CharonY

There are several reasons. The most obvious one a passion for science. Even with the limitations of grants you still have more freedom in academia than in industry (if you do science at all there). At the grad level it is often just not well though out. Whenever I get new students into the lab I ask them, what they want to do with their PhD and what is their ultimate goal. Relatively few really know what they want at that point and quite a lot see it as a continuation of school.

Just a little update, the WHO declared it a pandemic now (level 6). We got global spread. Good thing that it ain't that harmful.

I think there is one real problem with an academic career though. It is not valid for all disciplines, however the longer you remain on an academic path, the less attractive you become. What I mean is that if you make the jump to an industrial position, your market value increases with industry experience. Unfortunately making postdocs actually decreases your value. It is worse if you want to go into industry but even in academia, after 4 years or so, you are not as attractive to hire anymore (compared to an equal with at most 4 years). This part makes future planning more complicated than an industrial job. It is simply harder to switch, if one has made on or two bad postdocs. Not impossible, mind you, but much harder than switching industrial positions. Also, there is really an oversupply of scientists. Of course, if you are in a sweet spot, it may be different. But IIRC at peak times only around 25% of postdoctoral researchers eventually attain tenure. That is the rest will have to scramble for other jobs eventually.

Some comments after a quick glance over the post: -Cellular respiration is not limited to glucose or sugars in general. It is the general term utilize biochemical energy in any form (be it fatty acids, sugars, etc.). In other words you refer specifically to the aerobic respiration of glucose. -instead of destabilizing biochemists more commonly refer to it as activating the sugar I would still add the enzymes catalyzing the reaction (but that may be me) -NADH is not sent anywhere it is also not exclusively used in the electron transport chain. It more or less floats around until grabbed by an enzyme that needs it. -one should not really imagine the transfer of the phosphate group as a detachment and reattachment, but rather as a transfer via an enzyme. -highlight the endproduct of glycolyisis (pyruvate) as it is essential for the subsequent steps

Some random thoughts: - lab strains are usually weakling and do not compete well (or at all) with the indigenous flora. Thus they will never be numerically significant. As such transfers are somewhat unlikely as they generally do not persist enough to let significant amount of transfer (they are technically rare events, forced to happen in the lab in higher frequency by using vast amount of cells) However: - why the heck shouldn't operons be transferred? Even non-mobilizable plasmids (i.e. lacking a mob region) can be taken up (the fertility factors do not determine the transfer of a given plasmid per se, btw.). Those with a mob factor (or broad host range plasmids) have an easier time to spread quickly, though. Granted on the skin the chances are low, but if the plasmids end up in the sewer (and later on the wastewater treatment plants) the chances are skyrocketing. However: -given the fact that the genes in question will not provide any advantages (and in fact, will reduce fitness), it is very likely they will get inactivated, deleted, or the plasmid may get lost as whole (unless selective pressure exist to maintain it). Finally, proper aseptic techniques are also designed to contaminate oneself with bacteria, including BSL1 ones.

This is pretty much old news. Actually getting postdoctoral positions is not a problem per se (at least in most parts of academia). Getting precisely the one you want is a different thing, of course. But the first real problem is to get a faculty position that gives you good chances to become tenured and then getting the tenure itself. During all these steps (at the latest from the faculty position) your job becomes a strongly administrative one. That is writing grants, preparing all the paperwork (and it is a lot) managing the funds etc. Research is reduced to interaction with your students and postdocs and you will be forced to come up with research that are in line with stuff that actually gets funded. What most people will say (and it is true) is that becoming a scientist is not a career choice, but a choice of passion. It is not necessarily a good thing too, because even if you are prepared to sacrifice a lot for this kind of career, the odds are still against you. The critical points are if you do not get a faculty position in a timely manner (most say that around 4 years are pushing the limits), or if you do not manage to get tenure after that. In the latter case it is quite possible to be well over 40, unsuitable for industry and jobless in academia. It is not a nice perspective, if you have got a family to supply. Also even if with a faculty position, brace yourself for a lot of infighting. An old but fitting quote: Keep in mind, however that one is obviously not limited to academia jobs. While much less (if at all) basic research is done there, there are also industry jobs. They provide less opportunity for active research, on should keep in mind that as an PI with a decent group size you will be also be more of a project manager (and teacher!) in academia.

Actually I do not think that repetition with the same subject helps as they are not independent samples. For higher accuracy a larger n would be more beneficial. Also such cross-sectional studies obviously cannot give any indication to individuals but only for the population.

One random example, overexpress an enzyme of a given metabolic pathway to alter cellular activity or try to direct metabolic fluxes. Or overexpress a regulator to affect gene transcription. Or use trypsin to segregate cell layers..or use antibody conjugates to visualize specific cellular elements or use toxicity tests (if the protein in question is a toxin, of course), and so on. Almost all cellular function are on way or another related to proteins, and obviously you can test about anything. Sockyee, HPLC is basically only good for somewhat purified protein samples. Often just a affinity purification is done, sometimes an additional preparative HPLC can be done afterwards, depending on required purity. But denaturation is usually not an issue anymore, as during the purification steps and most HPLC-systems they generally get denaturated anyway. Protein degradation is generally of greater concern.

