CharonY

Neurons are optimized towards long-distance information transfer (via APs). Without any information to relay anywhere else they are not able to do much (as bombus implied). Chemical memory is quite a different thing, and even bacteria have it. In chemotaxis postranslational modification of a sensor system provides information on the chemical gradient the cell was facing, for instance. In short: existing chemical situations modify future biochemical reactions (or rather, their rate).

There is also reason in the evolutionary history of development. For developmental reason certain elements may be replicated with others it is not possible.

From a human point of perspective it could be bad if the resulting system is unsuitable to sustain human life.

I do not understand how the number of people having a major in an area is going to make it worthless. The only thing you get with a major is some first theoretical insights in it. It is not really a technical training at that stage. Again, the major alone is unlikely to set you on a certain career path.

Simply put, the major is not really terribly important. A strong focus on premeds is a bit unfortunate, but if they teach a decent foundation in ecology you should be good. The decision of the major will only have a relatively small impact, especially considering that you have not a particular career path in mind.

Natural selection is neither good nor bad. It is just a mechanism that exists.

There are many assertions that are unfounded. In many rural areas of China women are working the fields side-by-side with men. The rest is even more ridiculous and self-contradictory (females are treated better because they are worthless? Males want to kill babies, too, but are not allowed to- what?).

Actually in many societies (although it also depends on the specific subgroup) females are treated as expendable. For instance many inheritance law only allowed the sons to inherit properties. Thus, females were groomed to become brides to someone else at best. Under certain combinations, as e.g. the one-child policy in China in conjunction with the preference for males, sometimes female babies are simply killed (if not aborted earlier, depending on level of health care, I presume).

Also, without a counterpart on which blame can be loaded on, how can a single party survive? And another question is whether the divide is real or made up. I.e. are actually enacted policies significantly different between either party?

Good points. Some may require whole threads on their own to explore them even marginally. On topic: I think there are several concepts that have to be discussed here as well. The first that has already been touched upon is the prevalence (or lack thereof) of family planning. There is a wide difference in a number of sub-Saharan countries. One could explore why that is the case. Another one is the economic instability of the countries facing famine (and the roots thereof). And finally there are environmental challenges. Somalia for instance is facing one the largest droughts since 50 years. And I am pretty sure that there is much more. Simple answers to complex situations are almost always lacking in explanatory power. A nice talk to this topic Rosling

As I said, it depends on the prokaryote. The majority of anaerobic subsurface bacteria for instance utilize acetate and propionate because they are lower in the degradation chain, so to speak. Bacteria living in more biomass rich environments (including our bodies) obviously are better adapted to glucose utilization. But even there you can find differences. A number of skin-colonizing bacteria utilize fatty acids rather than C6-sugars. I.e. even within the same overall habitat different specializations exist. Edit: maybe I should be a bit more specific. Because glucose is such a rich energy source, there is selective advantage in utilizing it. As a result once released, it will be relatively quickly utilized and will not be available in larger distances from its source. As a result, many bacteria that have not direct access to these sources (e.g. simply by living more distant to it) specialize in using degradation/fermentation compounds of these sugars as C-source and/or electron donors.

Well, the system the Mosuo set up is interesting in many aspects. The fact that non of the genders actually are "destined" to leave the household apparently reduces unequal treatment. A girls can be deemed less worth in many cultures, because they are lost to the family and do not continue to carry on the family name. While societies have changed in recent times, these believes are much harder to change. In walking marriages of course there is no binding obligation for any of the partners to maintain the relationship, especially since the child unequivocally belongs to the mother's family. One should note that rape still occurs in the Mosuo society, (which is punishable by death IIRC) however I have no idea how high the rate is.

Continuous ketone formation (ketosis) is an undesirable condition, leading to a number of adverse health effects. There is a reason why glucose is the preferred energy source.

Yes, complete polymerization and also degassing are good ways to avoid artifacts and gel irregularities (e.g. slightly wavy bands).

Also, there is homegrown terror. Unfortunately sometimes it just takes one to create a tragedy. BBC

Quality of reporters has gone down the drain. Anything above celebrity news is just too hard work.

