zyncod

For us, no hard consequences. For the Iraqis? Probably what had gone on before. If we had planned the war out ahead of time and we had the ambassador that we have now since the beginning, it may not have been such a problem. I'm really not against nation-building. I believe that our (liberal, sorry) values are worth exporting. We just need to do it right. And not to acknowledge the fundamental Shiite/Sunni conflict, in my mind, was just stupid. But, yes, Saddam sucked, and no matter what, it is good that he is gone. (This is all irregardless of Bush's past/present/future justifications for the war). Yes, I know. It was a deliberate reversal of the little hobbits' saying.

Nope. But that was three years ago and this is today. And the situation we have now is akin to "out of the fire and into the frying pan." And instead of continually saying how great it is that we're not in the fire anymore, maybe we should be looking for a way out of the frying pan.

Why? 95% of people here are very civil - I think a simple vote would work just fine. Some sort of nomination process would not be a bad idea, though. On that note, I'd like to nominate Pangloss for retaining civility in the category where it is most difficult to do so. (so if anyone agrees with me, they say 'second' or nominate their own candidate. I know I'm kind of putting the cart ahead of the horse here).

Bravo. I'm a vegetarian, and my job is "vivisection." Environmentally, it's a far more sustainable diet. The additional annual carbon dioxide required to provide a meat-based diet (energy loss further up the food chain, refrigeration, trucking for feed, the animals themselves) vs. a plant-based one is equivalent to the annual CO2 produced by a car. I really don't care about the animals involved in agriculture very much at all. The additional stomachs allow time for bacteria to break down cellulose that is a major dietary component of ruminants. Even us vegetarians don't typically eat grass or wood. Oh, really? Are you in the habit of tearing into the raw flesh of animals with your teeth? Or do you eat softened, cooked meat with a knife and fork?

One good thing about this debate- at least it got rid of that idiot Larry Summers.

People in labs routinely assemble viruses from "nonliving" components: protein shells, nucleic acids, and accessory proteins. What made it so "special" in the transition of mixing these chemicals together?

Actually, the drug companies could directly patent "Vitamin B17" as a therapy for cancer, without modifying the compound at all. Geron patented telomerase, a widely occurring natural "chemical," for use in aging therapy. Why won't laetrile die already? Exactly like creationism, the basic arguments do not change, people just repeat them more and more shrilly with each passing year.

Some cyanobacteria make hydrogen under anaerobic conditions. That explodes.

You're the only one who's drawing that line. In fact, since everyone in the entire world has a different, personal definition of life, nobody can say for certain whether electronic life existed 80 years ago (as per bascule's reference), exists now, will possibly exist in the future, or will never exist. You give me your definition of life, and I'll tell you why it's wrong (because everybody's is), without resorting to God.

Or: Haven't you been working a little hard? Take a week off.

I think the problem is that science is so ruthlessly competitive that it magnifies what might be small innate differences between men and women. Unlike many other fields, science, and biology especially, have such set career tracks that it's hard to deviate in any fashion and still be successful. Moreover, the time at which your finances are finally stable enough to start a family is the most difficult time in your career. Man or woman, if you take 6 months off after having a baby (not too very much time) when your lab is only a few years old, that could set your work back a year or two. Science, for better or worse, is not based around the proposition that your personal life will take precedence.

That was my point. There is no defining quality of life. I tend to think of viruses as alive and prions as not alive, but there is no clear difference between the two. Both are self-replicating. They do?

The question of "What is life?" is also so inconceivably difficult that biologists gave up on the question as meaningless about 50 years ago. After all, if viruses are "alive," then crystals are also essentially alive (they reproduce themselves from a seed form). If viruses aren't "alive," why not? Especially given the point about the meroviruses that was brought up in the OP. Creation of self-replicating elements of software is clearly possible. Are they alive? Who knows? Moreover, why does it matter?

That, in this case, is extremely unlikely. Far more likely is that the two (collie) genes were linked.

I had always kind of thought something like this might have been the case. I mean, we have the RNA world hypothesis as the most likely possibility for the origin of life, and viruses alone among all organisms have RNA genomes (and DNA genomes). I find viruses to be very interesting, so I don't really like the Ayn Rand reference in the article ("prime mover"). Nothing rational should ever be associated with Ayn Rand.