1- They are generally either extracted from cells (and by extension, tissue), cell surface, cell compartments or directly from the media (in case of secreted proteins). 2- This is too general to be easily answered. It depends on what you want to test.

Actually I think that I read somewhere that mast cells may actually play a role against bacteria by modulating the immune response. Edit: found something: Malaviya, Immunological reviews [0105-2896] yr:2001 vol:179 pg:16

Well, as GDG mentioned, if the medium would be truly only milk proteins and lactose, there will be no bacterial growth. And just btw., it is easier to take water and just add the components you want than start with a complex mixture and then selectively remove things. Also I am wondering what the question really is about. Do you mean what kind of bacterial fermentation pathways are available starting from amino acids and/or lactose ? Much will be moved towards the pyruvate or acetyl-coA which then can be used in a given fermentative pathway. Common endproducts are acetate, propionate and butyrate Lysine can be fermented to butyrate and acetate and ammonia. Pyruvate itself can, of course, be moved to the TCA cycle, and so on. Lactose is likely to be cleaved to glucose and galactose and proceed from there. If the question is to what amino acids can be theoretically be degraded (not coupled to fermentation per se) then of course the possibility of compounds will be much vaster. However, in the hypothetical medium it is unlikely to happen, as it is not really suitable for bacterial growth. Coupled to energy conversation, however, the above mentioned compounds are most commonly found.

Maybe, although I am not even sure whether there is more competition for faculty positions, but rather that there are more available for international faculty. It is simply easier to get a faculty position in the US than in many parts of Europe, even if you are foreigner. But this is clearly not the point that the students wanted to make. The basic assumption was that the university education in the US surpasses that of all other countries.

Maybe. I call it espresso machine, though.

Hmm, well they may also other things that contribute to the image of arrogance, which, in my opinion, are mostly derived from the lack of knowledge of other nations/cultures. For instance what I heard sometimes from students is that the US offers "the best university system of the world". However, without actually having any idea how it is in other countries. Actually one of the graduate lectures I had ended with a heated discussion with a group of Americans on the one side and a mix of students from India, Japan, Italy and one US American on the other. Strange enough, I found it to be one of the more rewarding sessions that I had.

I am not sure what the question is. Do you mean that all E. colis within a well (originating from the same colony) carried the same plasmid with the same inserts? If so, what precisely is the question? Why all clones of the same colony carried the plasmid with the same insert (answer is right there)? Or why a given plasmid only carried one insert? Or why each clone only carried one plasmid with one particular insert? For the last two questions: during ligation you adjust the insert to plasmid ratio so that not more than one insert will statistically insert. For the second, transformation is a relative rare event. Again, the plasmid to cell ratio is generally adjusted to allow only one transformation event per cell.

I think in many cases only certain recombinations are possible indicated by mating types or fertility groups. The mitochondria of one of those groups get lost subsequently (my memory is rather vague in details, though). However, regarding the advantages of sexual recombination. While creating diversity has been often cited, I recall that there was actually little evidence supporting that, given the two-fold cost of sexual reproduction. Another theory was that it evolved as a form of genomic parasitism (a review in which this was one of the subtopics was written by Rose and Oakley, 2007... I think).

Ouch, you are right, of course. I was comparing apple to oranges and writing rubbish in general (to my defense I have to say that I had a student overload today). Since the 90s the total number actually stagnated in the US with the single largest overall increase being around 2%. China on the other hand had a steady increase averaging to the around 6% annually. Upon reflection even this corrected version this does not address the point made by Captain Panic at all. The only measure that makes sense would, of course, the total world-wide output. But those also fluctuate with some years being more productive than others. While there is a steady increase overall, it is linear at best, with some years being less productive than the previous ones. Here the output also was faltering around the mid-90s. Incidentally this was also the time when the US started to produce less papers than the EU. One has to add, though that also the total ever published amount is of importance, even older papers have to be taken into account, although ideally reviews should (if they did their job) account for that.

I think this is actually not true. I read an article a while back which discussed paper output in relation funding opportunities. I forgot the precise value but the annual increase in US in the last years was less than 2%, IIRC. I only remember that east Asia (most probably especially China) had the highest increase with over 6%. In any case, it is clear that an exponential increase is unlikely, given the fact that there is only an extremely low increase in scientists over the years to begin with. While in recent times some new disciplines have established themselves that are able, on average, to publish faster (e.g. bioinformatics or informatics in general), that cannot leverage an exponential increase. What has changed, however, is the the speed with which you can make searches, so in theory you have actually more time to read (as opposed as being in the library to copy them).

Yes indeed. Today alone there were two occasions in which I employed the quote to make a point. I credited it by saying: "As a wise man once said:..."

And in the end, everything will be eaten by microbes, anyway.

Well, the question does not exclude modifications.

Hint2: How many C H O and N are, at minimum, found per amino acid?

That is a good one. Mind if I borrow the phrase?

Moved to homework. Take a look at the elements in it. What is common to all proteins? How much of it would be found in a protein (at minimum)?

I think 100 is pretty much pushing the limit for solid phase synthesis (I am currently not aware of a different technique that is able to get much more than that, please educate me, if I am wrong). This would get a rather smallish protein or long peptide (depending on perspective). However, technically it should be possible by chemical ligation to create larger proteins from peptides. In any case, in vivo as well as in vitro protein biosynthesis based on protein translation generally gives higher yield.