CharonY

Another fun accident: grad student imbalanced the ultracentrifuge. For some reasons the centrifuge did not shut down (maybe something happened to the vials during spinning and caused the imbalance only after a high speed was reached). Result: the rotor (a heavy metal thing with roughly 30 cm diameter), punched through the centrifuge, though the plaster wall of the room and embedded itself in the concrete wall in the next room. Lab course: after telling the students that acetonitrile is toxic one girl decided to drop the bottle of acetonitrile that she was toying around with. Cause, you know, she did not want to poison herself. Of course the bottle shattered.

Just some random memories from student's labs: a student set himself on fire while sterilizing equipment with ethanol and heat (hooray to cotton labcoats). The only time I was legally allowed to tackle a student and throw him to the floor. I could not convince everyone that the best to put it out is to kick him once wrapped in the fire blanket. Another dropped over two liters of KMNO4 while trying to refill a tiny bottle from a considerable height. No white labcoats to be found in a largish diameter. Dropping a large bottle of mercaptoethanol. The lab smelled for weeks afterwards. Another one filled a mix of H2O2 and H2SO4 into the waste bottle but used the non-vented cap and closed it shot. I saw it boiling up and slammed down the hood before the bottle exploded.

I think you misread the paper. Zinc deficient strains had five times less zinc as compared during growth during replete conditions. That being said, it is expected that normal cells accumulate nutrients, how else are they going to survive? What they measured in the end is that they found more total zing than they added, which is indicative that there was contamination after all. Finally, they were mostly interested in finding elements of zinc transport as e.g. ZinT. I.e. genes regulated in a zinc dependent way. To figure out whether a mutation exists that e.g. upregulates ZinT higher than WT would require a different set of experiments.

There are a lot of misconceptions in this post, also misquotation. Let me just point this out. The original quote is a bit longer (also note that this is from the 60s): The latter part bluntly refutes

Evolutionary effects are not going to play a significant role in the presented time scales, unless they only require very small changes. The goal of this paper is to figure out molecular mechanisms that cope with extreme conditions. If you apply mild ones, many effects can mask the mechanisms you are hunting for. Extreme and well-defined cultivation can better elucidate adaptations, although you are correct that in some cases effects may occur that do not occur in nature. Yet, one should keep in mind that growing under replete conditions as found in the lab, is actually much more unrealistic than hunger conditions. In nature, hunger is more likely that normal state as each bug is competing ferociously with others for limited resources. Note that there is nothing like an adaptive pressure as your post implies (i.e. if faced starvation the chance of occurrence of a super zinc acquirer does not increase, only the spread of mutations that may result in it, which is on a different time scale). There is a certain selective pressure, but the base assumption is that the cells are already adept at acquire low level of zinc. Whether that is true for E. coli or not is rather a physiological discussion rather than an evolutionary one. If we assume mutation, the most likely one to actually affect the physiological state is within the regulatory mechanisms and it may be true that some mutants have spread that actually express higher level than the WT under the same condition. But then this study is aimed at finding targets using semi-quantitative approaches, and is not a quantitative inspection of the regulatory network.

For better reproducibility it is easier to measure zone of inhibition, or count live titer after a defined exposure of a given culture.

Highly relevant bit. Regarding species: as it has been explained numerous times by Arete and others, nature does not create strict boundaries. They are sometimes there, but then often times not. Just look at prokaryotes trying to find hard species boundaries is an exercise in futility. As such Arete is absolutely correct in saying that the delimiters are somewhat arbitrary. But, and that is the important bit, even if they do not reflect nature perfectly, they are useful. This is a basic thing that all biologists are aware of.

The distinction of man-made and natural is arbitrary to some extent. E.g. are current crops and pets that have been bred by humans natural? For legal reasons genetically manipulated organisms are classified as such (i.e. GMOs). Tthe extent of manipulation are generally very minor, as we are not able to really create living organisms (yet).

Xitenn, I am not sure I understand your point. However I would say to an interview you should be at least one step above the attire of the organization you want to join. But not based on your own level. I fail to see the dishonesty of that. A suit or other work clothes are a type of uniform. What you wear to a job is supposed to reflect well on the organization, and not on you. An in an interview you are expected to go a step or so above that (at least).

