CharonY

Generally it refers to a chromosomal region in which an unusually high number of genes (as opposed to non-coding sequences) are found.

Hush puppies? Not the brand with bassets, I hope. insane_alien, can I deep fry a macbook air there?

Hmm, I see. However, I assume that the antibody is used to detect proteins that bind cAMP, rather than to detect isolated cAMPs in a gel. While this is might in theory be possible (e.g. by running a sequencing gel, but only shortly) I cannot quite see an application for that. Now to your initial first question in the OP. A gel does not truly separate according to MW but rather according to electrophoretic mobility. The result is that in order to assess MW from a gel you need standards that are chemically similar (at least with respect to electrophoretic mobility) or you have to make them similar. An example are proteins that due to different amino acid compositions have very different charges and structures. In order to compare their sizes one has to eliminate (or reduce) these effects by adding SDS. As such I am wondering, based on what as reference do you assume that cAMPwould run at an equivalent of 17kDa? Generally, such values are used for proteins gels (which cAMP is not, of course). Are you sure that you did not simply confuse cAMP with something else (e.g. CAMP, Cathelicidin antimicrobial protein)?

Ha, and that too. On a single run (around two days) I generate around a gig worth of numbers. Making all of them accessible (even those that gave no results) would be quite challenging. Especially if, say, a hundred groups would be doing that.

Yes, they are either supplementary material or some kind of depository. However they are usually not totally raw. For instance in a microarray experiment you essentially measure fluorescence in one or more channels for a few thousands spots. Now the raw data is essentially just the fluorescence value for each channel. This list would yield much information to anyone but the investigator. What is published is e.g. normalized values or in case of comparative analyzes, the relative differences. As a rule of thumb most journals want the author to provide, at least upon request, the raw data that lead to the immediate conclusions in one of their manuscripts. The authors may opt not to release data that is not relevant to this (but was generated in the same experiments, for instance) in order to publish it later. This is quite common in epidemiological studies, for instance. A big epidemiological study yields a vast amount of data and the researchers can harvest it for several years. They are, of course, hesitant to release data before they squeezed all the possible publications out of it. Of course, the data relevant for each manuscript will be included in each respective paper. Simply put, each paper should include all the information necessary to enable a peer on the given field to come to the same conclusions.

Grammar is simple, learning the tones (both listening as well as reproducing) is often hard for those not trained to hear them. And you mean even more? Here where I am we got whole labs in which the primary language is Chinese (well, or Korean).

I will begin with a minor note. While it may be nitpicking, the techniques you mentioned in many cases not considered biophysical methods per se as they have a strong application based background in the area of biology and chemistry. A biophysicist is generally more interested in the means of analyzing something (i.e. the mode of physical interaction) or certain physical properties of the substrate. However, in research and especially in industry these machines have a different use. E.g. to identify a compound or have structural information that may give hints at chemical properties etc. In other words, I would emphasize the application aspects of these techniques rather than the physical aspects. The distinction is not clear cut, of course, but in industry MS or NMRs are more often than not in the hands of (bio-)chemists and biologists. Biophysicists tend to be still rather rare (though not unknown). To give an example, I know biophysics graduate students who know a lot about AFM and have spent several years measuring forces on viral particles. However they still do not know what the host range of a virus is. Quite obviously this would not be very helpful if you intend to lead a project group that is supposed to develop vaccines. Now about getting an industry position. For entry a MBA is often not that helpful, especially given the positions that you describe. If you start, typical research related entry positions (ie not sales or similiar) are application specialists or a project manager. You will not start with a group in all positions (depending on company). And if you do you usually have one or several technicians (or equivalents) but rarely a team of scientists. As a fresh PhD you obviously will not start with managing scientists right off the bat. The most important bit, however, is as you already surmised, is to start getting contacts as soon as possible. You can e.g. arrange an internship with one of the companies you are interested in (depending on how and who pays you during your PhD it may not be possible). Whatever the case might be, you should apply for an industrial position shortly before you expect to get your PhD and if you do not score anything you can still go for a an industrial postdoc. Avoid an academic postdoc, though! Regarding techniques, it really depends. From the list you have given the MS is probably most likely used to identify, quantify and characterize (bio-) molecules. In many more or less straightforward production processes simple HPLC is used as quality control instead, though. In the end you should be asking yourself what kind of industrial position you seek. Then you can ask what skills you require. I am pretty sure that GDG and a few others can give you much more insight, though. Sorry for errors and inconsistencies, but I am typing in a hurry.

