CharonY

If we are talking about now, then China is still lagging way behind. Mostly out of organizational and structural reasons. However they have been pouring out a lot of money to improve infrastructure and to lure back home Chinese scientists. This is reflected in the recent increase in output from Chinese research institutes. Depending on their ability to further improve research infrastructure, improve their own educational system to train junior scientists (atm they are still very dependent on sending their top scholars to other countries, in which they quite often become succesfull and stay) and are able to attract more top scientists, they may well catch up in a few decades (judging from the improvements over the last one). Though it also depends much on the economic situation, of course. And I am counting Japan to the top science countries, together with a number of countries in the EU (most notably UK and Germany), as well as USA. There differences in the top fields in each of the countries, nonetheless they are the leading nations when it comes to science.

So, could anyone provide me with the current accepted definition of disease? For instance, the presence of remedies is clearly not necessary for conditions to be characterized as diseases. Are genetic disorders diseases? Are all forms of cancer diseases? Are allergies diseases?

These are two different phenomena. Immunity gained from the uptake from low concentration or inactivated toxins results in the ability of the immune system to recognize and neutralize toxins, but not to store them. In other words, if you accumulate toxins in significant amount, you will eventually die. You are immune by effectively inactivating and removing toxins before they do harm.

Musashi also killed an opponent with a carved paddle. Unlikely that he put an edge to it.

Some of the bigger international lab suppliers are Cole Parmer, VWR and Fisher.

pseudo, please do not simply post answers to homework questions. The reason being that the students won't benefit from doing homework if they are just copy the answers from some internet site.

Moved to homework. Please ask questions instead of posting the homework. How would you calculate it?

I think it would be level 2.

Have you checked the plasmid before transforming them into DH5alpha? While there are other RecA- strains, like e.g. TOP10, I am not sure why the outcome should be different to DH5alpha (as it already carries the relevant mutations).

Weird first post...

It cuts at the C-terminus after lysine or arginine (except when proline follows). Remember, the notion is, by convention, from the N- to the C- terminus. So cutting close to the C-terminus would leave the amino acid on the "left" side of the chain.

Naaah. Hope is overrated.

Sounds right.

Your definition of SNP is partially wrong. The percentage of occurrence is irrelevant. It only means that between two given sequences at the same locus a single nucleotide is exchanged. To find these, you only need to sequence(or hybridize) a given region. e.g. a PCR amplificate. A SNP can thus refer to, say a polymorphism between you and your parents, or between any two individuals, or even between paired chromosomes. There is no "universal" reference.

I suppose much of it is (again) due to the antipathy against Bush.

It is not the reading per se that I am worried about. Actually I wonder if one should close this thread.

I think they wanted to reach 5-7 TeV until end of this year. I am really interested when it happens. On second though I think I would be more excited once they have evaluated the data. On third thought I'd probably only be excited if they translate their findings into something that even I would understand...

I kind of have a hard time to believe that they are usable for high-end applications. I am tempted to get me a bino, but I do not think I would like to try the fluorescence system. And they spelled "Canon" wrongly on their site...

Right, I forgot about Phusion. I think I had only used it a few times for relatively small fragments (~3kb) but with high (~75%) GC. Switched to KOD as it gave me more consistent results. But having it in the freezer is usually the best reason to use it

Just to clarify, Europeans do not have a special gene allowing lactose tolerance. Every human possesses a functional lactase gene. The difference is that normally this gene will be repressed later on. However, a SNP in region near the lactase gene in Europeans allows a continuous expression of the gene). In other words, the mutation allowing lactose degradation is in fact only very small. I have to correct myself, I was reading different things but I stumbled over some recent papers on this area and it appears that there may be now altogether 5 SNPs associated with lactose tolerance. Regarding the fixation rate, the question is, of course whether the alleles may have gotten fixated in certain subpopulations first. Even if the overall population of a given area was several thousand, it is likely that exchange of genetic material was somewhat limited (though one would have to trace where precisely diary was practiced). Alternatively or additionally, of course, the selection coefficient has had to be very high. Anyway, back to topic...

While you can get those strains they are all biosafety level 2 and you need to sign a MTA. If you work in such a lab I am certain that you should know where you can get them. If you are not, you should not get them.

Unfortunately this is a very romantic view on marine biology. Not that much is actually dedicated to field work, and in the end it is mostly down to funding. Just as a side note, I am pretty sure that it wasn't meant in earnest, but I just have to stress that one shouldn't mix up Hollywood with real life research. They are simply way too far apart.

Hey wow, congrats. Does MkII has any significant upgrades?

From the top of my head, polymerases with proof reading capability and with with which I successfully amplified ~10 kb of high GC fragments (most are able to amplify up to 30kb): KOD Hot Start Qiagen LongRange Elongase (did not work that well on very high GC templates) TaqPlus Pfu Ultra LongAmp Taq There were a couple more, but these were those that I used most. BTW, 4 kb is often still within the range of most "normal" proof-reading polymerases. The yield might be a bit lower, but one could use them most of the time, too. I have successfully amplified ~4.5 kb (not high GC) with Pfx, Pfu and PWO (at least that are those that I remember).