In an interview people expect you to be on your best behavior, not your average. And you will be judged accordingly.

There is little evidence to suggest that there these are innate abilities. In contrast, many young geniuses spend an extraordinary time into their talent. You will note that talented artists have spent an enormous amount of time to become talented. There are basic capacities that have a biological basis that will strongly affect or the outcome (such as a good memory, good senses, etc.). However, complex traits (artistic abilities, reasoning abilities) cannot easily be reduced to a simple basis are therefore much more dependent on training (and hence, interest). Again, if you simply do not like playing the piano, you can slog through hours without improving skills. If you are a Mozart, you will go through the same thousand of hours, with much more focus and learn from it. There are a few problems with this assertion. Remember, the students you get already had exposure to maths in high school. A good teacher could make all the difference. Second, the student in question may be interested in certain aspects of physics, but not in maths. If the person is not willing or able to focus on the latter (and again, I would put lack of interest before lack of talent), he/she would not be able to catch up on the foundation that should have already been built up before you arrive at college. Again, I would consider something like a good memory as a biological basis that can affect academic outcome. However, I would have a hard time clearly defining an innate affinity to logic. Biologically we all are actually very bad at logic. Our brain is a much better at finding positive correlations, for instance.

For postdocs suits are not necessary. I cannot recall if I wore one but I hardly see anyone doing it. On faculty level it is often a slightly different matter (often less with other faculty, but somewhat when meeting e.g. with the dean etc.). However, in academia you can get away with much more clothing-wise than elsewhere. Mind you, I have absolutely no sense of fashion, but I know people that apparently have, so here it goes...: An all purpose business suit would be indeed charcoal. Dark blue (e.g. navy) is a bit trickier to pull off, from what I heard. Style-wise most two-buttons would be notched-lapel anyway (other types are more commonly found on double breasted for tuxedos), just check that the width fits you. In general, smaller lapels are probably more universal. The most important part is proper fit, rather than the details of styles. Nothing too big/excessive should be pretty much timeless. Pattern-wise, solid is simple, but a subtle pin are supposedly to make oneself slimmer/taller (no idea if that is true). Pleats (esp double) are best avoided, especially if one is still young. Flat front pants generally go without cuffs. Do yourself a favor and a get a good fitting shirt. It is awful to fiddle around with suit/shirt during an interview because the shirt is too bulky or too tight. I have heard that you can get custom tailored ones for around 80 bucks, or buy a cheaper one and get it fitted. Check if you like the collar. Narrow collars require narrow tie knots, and vice versa. So make sure it fits your face and neck. Also upper body length comes into play. If your tie is too long for your upper body, you have to make a broader knot (or buy a thinner/shorter tie). Colors of the tie (silk) obviously has to match with shirt. Simple or no patterns. Especially avoid confusing and bright patterns. If you are slim, avoid very broad ties. Also broad ties do not go well with suits with a narrow front. Black shoes, round toe. Best not too shiny. If you are slim and tall a cheaper alternative to Boss are also Calvin Klein suits. Probably not the best quality but affordable. Being in academia, I am pretty sure that they would not even let me into Nordstrom. Most important for interviews, feel comfortable in them.

Why should aliens be even remotely humanoid? In fact, the chances are extremely high that we will have much more in common with fruit bats rather than any speculative aliens.

In a way physics can be easy, as it is well structured (compared to other sciences), but one needs to build up a good foundation. In many ways it can be more abstract than other sciences, but then it may be also an advantage, as it is easier to let go of erroneous preconceptions. In biology, for instance, many things are also counter-intuitive or even culturally colored and it can be hard work to get rid of these wrong concepts. In physics you can demonstrate it with mathematics that it is wrong. I agree with the first part, but disagree with the "natural" part. No work is easy, everything requires time investment. However, if you are interested you are willingly putting in the time needed without feeling it to be hard work. It simply becomes fun and is perceived as easy. It is not innate. Edit: cross-posted with Royston, but agree with his points.

Outside movies there isn't and the likelihood is probably the same as building up a romantic relationship with slime mold or fruit bats. Considering that movie and comic characters are used as a basis of discussion, I am pretty sure that it belongs to the speculations forum.

