zyncod

If the gonads are derived from the transgenic ES cell, then all the gametes will be transgenic; there won't be any recombination with the non-transgenic genome because that genome is in other cells. Therefore, if you get a white mouse by crossing a chimera with a black mouse, then you have a heterozygote for the transgene. If you want a homozygote, then coat color isn't going to help you anymore (due to independent assortment) but you can do the more labor intensive PCR screening. Ps - I'm making the assumption here that white coat color is dominant over black coat color (which is not true - oops).

You're right. A transgenic chimeric mouse does have two genomes. You insert your gene (or knock it out) in a mouse embryonic stem cell from a strain that has white fur. Then you insert that cell into a blastocyst from a mouse strain with black fur. The resulting (chimeric) mouse will have black and white fur patches. You do some breeding and backcrossing, and when you get a white-fur mouse, there's your transgenic mouse. The fur color is used simply as an easy way of seeing whether or not you have a transgenic.

No, all those transgenic mice out there have been modified by germline therapy (technically: the first modified mouse is usually a chimera since it's the blastocyst that is modified and not the zygote).

Or if the US perceives that you have oil. I'm going to plead ignorance in terms of Libya's "WMD-related programs," but if they had nuclear weapons or a path to such, that would make them a much better target than Iraq, given that we apparently had to attack some Middle Eastern nation. And given that there are between 30000-200000 dead in Iraq as a direct result of our actions (Pentagon - Lancet), I would say that you have to think long and hard about how Libya's "WMD program" would impact the world before conflating Libya with Iraq.

Actually, such cell cultures are far from cruelty-free. I'll be decorous for once and not say how exactly they get the fetal calf serum that is an integral part of mammalian culture systems, but it's pretty disgusting.

Atheist - Second: you don't realize what an incredible hassle a car is until it's gone. At least if you've owned a Geo Storm, which, while fuel-efficient, is a piece of crap. It takes longer to get around, yes, but the peace of mind is sooo worth it. Plus you get to read instead of sitting in traffic.

That is more than the entire budget request from the NSF for 2007 ($6.02 billion). Which is incredibly sick, considering how much better off the world would be if a poorly built Marine 1 crashed in flight (joking, of course, because then Cheney would be our president).

Meiosis would tend to fail. However, Down syndrome patients are apparently fertile, though at a much greater risk of passing down the trisomy than the population at large (40% vs <1%). I've always kind of wondered (though I would never dare to ask) if people with Down syndrome are aware that they are missing anything in terms of the normal human experience (if indeed they are missing anything). I have a cousin with Down syndrome and he is one of the most consistently happy people I have ever known.

Also, in terms of the original point of this thread (which, again, I'm not surprised that Fellbeast failed to understand), there is also the runaway sexual selection hypothesis. Because nearly all land mammals in every environment possible have fur, and we don't. Just as no other birds beside the peacock have >1m tailfeathers.

Entropy does actually apply to evolution. Hence the fact that our genome is 4 billion bp rather than less than much less than 1 billion. However, AiG has misinformed yet another person. Entropy always increases (it's actually never neutral), but not always at the maximum rate. If that were true, there would be no crystals on this planet. And yet there are. The 2nd law of thermodynamics applies only to closed systems, which is what makes this argument so stupid. And there are many proofs of how entropy can act in an open system to increase complexity, which I'm not going to post because Fellbeast won't read it or synthesize it in any way. I just pray to the God who doesn't exist that you never vote, Fellbeast.

Or the fact that "replication" and "evolution" of organic crystals would be included in this definition. Graham Cairns-Smith brought up this theory in the 60s using silicate crystals on clay substrates but there's no reason to think that organic crystals wouldn't behave in the same fashion. And clearly crystals are not "alive." There is no good definition of life, and at the risk of sounding like an ass, there's no good reason to define life. It's one of those things that are intrinsically understood but impossible to put into words. Like emotions.

Um, yes. The life expectancy for males is seven years younger than women in the US. But that's what statistics are for: generalization.

Well, it's the price you pay for being male. Feminism to the contrary - and I am all for it - men live hard and die young. The fact that you don't have two Xs just adds to that.

Except for the fact that kids' teeth will last between 8-18 years, at the most. I'm no apologist for the anti-fluoridation cause - I just think that, given how sensitive infants are during development to pretty much anything, that postponing the exposure to fluorides to 2 years old won't really harm them. Barring a very pervasive infection, there is actually very little harm in allowing children to develop 'naturally' to the point at which they start losing teeth.

I've used the comet assay in the past as a genotoxicity measure. It's easy (if fairly labor intensive in the measuring stage), and you can probably use the photolability of aflatoxin adducts as a way of amplifying the specificity for aflatoxin in particular.

Are you sure that she's not getting fluorides from the drinking water anyway? It's been a while since I lived in the UK, so I don't remember if they fluorinate the water.

In terms of the supply, the remaining economically mineable uranium is 5-6 million tons (not very much). However, by extracting uranium from seawater (there is a surprising amount of it in there), the world's energy needs could be met for the next 5 billion years (Breeder reactors: A renewable energy source, American Journal of Physics, vol. 51, (1), Jan. 1983). Hands up if you think humanity's going to be around in 5 billion years? No? So the supply, at least, is not really a problem.

I think you mean Mendelian vs. sex linked diseases. And it all has to do with the X chromosome.

Well, you introduced the off topic, so..... As opposed to capitalism as a 'just' system? Over the past two years, as a research lab tech, I've been making less than half of what my friends who went into business do. I've actually been making less than what the janitors who empty my trash do. I'm not complaining- I love what I do for a living, but in terms of lasting benefits to humanity, what I do is worth more than what my accountant friends or janitor colleagues do. How is that fair?

What about a one-time lottery on a per-family basis? There is no way we can deport all illegals, and the absence of 11 million people (jobs "Americans wouldn't take" or not) would leave a gaping hole in the employment structure anyway. So we offer a lottery for citizenship where, say, 60% of people will 'win.' A 60% chance, I think, is enough that a majority of illegals would enter - for the chance at a minimum wage salary, governmental benefits, and the inability ever to be deported. The per-family basis would assure that there is no breaking up of families, and the requirement for a valid address would assure that deportation of all non-selectees would be possible. It's not anybody's first choice solution, from xenophobic Minutemen to unrealistically soft liberals, but I think it could be valid (as a one-time thing).

Well, then we would co-evolve with the virus. Like the rabbits in Australia.

Hell no! Sorry, but this is pseudoscience, so we don't have to be as rigorous here.

They are probably not helpful to the organism itself, though their cousins (and probable ancestors), retrotransposons, are an important source of evolutionary change by shuffling the genome. Especially in plants.

Yeah, let's all of a sudden start worrying about the Mexicans, after how many years? Displacement, anyone? Why exactly is this such a big issue now, given that we have the better part of a thousand issues to worry about first.

I suppose that, given this precedent, that the act of taking a fetus out of state for purposes of abortion would indeed be illegal. However you feel about abortion, you have to admit that allowing this law opens up some very very scary possibilities in terms of how the law treats pregnant women. That is, while you are pregnant, your life and liberty are essentially less important than the fetus you are carrying around.