CharonY

An upturned bowl works just as well.

All things considered this is highly speculative so, I'll move it to that section for now.

At that age I feel that facts and factoids are only of limited value in biology as in many cases the context is not presented sufficiently to be useful in many cases (I could write a long essay about the issues with teaching bio, but that is another matter). Instead, I prefer to make kids curious about biology and have them start asking questions, rather than having them learn answers (which we often only partially provide). As such these are the books that I read around that age and which left quite an impression on me (they could be slightly advanced in some cases, though). - The man who mistook his wife for a hat (Oliver Sacks): I distinctly remember that this was one of the books that challenged our notion of how we perceive things - Various books from Konrad Lorenz and Desmond Morris (including "Here am I- Where are you") Though often outdated by now and more in the area of behavioral sciences (rather than topics outlined in OP) they were still wonderful reads (and probably no less accurate than many high-school text books). There are definitely more but I would have to think a bit more to remember those, and they may be even more off-topic. Among more recent books that I think could be appropriate include: Alex and Me (Irene Pepperberg); It is light on science but quite enjoyable Animal Wise (Virginia Morell); Gives nice overview over some of the ethological works in an accessible manner and is certainly thought-provoking Animal Architects (Gould and Gould); Well written but on the brink of being too technical maybe I apologize that it is heavy on behavioral sciences, but I think these are more accessible for kids. In contrast good science books about diseases or toxins could be quite advanced as the processes (as far as they are known) tend to be quite technical and dry and do not easily lead to fun narratives.

Well, obviously the fatty acids would only deliver the precursors required for AA-anabolism.

Interestingly that is precisely what crossed my mind when I read OP. But I was sure that he could not really mean that UFOs could be giant insects, as the first part of the post (as has been noted) clearly describes the size limitation. But alas, I was proven wrong. It should also be noted that flight is quite energy-demanding, requiring even higher respiratory rate which makes large flying insects even less likely.

Viruses obviously need hosts and if they were not able to use the cells being present, there would be no viruses to begin with. Also the recognition of hosts is mostly based on surface interactions between phages on hosts and has little with metabolic activities per se.

Considering that OP repeatedly announced that this thread is really just an opinion piece with no evidence (and no desire to provide evidence) and since furthermore the discussion is more about some conspiracy theory, I do not think that this thread belongs into the medical science section (or any science section for that matter).

Assuming that the genes are from sequenced organisms you can get the complete sequence e.g. from uniprot or from NCBI (using the nucleotide database). Note that gel-based size confirmation can sometimes be insufficient. The best would obviously be sequencing the amplified products, but lacking time and funds a simple restriction analysis can give at least an additional layer of security.

As others have mentioned, there are too many misconceptions to address appropriately. I will just say that individual genes code for proteins and each of them have a specific range of biochemical functions. E.g. converting one metabolite into another one. Most phenotypes are the result of many of them acting in concert in a quantitative manner. In addition all cells in our body carry basically the same genetic content. I.e. to introduce phenotypes above the single cell level, the genetics of all the cells contributing to a tissue, for example would have to be altered. Well, not directly, but obviously via the TCA cycle there are intraconversions of the major biomolecule classes.

Viruses are much more fragile than bacteria and need a host to reproduce. In contrast to bacteria they cannot just go out and seek prey. So if their host metabolizes and reproduces slowly, so do they. The cold could conserve the viruses so after escaping their host they would just be lying there and accumulate over time (very, very slowly). Essentially there is nothing that is eating either the viruses or the bacteria in any significant amount of time allowing them just to hang on there.

Eh, this is a very strange statement considering that obviously microorganisms existed well before photosynthesis. For obvious reasons. I do not think that this makes sense. Or at least I do not understand what is meant by this.

I must admit that I have no clue what I just read. The words imply that they mean something obvious but they do not appear to make any kind of sense to me.

With diseases you will see careful first steps that have been blown out of proportion by media. As these things are experimental, there is not a general career path for it (it is just too limited). With genetically modified products there are more options. Again in academia which sometimes spin-off to start-ups or the larger biotech corporations. The majority of careers in these area also not in creating GMOs but rather producing them. There is always some R&D going on, of course, but the positions there tend to be more limited. Fairly often the larger companies just buy off smaller start-ups that have discovered something and then start selling the product. The hands-on parts are typically filled by analysts, various technicians and process engineers. The role of PhDs is not that different from other areas of biotechnology (i.e. often product management, development sales or support, if appropriate).