Is it possible that this is due to a change in coverage? It depends on what you got before, but under the new provisions preventive care is supposed to be covered without co-pays and deductibles. Also they are not allowed to have annual or lifetime caps. Starting 2014 the companies are not allowed to have higher premiums for men than for women (which may be the case for the describe scenario). Maybe they just want to gauge some money as long as they can?

For extra limbs it is impossible to make any assumptions. For regular wings one could estimate the minimum time by looking at involved genes (which is also not known actually, but the info is at least theoretically there) and look at the sequence divergence between i.e. bat and humans. Of course you still would not be able to fly as you would be too heavy and the scaling is not likely to be favorable. But at least you would look weird. Also this belongs to speculations.

Well the question sounds awfully unspecific. However, in biology domain in biology can refer to the highest taxonomic classification. According to Woese and the three domain system it would be Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya. However, I do not really see how that relates to the first part of the question, because all known organisms are essentially made up from the same stuff....

I wonder whether that is true. I read on wiki that it is supposed to kill nerve cells, which would indicate extreme and rapid neurotoxicity. However that did not appear to be what the MSDS sheets indicate. Do you happen to have a source for that? Also I would have assumed that one would wear PPE when pouring HNO3. Just saying.

I see several issues with that. Disregarding the enjoyment of food (and I mean food, not the processed crap), in many cases the precise nutrient requirements are actually not that well known. I remember reading a few studies suggesting that health outcomes were better when fulfilling vitamin C requirement with fruits rather than pills, indicating that there is quite a lot of micronutrients that we would miss out on. Also there is the question of adsorption. We have during the course of our evolution adapted to certain nutrient forms, a powder may have quite different uptake rates than we would have from real food. As such the concentration requirements are not clear. Also I wonder what it would do to our bacterial systems. Simply put, we do not know enough about the precise requirements we actually have to be certain that a totally artificial food would satisfy all of them.

I love it when a thread about female behavior(or at least 50% of the question is) is roughly 100% dominated by men. Must be the higher brain mass thingy and suchalike *hides*

I hope you are aware that the the depicted warblers are all different species (and not that closely related at that)?

Stating a list of parameters but not having a hypothesis of the interdependencies is precisely on of the problems. In this case it would be the multiple-hypothesis problem. What happens is that if you test every parameter against everything else (which is very tempting to do as it is rather issue to amass a lot of data) then you are basically treating the parameters as independent. However, they are all from the same sample. I.e. if you test enough parameters you are bound to find something that correlates, by pure chance, with something else. Think of flipping an unloaded coin. If you do it 20 times, you expect an outcome of 50% head to tail (or whatever is on the coin). However, if you let, say hundreds of people do it, you are likely to find at least a few in which the ratio is skewed. If you had blindly tested, you would have assumed that these coins were loaded, however it is basically due to repeated testings (in this particular case one would have had to average over all individuals, something you cannot do with the different parameters of the water sample). Note that you will find many publications (especially epidemiological or environmental engineering papers) in which this is totally ignored. What you could do, is adjust the outcome of e.g. regression analyses depending on parameters tested. The most rigorous one are Bonferroni corrections. However, since they throw away a lot of true positives, usually one of the modified versions are used. However, imo the correct way to do these kinds of analyses is to pre-define the dependencies that you expect. E.g. pH is temperature dependent. And then only utilize that relevant data and test for those. The correction are more minor that way (as you test fewer hypotheses on the same data set).

First of all I agree that once a month increases the variability of the data set and makes detailed comparisons very complicated. To assess what kind of analyses may be useful you need to add the single most important bit to your post. What do you actually want to see? What are the parameters? Do you want to find associations between parameters (e.g. temperature and bacterial content)? Or seasonal changes, or...? The more parameter you collect the more likely it is that you find random associations that will become significant with specific tests. Thus, instead of a fishing expedition (which are prone to false positive identifications) you should think about what hypotheses you want to test. Random data mining rarely yields results that survive scrutiny. In that regard I would recommend reading the Ionannidis paper (2005 PlosMed).

Basically it was raised against serum hence there are antigens in it. It does not necessarily need to be a protein., though they are good candidates.