Sorry, that analogy of the 'W' strips was not entirely accurate. To be fully accurate, the strips only become magnetic in the 'W' form. In the straight form, they are not magnetic, but they are still capable of being attracted by a magnet. Essentially, the straight form: a bendy piece of iron the 'W' form: a rigid magnet

Say you have magnetic strip #1 that is straight left to its own devices. If you introduce magnetic strip #2 shaped like a 'W,' then magnetic strip #1 will also form a 'W.' The two linked strips continue the process of changing other magnetic strips from lines to 'W's. The prion protein is a naturally occurring protein - the natural protein just needs the template of the prion form in order to turn into another prion protein.

The body actually fights off HIV very effectively. Immediately after infection, viral titers rise to a level that is not seen again until the person is almost dead. By 6 weeks, virus levels are almost undetectable; however, the virus has inserted its genome in host T cells and becomes latent. Small amounts of virus are released over time, killing more and more T cells until eventually the immune system is unable to cope with opportunistic infections. Actually, one of the big areas in research right now is trying to get latently infected T cells to reactivate high levels of HIV virion production so that the cells harboring the virus can be killed off. In that case, HIV might actually be cured rather than simply controlled.

NASA does not need to go to Mars. It gets too much money already for what are essentially esoteric and useless projects, although they are interesting. They are way overfunded at the moment, while many other worthy science projects go begging for money.

I don't think that many people specifically work in the field of cytogenetics. Cytogenetics is really just a tool for finding out other things, like fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) or polytene chromosome analysis of Drosophila salivary glands.

Actually, I tend to find that the problems don't really crop up in logic, per se, but in seemingly innocent inconsistencies. Like when I'm reading a paper and I see that the authors all of a sudden start using nonparametric tests where before they were using the standard t test. Both are perfectly valid, but nonparametric tests are easier to play with. So I go back over the paper with a fine tooth comb and sometimes find that a lot of their points aren't nearly as strong as they make them out to be. The point is, you're subject to so much utterly new information each and every day that you cannot possibly make really "logical" judgements about which to trust and which not to. And you'll be okay, most of the time, accepting information from the authorities. But if anything seems a little odd, even though it may be perfectly valid, investigate. In the worst case, you'll learn something new.

Yeah, the way that they talk about the 99% correct test does not seem controlled very well. They keep reusing the same tissue sample. Also, it would be interesting to see if dogs are smelling just quickly dividing tissue. That is, would they be equally as interested in pregnant women?

Er, because doing what we want to do involves buying things from them. If you want cocaine, you'll have to deal with cocaine dealers, and everything that goes along with that. Besides, reducing oil dependency is not a bad idea anyway, so.... Will they? I thought one of the foundations of Christianity deals with penance absolving all sins (edit: sorry, ex-Catholic speaking here. Either penance or accepting Jesus). I mean, "we" all bear the sin of turning away from God in the Garden. Murder kind of pales besides that, as bad as murder is. Christian doctrine, as I'm sure you know, deviates substantially from what is set forth in the Old Testament. Hence the "turn the other cheek" saying. And the fact is, even Exodus itself contradicted Genesis (and Numbers, where Moses advocates outright murder and rape), since Cain was not put to death. I don't know how you people keep up with all of this.

What a beautiful sentiment. Is it the Muslims in Indonesia you're afraid of? Sub-saharan Africa? No? Maybe the problem is not Islam but a systematic tactic of subjugation of Arabs on the part of Western civilization followed by the feeding of billions of dollars of oil money into their economies. You want to stop Islamic extremism? Don't outlaw Islam, simply stop driving your car, stop eating meat, and start recycling (along with the concomitant political action).

Yes, but that's not really your decision to make, is it? Maybe the death penalty would be acceptable if it was assured that the murderer was Christian, but you don't know that. By executing this person, you're simply contributing to the possibility that more people wind up in Hell. Which is pretty contradictory to how most Christians profess to behave. Mmm, not really. I know where the impulse comes from, I just think that they're misguided. I personally would rather be dead than spend the rest of my life in prison - not that that factors into my reasoning. I just think that nobody should be the arbiter of anybody else's life except in cases of exigency. Ok, that was harsh. Do you really think that God is going to fault anybody for trying to keep people alive, as long as it's not harmful to anybody else? BTW, we're getting a bit off topic here, so people might want to split this off or start posting in one of the old capital punishment threads.