CharonY

Interesting thought experiment. Would you rather be ruled by able, benevolent dictators, or greedy, self-serving, imbecilic elected officials. Of course the preference for the latter is based on the fear that the premise of the former (able and beneficial) might change. Of course one could try to appoint a dictator for a time for kicks.

Well, it is able to react to anything in either part of its vision. I am only speculating here (thought there should be info around somewhere) but chances are that eye positioning will be part of the information sent to the brain to interpret the visual cues. The overall impression it has is likely similar to us humans, lacking sensory info is glossed over in the brain. Regarding is a bit more complicated compared to just seeing things. The interpretation of the written words usually requires quite a bit of focus. Unless the hypothetical chameleon would a have specialized area each able to read independently the ability to see incoherent views will not allow it to read (but theoretically it could switch from reading with one eye to reading with the other in fast succession).

This is very much an oversimplification of the issue and I have to add that biologists would do very well by taking lessons from other methodologies.

For world history I enjoyed " After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405" from John Darwin. Here is a review.

Data is inconclusive (as noted above). Moreover the methodology may not lead to a result that could support (or falsify) the assumption. Moderacy does not necessarily mean that he would criticize both parties equally. It rather suggests that he would pound on those making outrageous claims. Considering that democrats are in the government it is more likely that attacks from the right are more likely to amount to silliness. Though during the elections idiocy on the democrat side is to surely to surge.

My thesis is hosted by the university. And I think there was an effort in the UK to digitize phd theses. At least that is what I heard a while ago. Chances are that people are more interested in the published parts of it, though.

Indeed. From a purely practical standpoint it has the advantage that the tuition fees are much lower.

At least according to This. Though I do not understand why they split neurobiology from biology proper.

Regarding infant mortality rate, the US adheres to the WHO definition of live birth and I think Australia also does the same. Many countries adhere to the WHO definition (and usually in comparative analyzes the WHO definition is used). Known exception include countries of the former Soviet block. This confusion may be the result from looking at different years. Germany stated using the WHO definition only after 1991. Switzerland and Italy used to have a different definition, but I am not sure how it is currently. The point about the special definition of the US has been overstated a fair bit. Link To clear this up a bit one could compile a list of countries adhering to the WHO definition and just compare those (though I think the WHO statistics is based on that, anyway). There is an interesting paper where they only compare a few cities (Tokyo, New York, Paris and London) to monitor differences on the microscale: Link

A detailed view on science reporting Guardian

In addition you would need enormous amounts to cool something the size of a house significantly. Cooling it down to liquid N2 temps is of course impossible but even getting close to it would require literally flooding the house in it. Most likely you could suffocate the insects, however many can survive lack of oxygen for quite a while.

Well, somatic evolution is more of ecological interest seeing the body as a population of cells. However they are really only applicable in terms of tumorigenesis and immune development. This is a very specialized application of evolutionary theories and is not clearly in line what is stated in the OP.

Eh, the context is totally wrong. Evolution is about changes in allele frequency. This cannot happen on an individual level (esp. considering that all cells share the same genome).

Before we delve deeper in the matter what type of preventive medicine do we want to discuss here. The breast cancer example (also prostate for that matter) are cases of diagnostic scans and would not generally be included as preventive medicine. Once we got that we can check whether studies have been conducted for any given preventive recommendation and then we can assess whether they are useful or not. The next question would then be (in case they are helpful) what population effects it has. Then we can discuss whether above mentioned non-preventable diseases are really of overwhelming concern so that preventing other diseases is simply not worth it (though we would have to define a metric as e.g. cost for it first). Alternatively we can blame the medical profession as well as biomedical researchers and come up with better ideas.

1) regulatory sequences are outside the coding sequence. Each mRNA is preceded by a an untranslated region and is generally followed by another one. Thus knowing the gene sequence does not provide information on the initiation complex. 2) The Kozak sequence is the consensus binding site for the eukaryotic ribsome complex. 3) I mistyped I meant cytoplasmic ribosomes, of course, not mitochondria. Sorry for the confusion.

This is a general problem and sometimes even done out of ignorance. The media is full of it and usually the most dramatic spin gets the most attention.

You have not integrated the second hint. Or think about this: are cdc mutant completely unable to grow? Regardless of the condition? Moved to homework.

Hint:1: were the cells wild-type or mutants before you exposed them to UV? Hint 2: cdc mutants are generally temperature sensitive.

Despite being off-topic I like to add another finer point on the ban on Hitler's book in Germany, as it is often misunderstood (both within, as well as outside Germany). In short: it is not banned. Possession is legal,and you can legal sell original prints. However, the copyright belong to the state of Bavaria. I.e. no one else is allowed to reprint it and Bavaria doesn't grant anyone those rights nor does it print them. However, according to German laws these copyrights are only valid 70 years after the death of the author (IIRC) after which reprints become legal.

Well. coming from the "omics" side I have to add that right now we need to start making sense of the data rather than piling up on it. A serious is issue that many coming into the omic field try to do is non-hyptothesis driven proteomics or transcriptomics analyses (I admit that a decade or so back I did the very same). When I give talk how to use the omics toolbox I usually make an opening statement like "don't get too excited, if you want answers". Rather unfortunately many PIs see the methodologies little more than a paper making stint. Anyway, just needed to rant a bit.

First of all ribosomes translate and do not transcribe.The initiation of translation is different in pro- and eukaryotes. Most notably the ribosome binding sequence on the mRNA is different. The famous Shine-Dalgarno and Kozak sequences, respectively. This is important basics (if it does not tell you anything, grab a textbook now, also ). Regarding gcl the last time I heard about it was already a few years back, but from what I recall the evidence was not fully on the side of translation by mitochondrial ribosomes. I remember basically two explanations. A) presence of cis regulatory sequences that allow the translation, or in fact translation by cytoplasmic mitochondria.

Eh, it is neither spreading of DNA nor a fungus, but an accumulation of more or less diverse mutations that result in the deregulation of the growth and cell cycle control of the cell. The result is a cell that proliferates unchecked. What that guy proposes flies in the face of the current knowledge on cancer. I did not watch the video as the comments from someone who did were enough to convince me that watching it would melt my brain: Link Not to mention that bicarbonate would not do much to most fungi. For more, another link.

Well the next gen and the soon coming next-next gen sequencers are technically interesting. However, for scientific advancement we still need to figure out what to do with the info. If we are at that point is going to be a significant advancement. At this point we are more successful in finding out that certain approaches do not work If you want to know where the cost decrease came from- mostly from pyrosequencers as the 454 or solexa.

Denitrification does not produce CO2 per se, but the oxidation of an organic electron donor might (as with any other form of aerobic or anaerobic respiration). As mentioned, the release of CO2 is the result of microbial decomposition of the organic plant material.

I have no idea what your point is. Obviously single-celled organisms can do (and did) just fine by themselves. Also in the absence of oxygen.