Depending on the field, such mechanisms are already in place. Of course the raw data is usually connected to a given publication, otherwise it would be just a huge data dump with little information. For instance, in most proteomics journals you have to submit the MS/MS spectra of protein analyses. They are then freely available as supplementary material. Likewise, published sequence data has to be deposited in a database (e.g. Genbank) and so on. The problem is that data is often not normalized. They differ from machine to machine, sometimes from run to run. Without a lot of metainformation (as provided in a manuscript) much of the data cannot be analyzed even by an expert (much less by a layman). Of course there are exception as e.g. genome databases. The better ones are manually curated, though, which takes quite a bit of time and effort. The goal of a manuscript is to put the raw data into a narrative that can be understood by a peer on this field. Interpretation of raw data itself can be terribly complex. To summarize it: in many cases, and if it is of importance, raw data is available either as supplementary information or it is found in one of the specialized databases. An uncurated data dump, however will be in most cases of limited value for both, experts as well as laymen.

I am confused about what you describe. A western blot is made with proteins, not with small molecules like cAMP. Are you sure that you made a PAGE with cAMP?

Well then it would create the above mentioned dependency. Though of course it could be said that the dependency on agricultural companies is already a reality with non-GM crops anyway. However, what I am arguing against is the "GM is good for people because it helps feeding the poor" argument. So far the majority of GM crop appear to geared towards already industrialized agriculture (e.g. delayed rotting). Abilities like pesticide resistance makes the users dependent on the pesticide in question, and pest toxicity may pose ecological problems. And finally, the intention of the companies will, of course, be to maximize profit, rather than feed the poor. The poor are not really a target anyway, because they are, well, poor. That being said, I do not give a rat's arse what Greenpeace thinks about it.

Selection itself has no influence on the mutation step. If everyone shoots, those that remain hiding survive....

Indeed. There are a couple containment strategies out there and I suppose they work reasonably well. But I do believe it somewhat invalidates the argument that it is for the good of the poor, as they will likely not benefit much from it.

Well, one way to argue against it is that introducing a certain vitamin does not necessarily makes it more nutritious per se, but it is quite possible that it will become more expensive. Moreover, many GM crops are sterile (deliberately) so that one has to re-buy the seeds. In other words, it may create a dependency of especially poor farmers to a given company.

Weeell. Highly concentrated acetic acid is actually not that good if ingested. I had an accident with that a while back and the skin of my hand did start to peel off. I having it in direct contact with living tissue would not have been that much fun. That being said, most parts of the MSDS from many manufacturers are automatically generated. The safety ratings are a somewhat better thing to look for. For instance, I would not be surprised if on the MSDS sheet for water it would recommend to rinse your eyes with water if you get water in your eyes....

Somewhat bad news. However according to the law apparently it is necessary to prove that the preparations were done with an act of terrorism in mind. So if you download manuals for building bombs and they can prove or have at least circumstantial evidence that they were not out of curiosity but with a specific target in mind, you may get imprisoned (up to three years). Likewise if you distribute manuals in a situation, in which there is somehow a connection to an act of terrorism you may get imprisoned. An example: if in a forum someone states that XXX should be bombed and then someone posts a instruction for building bombs, this may fall under the law. If you talk about explosive things in an educational context, however, it is OK. In truth I wonder how they want to enforce this law properly. It is a bit like the forms in the US in which you have to state whether you are a member of a terroristic organization. You would only get the stupid ones (who probably would have trouble following instructions anyhow). Overall I feel that it falls under the stupid panic induced laws.

It is unlikely that the final concentration of ethanol is 96%. First it is hard to synthesize Ethanol with a higher purity than 96% to begin with and second, it is generally diluted with other components (so the final concentration will be lower). Finally, John is right that 70%-80% has the highest bactericidal rates, but it is independent on the ability to sporulate.

Well at least I know where the funding went if my grants do not hit ;P

Also, IMO the scientific knowledge gain would be dwarfed by the effort that would have to be put into it.

Surreal, yes.

What is kind of frightening is that apparently some consider her to be presidential material. I mean, really? Really really? Guess I will never understand US politics.

What is a newsletter?

It depends a bit whether you let the cell metabolize the acquired sulfate. There are a rather largish amount of molecules into which sulfur gets incorporated as e.g. amino acids or iron-sulfur clusters.

Seriously, why is this thread in "biology"? I am going to move it into general discussion as I assume it is a fun post.

It does not mean that at all. It means that it exhibits some kind of tolerance, but the mechanism is not described. It could be, for instance, that certain receptors that generally become inhibited or under ethanol, become responsive faster in adolescents (or the reverse may happen). It does not mean, however that specific brain areas are activated to counteract these effects.

First, this is a two-year old thread. Second, for statistics the WHO is generally a good source. For specific countries there is generally some agency (e.g. CDC in the US) that provide population statistics. According to the CDC for instance,