CharonY

Ethanol is used to precipitate DNA out of solution (i.e. you add several volumes of high-percentage ethanol to your sample). So you only have one phase that has a high (final) percentage of ethanol, which results in DNA to precipitate. After centrifugation the pellet is usually washed additionally in 70% EtOH to remove salts. Salts are indeed used as counterions to facilitate DNA precipitation (usually sodium acetate). The excess of Na+ is used to counterbalance the phosphate group. You only have two phases if you use phenol extraction to remove proteins (a common step during nucleic acid extraction). Detergents do not affect cell walls much. Additional disruption methods (as e.g. bead beating) may be necessary.

To answer the question, CO2 fixation is not possible for us (bacteria and plants are able to do so, however). However I would also highlight (and probably confuse) the definition of respiration. What the OP provided is typical highschool introduction of respiration and, unfortunately, not quite accurate. In the strictest sense respiration refers to the act of energy generation, but it is somewhat independent from e.g. sugar metabolism (e.g. catabolism of glucose). The actual process of energy generation via respiration is based on two elements. First, electron transfer from NAPDH to an electron acceptor (for eukaryotes it is oxygen, anaerobic prokaryotes are able to use other sources, including fumarate, nitrate, ferric iron etc.). During this transfer protons are pumped out of the cell, resulting in a gradient that powers the ATP synthetase which actually phosphorylates ADP to ATP. Both processes together are generally referred to as cellular respiration. As you can see, there is no mentioning of sugars. The reason is that the main producers of NADPH (i.e. the reduction equivalents) is the TCA cycle, which can be fueled by the catabolism of a large number of different C and N sources. Thus, the process of generating NADPH is actually fairly decoupled from the actual respiration (and it is slightly annoying that many highschool textbooks take glucose and treat it as gospel). Also note that the respiration occurs in mitochondria all over our bodies and not only in specialized organs. I.e. each of our cells has to respire, we just breathe to deliver oxygen to all the tissues (i.e. breathing is not actual part of the biochemical process, it is just a way to deliver the electron acceptors via blood to all our tissues and cells). Finally, if you are interested in how CO2 fixation works, read up on the Calvin cycle.

Also even in nature identification of relatedness (i.e. kin discrimination) is not trivial. Instead, often proxy information is used and population viscosity becomes important. In other words, you are more likely to be altruistic towards people that you know. While a lot of other factors (which are arguably more important when it comes to elections), all things being equal people are more likely to vote for someone that they know, or at least have met. It would be rather unusual for people to run around and collecting DNA samples in order to decide whom to vote for.... But as Iggy mentioned, trying to apply Hamilton's rule to elections is truly far-fetched.

Let's see if the pic is too compressed...

I am a lab biologist the only good pictures I have are from hummingbirds in the backyard. But then, lizards are cool

Nice, thanks. I tend to have go higher than that to get a nice resolution of the wings. With 63 mm you must have been really close. Nice shot! And in addition to what Imatfaal said, maybe get lightroom (there are student's and educator's licenses) to develop/catalogue the pictures that you may have shot in raw.

What SS did you use for the Jacobin?

For free you may want to try out zotero or mendeley.

That is a very costly lady. In economies like these I cannot offer you more than four goats. Honestly though, the prices have been rising enormously (in Sudan) My link

You share 50% of your sequences (ignoring mutations) with you sibling. All of them, down to the naked sequence level. The second sentence only refers to genes (i.e. genetic loci that are actually transcribed). Also note that it is not meant that the sequences are absolutely identical, base by base, (even within a species we have allelic variations), but that the sequence similarity is high enough to be sure that these genes are functionally (more or less) the same. So again, the first one goes down to the sequence level, the second only to the gene level. Also I am pretty sure that the similarity on the gene level between human and mice is somewhere closer to 97% (with both being mammals and such).

This is odd. We use beads in sizes between about 50 nm to 20 microns and they were found to be quite stable (as per light microscopy, SEM and DLS) in a variety of aqueous buffers. The have the tendency to aggregate, though. Or do you mean that they lose their functional groups?

I would be surprised if there were reproducible differences worth publishing, as both are essentially the same method (with probably minor tweaks in detail). I assume that differences in yield are more likely to vary more from extraction to extraction (or experimentator) rather than between reagents used.

I would say it depends on the university, though I do not see fundamental problems for an application. Especially the experience as lab technician should help. Many areas in biology do not use animal models, so that is a non-issue, too. I would look into unis that you are interested in, see their requirements and look for research groups with interesting topics. Especially the latter is important, as you appear to be undecided what field you want to go into (due to mentioning of animal models, that is).

Quite possibly both. Hard to tell because the sentence is worded so badly so that I do not really know what it was supposed to mean. I do think I meant that up to this point evolution has favored mechanisms that result in the use of positive correlations rather than logic.

One could argue that time has shown that throughout time has shown that mechanisms for positive correlation-type thinking has been favoured by natural selection so far.

It depends on what you mean with most developed. But according to Wiki the highest suicide rates are in: Lithuania, South Korea, Guyana, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, China and Slovenia. And I do not think that any of the parameters listed correlates well with the data. Chances are that cultural norms are going to play a role, but also the simple act of correctly reporting and counting suicides...

That is incorrect, or rather only half of the story. The binding efficiency between receptor and target is also relevant. Hence different compounds with the same receptor can elicit different response strengths. This is incorrect, too. Only the trimethylxanthine is caffeine. The dimethylxanthine is also named theophyline, but not caffeine. Coffee and tea both contain caffeine as well as theophylline. The latter has a stronger physiological effect, IIRC.

There are certainly rhodamine esters or isothicyanates that can be used for labeling of primary amines. Check Invitrogen (now probably part of Thermo), for instance.

It depends on the type of analyses you want to run. For phylogenetic analyses you would therefore look for genes that are under more or less universal selective pressure (that is why ribosomal sequences are useful).

Normally you build up skills during the PhD, so a good grasp of fundamentals and the willingness to work hard are more important. No one expects someone to pick up serious research skills during a short period of time (e.g. over the summer), Unfortunately there is also a certain focus on grades, unless you have already done undergrad research in someone's lab and he or she would like you to join (or at least write a letter of recommendation). That said, you should be aware that there are comparatively few pure research positions (i.e. being in the lab and doing experiments) out there.

Basically these are all terms that relate to statistical analyses of sequences. In very simple terms, if you compare sequences and see differences, you have to somehow come up with a means to quantify these changes in a meaningful way, as you assume that the smaller the distance, the closer the sequences are related to each other. There are a large number of statistical methods to do this that are based on different models. Parsimony analysis is one of these methods. Further methods mentioned are then used to evaluate the quality and stability of this resulting tree.

So termites are superior to, say wolves, because they are able to change their environment (i.e. in form of climatized hives)? And by the same note beavers are superior to most apes? What you demonstrate is a perfectly anthropocentric view that neglects the complexity of the interaction of organisms with their environment and with each other. In any case the OP was already deep in the speculation area and it should be continued from there (especially as no evidence has been provided why evolutionary trajectories should be similar).

Antibiotics are used by bacteria (and fungi) way longer than humans even existed. Also thinking in terms of superiority does not make sense, biologically. Biology is dependent on complex interactions. There is really not top or bottom in it.

That is an odd view. Why should bacteria kill us off? We are a nice habitat and an excellent source of food? Also terms such as stronger or weaker have little biological meaning.

Agar is only a solidifier and it specifcally chosen as most bacteria cannot use it (and thereby degrade it). What allows them to grow is what else is in the medium. The selectivity of the medium can be rather low as in many complex media, or fairly selective.