The peak is pretty much certain at between 9-10 billion as the population of 15 and below has been pretty stable. So there will be a final increase due to these (i.e. they grow up and the lower age bracket will be by a fresh batch of 2 billion children) and then the population will either stay at that level or potentially decrease, if the worldwide birthrates drop further (though there will quite a lag. With regards to resource use, it is a good excuse to enjoy one of Rosling's presentations: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/video/2013/may/17/population-climate-change-hans-rosling-video

To be honest those things you describe are very sci fi. The closest is fundamental research into gene functions, which is mostly done in academic settings. Also it is generally not very applied except in some very rare cases.

The crackpot approach is believing that they can walk on water.

I guess it is the former (I was a student in Germany years back and never heard of it). Then there is the question whether the time investment to going through the awards is worthwhile (for supervisor and student) and finally there may be travel cost involved (I guess). If you are working around the corner so to say you may enter just because. If you are a flight or more away and the award is not substantial in a practical way one may rather want to spend time in the lab.

So far I found no evidence other than conspiracy sites. As almost all articles did not demonstrate significant knowledge of basic microbiology plus seem to obfuscate rather than providing information, I would say that there is no data to support that there is some massive reproduction of a magic bacterium (that the articles do not even identify).

Well back in my days I just used a vector drawing tool such as Corel Draw or Adobe illustrator and scaled the length of the areas to the bp. I am pretty sure that there are much more sophisticated tools out there, but when I need such an illustration I still pull up my old files, change arrow lengths and annotation. Done.

Gymnasium in Germany? Biotech is a very broad field though I think some common careers for people coming in from the science side (rather than management) are in the area of production, product management and sales, technical support and ancillary departments. It is basically impossible to give a simple overview, but you may want to check job sites and simply use biotechnology as keyword. As a rule of thumb in the areas where you actually do something (e.g. in processing plants or doing analysis) you need roughly a masters degree, for some of the more project-oriented jobs (product management or development) they often want a PhD. But again, look around first what may catch your interest.

In addition to that, one should realize that even findings into which a lot of effort has been put in, may eventually be proven wrong or inaccurate. The conclusion should then be that even more effort is required. For some reasons some come to the conclusion that they need less.

The description of the bacterial cell hull composition is slightly confusing. In short, starting from the inside all bacteria have a cytoplasma membrane. This is followed by a peptidoglycan layer. The main difference at this point is that in Gram+ bacteria the peptidoglycan layer is much thicker. In both cases the sugar is made up from N-acetylglucosamine and N-acetylmuramic acid (linked to a short peptide), but in case of Gram+ more elements can be found within the thick layer, including S-layer on top and modified with glycopolymers throughout (which can quite diverse, depending on strain). Gram- cells have an additional outer membrane just past their thin peptidoglycan layer. Capsules are common, but not found in all bacteria and are often formed depending on growth conditions. With regards to the morphologies, these are generally not used as species classification anymore. They are generally only used for rough classification with additional biochemical information available. I congratulate your interest in this field and encourage you to get books on the subject as most websites are going to be awfully shallow and are unlikely to hold your interest for long. Or provide more comprehensive knowledge that is likely to provide deeper insights (eventually).

It is generally not what most biologists would agree on. I am not an expert in this area, but I have the impression that this is pretty much a thing established Cavalier-Smith (though correct me, if I am wrong). Nonetheless, the evidence is not fundamentally conclusive though to my understanding the current weight of evidence is not favoring this view. But then, my knowledge in this area is certainly not cutting-edge and maybe Arete could weigh in on it. What I do is usually let an evolutionary biologist that I trust deal with the changing evidence (and whatever biomolecule is currently en vogue) and let him/her give me a summary so that I do not need to track this issue (or the the different feuds that may be there).

Also it should be noted that even if lab strains are used for bioremediation they tend not to compete very successfully indigenous bacteria. Therefore they often have to be used in large amounts and even then after a relatively short time they tend to be outcompeted by whatever is already present. The reason is obvious, bioremediation strains are used because of their ability to utilize certain toxins. However, in contrast to indigenous bacteria, they have not been selected for survival under the given conditions.

How is that worse than being on a planet without atmosphere or unsuitable for human life? Remember the premise is that we should go and terraform something, which implies that the target planet is inhospitable to begin with. So in order to go there you would have precisely the same problems plus you have the issue of the material to terraform there. It would only make sense if there was perfectly habitable planet to begin with (except logistics would still be an issue). And again, if you have the science to terraform a planet (which is sci-fi at this point), the question is why similar technology cannot be applied to Earth (other than it does not deliver a nice plot device to seek out other planets). Of course terraforming is still not possible and I guess there is relatively little in terms of hard science that we could rely on as empirical basis. Nonetheless, so far I have not seen a good argument why dealing with toxins and pollution on Earth is harder than doing the same off-planet.