Depends really on what problems you have. One could increase the C value, for instance, to further reduce pore size. While it is mostly done for DNA or RNA gels, it may resolve 20 kDa proteins slightly better (at around 12 %). However, the sharpness does not only depends on that. Depending on the chamber you use, several other factors are likely to be more important. Among these heating, SDS depletion and inhomogenous electric fields are very common (again, depending on the system). Counter measures are usually cooling, adjusting the Voltage (or, alternatively, current), run time and buffer reservoir (or use two-buffer chambers), and seal gel caskets (when applicable). But it really depends on what the issue is in detail (i.e. are the bands diffuse and large?).

Here is btw. an article which describes aspects of family planning in Africa Effective family planning is, in general, strongly connected with education and especially the empowerment of women. My link Also, I have a hard time to interpret Ophiolite's post as racist. Also relevant

The instability is one of the reasons why I suspect that (free-living) prokaryotes do not possess appropriate transport mechanisms. In multicellular eukaryotes it is a different thing altogether, as they basically create their own habitat (i.e. the body of the respective organism). Also for many prokaryotes glucose is not an usable C-source, or electron donor (for energy generation) mostly due to the fact that it does not naturally exist in significant abundance in their habitats. AFAIK Mg is only around ATP due to ionic interactions with oxygen (i.e. is not covalently bound to the ATP. Beside that ATP does hydrolyze in dependence on the environment. Since Mg2+ mask the repulsive negative charges within ATP (as mentioned before) thus stabilizing it a bit. However, it does not suddenly transform it into a absolutely stable molecule (if it was, there would not be much energy won by hydrolyzing it, anymore). The stability of ATP either with or without Mg2+ depends on a number of factors, including temperature and, ion concentration and pH.

I do not know what you try to say, but symbiosis is the result of co-evolution, closely related (in mechanics) to parasitism. There is virtually no one arguing that it happened in an instance. Moreover, the the nuclear transfer in mitochondria arguably occurred way after establishment of a symbiotic relationship. From the way you wrote it, it appears to me that you were paraphrasing it (wrongly) from somewhere else (and adding random thoughts). Maybe providing a source could help others assist others to understand your point better?

First of all climate are the part of the scientific community whose expertise is relevant to the question. I would not know why the opinion of a microbiologist should have any relevance, unless some climate related effects were found in the studies of bacteria. Then 99.9 is relatively close to 97 and is not too bad as a guess. The value behind the decimal point gives probably an unnecessary illusion of accuracy.

Bacteria are single cells, they do have little in way of mechanism to retain memory (there is something like that though, which is based on translational modification status, but it is really just faintly comparable). All their reactions are directly controlled by biochemical conditions (internal as well as external). The only way to "train" is to disrupt or modify the regulatory system, e.g. rendering them non-responsive to certain stimuli. This is mostly genetic manipulation, though.

I assume he means organic solvents/water mixtures which are common in e.g. reverse or forward-phase HPLC. However, I have not used any of instruments beside speed-vac and freeze-drying and cannot comment on the performance. For large volumes the latter was much faster, but may depend on the system. I would assume it depends on the number of samples and the volume of each sample.

On plates and on the table it may take 1-2 days, especially in presence of ABs (even when resistant). Depends a bit on how fresh and viable the starting culture. Sometimes can even take up to three days to get a decent lawn (everything in full medium). For heating avoid temperatures over 38-39 degrees. If you cannot gurantee that keeping it at room temperature is definitely preferable. I suspect that mixing it with milk is just an easy way to avoid using buffer or media for plating. It depends on what culture you have. If you start from a plate and want to make a lawn you would have take off cells and resuspend it in buffer or media. I suppose milk could work as a cheap alternative. If you already got a liquid culture you often have to dilute it to a specified cell density (so that your experiments have all the same start conditions). Again, this is usually done with media or buffer. To get ABs you definitely have to ask your school whether they have/require a permit to get it from chemical suppliers.

Group behaviour is highly complicated as an emergent property (though astonishingly simple in mechanism), but note that each individual has a much higher complexity than bacteria. They have a simple nervous system, for instance. That being said, simple group behavior can be found in myxobacteria, who hunt other bacteria in packs (and only in packs) or the formation of fruiting bodies, in which some bacteria form the structure and others the spores.