideas off colleagues etc. Boring but easy tasks such as responding to emails could be done early morning while barely awake, lab time could be later in the evening, according to taste. The important bit is that I do break up this work with rest and pause times, where I e.g. use the internet for a few minutes or chat with colleagues to de-focus a bit in a guilt-free manner (it is scheduled after all!) as a kind of reward for boring tasks. There are quite a number of other tweaks and things will vary quite a bit in the way one would prioritize things (ideally in a way that there are only few absolutely urgent and relevant things at the same time) but it will vary from workplace to workplace. And obviously I cannot claim that the whole thing works perfectly, but giving myself (arbitrary) timelines helps me to get things done in a realistic manner. Productivity can, in theory, always be higher, but if one obsesses too much about it, I think it will actually decline.

Also note that the immune response is (as all biochemical reactions) a bit of a stochastic effect. I.e. even if a given antigen has been memorized by the immune system, it does not mean that the response is immediate and 100% effective. So at very low concentrations the immune system is likely not to mount any response at all (but then the likelihood of succesful infection is also not very high). But once infection is successful and the virus particles start to spread (or the titer was high to begin with), the vaccinated immune system will have a much higher chance to contain the infection. It will depend on the precise mechansims of the infection process, however.

For the most part it should be fine if you avoid putting stuff in that actually inhibits bacterial growth (such as chlorine) or having too high of a temperature for instance. In any case the involved process is relatively slow and I do not think that even with higher bacterial content it will be that much faster. You might be able to accelerate it a little bit by seeding your sample with water which already has a decent bacterial content, though (from a good maceration process, for example).

So you amplified the promotor? Did you make sure that the amplificates had the correct overhangs (e.g. if you use restriction enzyme have you made sure that the restriction site is not right at the end of the product, for example?). I assume that your ligation mix contains the cut vector, product with appropriate ends and the original (excised) promotor? Have you done anything to prevent re-ligation (and if not, are there any clones with the original vector?).

Being desperate is a normal state of mind when it comes to cloning. So you have done all the controls the only thing would be to check whether everything for your construct is correct (i.e. compatible restriction sites), I am assuming you are excising the promotor from one vector and cloning it into another? You could play around with concentration ratios of insert to vector. However, there is also a question of the promotor strength and what is being controlled. In some cases overexpression of certain genes may prove to be fatal. In that case it is beneficial to use a promotor that you can repress, although this may defy the purpose of what you are trying to do.

In metabolic contexts flux is not referring to volumes in a spatial sense, but are usually used to describe biochemical reactions. A compartment could then essentially be a metabolite pool and the flux would be defined by the reactions to and from that pool.As BabckockHall mentioned, often steady-state conditions are assumed, though it does not have to be the case (really depends on your modeling for instnframework). Demand reactions, for instance, are simply unbalanced network reactions that allow compound accumulation. Under steady-state assumption the influx should equal the outflux. In reality, certain compounds may accumulate and this often has to be fit in into a given model somehow. You may want to get some reads on biochemical systems theory (which is a bit oldish term but still pretty much the basis of it all) or books about metabolic modeling.

You should probably look at the pathways of TLR4 signalling and the question would include why is sepsis modulated, and what are the consequences thereof. Things to think about are why sepsis occurs, which pathways are involved. What would happen if these are changed under various conditions?

The matter is (as usual) quite a bit more complicated. In birds, for instance many polygamous species are monomorphic and certain sexual dimorphisms correlate better e.g. with parental care (Owens and Hartley 1998 Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 7 vol. 265 no. 1394 397-407).

If I had unlimited resources and a lot of time I would be really tempted to try my hands on this. Building up the analytics and homeostasis controls alone could be extremely challenging and fun. Although my dream would be to have a mimic octopus. But the requirements would probably be just insane. At least if you want to provide them with a halfway decent habitat.

Ooooh sweet!

The presence of isoamylalcohol is usually for stabilization of the choloroform and reduction of foaming. There are a lot of different protocols however, and if it explicitly states that it should not be used, there may be a reason. Other than that chances are that you got RNAses into your extraction, need to work a bit faster, keep the work area cleaner etc. With multi-step extractions and especially with the low stability of RNA it usually takes a bit of practice to get consistently good results. If the yield is consistently low, however, it is time for running controls for troubleshooting.

Usually means multiple products.

Well, for scientific papers (i.e. journal articles) or other periodicals this is pretty much the norm. Most people use reference software to download the reference in a generic format and then format their references according to the journal they want to submit their article to. As do many bloggers, although some non-scientific journals still make a mess out of it (i.e. by not providing references at the end of their article, but I digress). Non-scientific sources are usually not indexed very well, and can be edited any time. As such, links are probably more useful rather than trying to cite them in a similar way. And besides, most non periodical internet sources may amount to "stuff some random dude/ette wrote that may or may not be based on primary sources".

At least in chrome and firefox you can also just paste as plain text, if that helps.

It should be noted that generally products are not acutely harmful. Depending on the product there may be components that may have minor health effects if used for a long time, due to bioaccumulation. Nonetheless, unless ingested routinely, chances are that overall health effects are likely lower than say, pesticides in food or air pollution in many areas. In addition, certain components may elicit allergic responses (including the perfume component).