CharonY

Dalton is synonymous to atomic mass unit (1/12 of 12C) as mentioned, this is not precisely the same as the mass of a proton (and with increasing mass the error become bigger). Again, it is a measure of mass, not size.

I am still waiting for the hounds...

You should look into curve fitting. Also more than two values to properly calculate averages and standard errors (or deviations) would be useful...

Group selection has been shown to be formally equivalent to kin selection. Hence, with the exception of a few remaining proponents, group selection has been essentially abandoned. And the selfish gene explanation fits nicely under the umbrella of the inclusive fitness theory, which is the basis model to explain altruistic behavior.

Let me guess... mathematics (they and sometimes theoretical physicists play by slightly different rules)? However, all institutes require that intellectual property is signed to the employer (i.e. uni institute etc.). Many have the right to prevent you to publish if they wanted to (though almost never enforced). It is most obvious when e.g. patents are issued. The institute holds the right, but may extend it to the PI (and other people involved). In almost group based papers credit goes to the corresponding author (everything else is a spill-over by association). And again, publish or perish is the game for most of us...

Well, it is academia, isn't it? I do not really think that nationality plays a role here. Usually such cases are handled by an ombudsman. But especially when different groups are involved, the first one to publish has won. And it is a rare thing even within a given institute that a junior scientist will have any claim to property. Ideas generated belong to the institute and the PI (in that order).

I have no clue where the government plays a role here. They advise no to publish, but the journals can do what they want. Also the work was carried out mostly in the Netherlands (though there are collaborators in the US) and is an independent group in Japan working on this, IIRC. So which government is now doing what? As you can tell, I do not understand the line of reasoning here. My personal opinion is that bioterrorism is a relatively poor argument when it comes to pathogens. They are, as a whole, rather inefficient. Blowing something up creates much more immediate sense of danger and fear (a goal of terrorism) rather than something that may or may not have been man-made. Compare for instance the anthrax mails with the regular deaths we have in the US due to seasonal flu, Salmonella outbreaks or Clostridium poisoning. It would be easier to claim responsibility for the deaths due to contaminated food rather than try to get spread the agents on your own. Seriously, in the US alone Salmonella is responsible for over 500 deaths annually (and still there is resistance against control programs). Where is the panic and outcry here?

I disagree with you disagreeing.

This may be correct, but the next logical step is figuring out the mechanisms behind it and how whether they affect potential epitopes. Last time I looked there were flu vaccines around. And strain analyses are routinely conducted to estimate which strain is going to hit next. Vaccines are produced accordingly. Your main argument is apparently that vaccines are useless against flu (and therefore research into mechanisms is does not bring any useful information), however the fact that there are seasonal vaccinations around somewhat weakens the point, no? You may be thinking of lifelong immunity, this may not happen with flu, but that is beside the point. The idea of immunization is to prevent large spreads throughout the population. High mutation rates are therefor not a dealbreaker when it comes to viruses. The important bits are identifying epitopes and their variations (though much is done on a far rougher scale). There are a lot of issues with developing an HIV vaccine which I cannot cover in a short post, but they are not limited to the mutation rate, but also include e.g. raising a decent immune responses from inactivated viruses (however there are a number of trials for HIV vaccines right now). In contrast, seasonal flu vaccines are routinely derived from inactivated strains which generally requires the isolation of the strain to begin with (thus having the strain already at hand, accelerates vaccine development and testing). Again, mutation rate is one issue, but does not render vaccines useless. Think about polio (also an RNA virus). Regarding mutation rate: that rates are not dependent on population size, however a larger pool increases the probability of a given mutation to occur (essentially like throwing a die more times). Assuming a large pool of flu carriers it definitely increases the chances of certain recombinations to occur within a given time frame.

Hah, not that unusual, tbh.

If that is the work I am thinking of, there is a definite good reason for this research, and I am not talking about bioterror or something like that. What they did is introducing alleles in H5N1, which already exist in nature, just not yet combined in a single strain. The goal was to find out, how many changes are required to result in a strain that can be transmitted between humans. There are two reasons why this is important. First, to evaluate the likelihood of that occurring in nature. Remember the first outbreak, when people claimed that the warnings of this strain were overrated because it was not transmissible between humans (and thus declared it alarmism)? Well, this study provides how many allele exchanges are necessary. I think they have not yet published, due to ethical reasons, but they mentioned that it was only five or so. Thus, I would think that this work is important as it shows that a limited number of recombinations can result in this precise strain in nature. The second important bit is closely related to the first is what CaptainPanic mentioned. If it is only a matter of time that the virus may pop up, isn't it better to develop a vaccine beforehand? And for that, this strain is also needed. Will the vaccine work? Well, the question here is whether further mutated strain are A) still able to transmit between humans and B) be more virulent. And again, to analyze that one has to know what actually are the factors leading to transmission. To be honest, I was pretty much on the fence, too, when the information started to pop up. However, in the end I think the likelihood of the recombinations/mutations are going to happen anyway that I prefer proper research before it really hits.

I do not think that it is matter of independent thinking. Of course there are examples, in which controversial opinions, that eventually were proven true have led to marginalization. But these are more exceptions than the rule. Sometimes certain people are so obsessed with certain aspects of nature that their social skills may suffer. More often than not, however, successful scientists are often also excellent networkers that are highly skilled (if not gifted) in social interactions. The reasons is that a part of the job as scientist is to communicate science. Every good scientist is expected to explore the unknown and hence, any new idea could be considered controversial. However, in cases where new ideas throw established knowledge overboard, without a strong empirical foundation to support it (an issue in inter and multi-disciplinary sciences) it is (and should be) faced with strong skepticism. Another important aspect of science is the hunt for truth. Ideas are cheap to throw out. The challenging part is figure out which of them reflect nature best. In the end, it takes more time to figure out where one was wrong then to throw up something different. This is something that is plentifully documented in our very own speculations forum here.

Also note that fitness is a relative measure. So, if certain selective pressures vanish, the traits that were beneficial under these conditions (Fitness >1) would drop to 1 (or below, if costs are associated with it). Other traits that were selected against (Fitness > 1) would come closer to 1 (or be higher, if there are benefits that were offset by the selective pressure). Result is change in allele frequency. Darwin at its best (if we neglect stochastic events).

There is not enough detail in the protocol for me to follow what you did precisely. Comparing the purified lambda DNA, does it show the same size as the reference lambda DNA? There can be differences in the sequence, though it usually is only a small proportion of the whole population. What precise protocol was used to isolate lambda (and subsequently lambda DNA?)

Well, as said, chlorhexidine preparations (impurities or not) have not been associated with cancer. Regarding impurities: considering the dearth of newer publications, it would be interesting to measure the actual presence of them in actual formulations. However, taking the provided values as a benchmark 1.7-8.5 mmol per mol chlorhexidine. Assuming 0.2 % (w/v) in mouthwash, that would be 2g/l or roughly a 2 mM concentration. So p-chloroaniline is present only in low µM concentrations. Two more bits on p-chloroaniline are needed here.First, it is classified as a 2B carcinogen (i.e. usually no information for human and very limited, if at all, for animals). So regardless of other information, carcinogenic effects are basically unknown, but certainly not acute (i.e. if there is an effect, they are certainly to be expected at higher levels). Second, regarding general toxicity of p-chloroaniline: in mice concentrations of 80 mg/kg resulted in a weight differences of 10% or higher (i.e. it can be considered the minimum adverse effect level). That corresponds to about 0.6 mmol per kg body weight. Considering an individual with 50 kg body weight that would be 31 mmol p-chloroaniline before the onset of any measurable harmful effects. One would have to ingest liters of the stuff to get there. Just my 2 cents (and no guarantees regarding calculation errors).

And quite a lot of protein, too

Huh? Where does imprisonment come in?

Uh, I remember studies where cholorhexidine was tested in cancer patients to figure out whether they provided benefits for mucositis (I think it did not). But I am unaware of studies linking it to cancer in any way.

Ideas are worth nothing until you manage to publish them.

My comment was directed at Nassar´s post. Specifically: Which does not make a lot of sense. While I do work on the genomics/postgenomics field I tend to either work with bacteria or (oddly) human samples rather than mice. If you have got any specific questions or musings feel free to start a discussion, though.

First of all we are note even close. More bits and pieces are being known but still a long long way away from any applications. Second, this is all very speculative, hence moved to speculations.

Eh, what? Do you mean chromosomes by any chance?

I am not quite sure how certain the consensus really is and how well it is supported by data. This article, which is the basis for the claim more like an opinion piece to me Nature link. It was definitely written up by a non-expert (actually, student report was the first thing that came to my mind). For instance, inside the article there is this: But then later the author concludes: The eradication of mosquitos are likely to be beneficial to humans in a direct way, however, the ecological consequences are most likely insufficiently explored.

There are a lot of sources for mispriming events. Was the RT-PCR conducted with random primers or the same for the re-amplification (big source here). Was the cDNA cloned and checked for accuracy or immediately amplified? Also note that short sequences (most primers are around 20 bp) are not well suited for BLAST searches, make sure that you have enabled short and near exact matches (or something similar, forgot the precise option). Other common strategies involve concatenation of both primers with Ns in between.

With regards to jobs and job security, I would not aim for an academic job, if that really is your major concern. Mind you, it is fairly easy to get postdoctoral positions (which are usually not well paid), but in contrast to industrial experience, anything above roughly 3-6 years (depends strongly on field, so that is a rough estimate), counts against you in terms of academic jobs. Positions that are purely research are relatively rare (both in and outside academia), so that is something to keep in mind (in academia much of your time will be occupied by teaching, lab management and grant writing, for instance). A degree in pharmacy tends to be a good entry point into pharma companies though.