Skye

Trace elements are used by proteins when they catalyse a reaction, or transport other inorganic molecules through the body. They are only needed in small amounts because they are used by specific proteins over and over. Because the action they perform has to be performed in conjuction with a protein, taking lots of them doesn't really help. The actual amount you need depends on how much is used and how easily it's lost from your body. This page is ok, doesn't really show how they work though: http://www.zestrsa.co.za/vitamin-info.htm

These are specific solutions to generic problems. Think outside the ..... Stupid management jargon :/

Information is carried in the nervous system by electrochemical pulses through cells called neurons, and between the small gaps between neurons, called synapses, by chemicals called neurotransmitters.

Toads are ugly, frogs are pretty. I think there are are some other anatomical differences to do with their bones.

If it did happen, and we were lucky enough to find it, the radiation in space would probably have made the DNA useless. Same problem for getting DNA out of stuff in amber I think, over that time without the cells DNA repair mechanisms working, the DNA would be very badly damaged.

I'll say no, we don't need more science students, but we do need more science jobs. The reason there is a falling proportion of students in science courses is, like T_Flex was saying, largely because they have among the worst employment prospects. Also, there's been an increase in the numbers of people with post-high school education over the past couple of decades because it has become necessary to get entry level jobs, but this level of education has always been required for science, so it hasn't increased with areas, like business. There's already a surplus of science graduates, especially in popular fields, so boosting the numbers of students isn't going to help drive innovation, as there will simply be a greater number of science graduates that aren't employed in science. Science is also an expensive thing to learn, not just for hobbyists but for universities, and this is driving the universities here away from science into areas like business, management, tourism, arts, etc, which are all substantially cheaper to run. The end result is that science faculties resort to reducing the cost of their courses which generally makes them less suited to industry. What governments can do is redistribute more of the money gained from areas like manufacturing and mining, that benefit indirectly and over a long term from basic research, back into research to ensure that it continues to produce the opportunites it has in the past. This will also stimulate the science industry which will take up the current numbers of science students, possibly with some growth.

Vitamin C is an anti-oxidant and important in maintaining collagen, which on a molecular scale looks like rope, and is a major structural componant of your body that gives things like skin and bones their elasticity. A lack of vitamin C results in scurvy, where the degraded collagen causes bleeding gums and brittle bones. Anyhoo in terms of your immune system, you need a healthy supply of vitamin C (say 70mg a day), and perhaps a bit more during illness or injury, but it is water soluable and if have over ~1500mg (that is accumulated quite quickly with an intake of 50mg/day) built up in your body an excess tends to get excreted pretty efficiently.

Phagocytes are one lineage of white blood cells, and lymphocytes are the other, like two sides of a family tree. The begining of the tree is a bone marrow stem cell. These can produce daughter cells that are either myeloid precursors, which go on to form the phagocytes, or lymphoid precursors, which go on to form lymphocytes. Phagocytes are cells that eat other things, they include mast cells, monocytes, macropgahes and polymorphonuclear leukocytes. They are involved in both the innate immune system, where they simply eat anything that's bad, and in the aquired immune system, where they can function as antigen presenting cells. Lymphocytes are the main part of the aquired immune system, they include the T and B cells, named after the Thymus and Bone, where they mature, and Natural Killer (NK) cells. There are different types of T cells, which are all able to recognise foreign antigens, T-cytotoxic destroy cells that display forign antigens on their surface, T-helper cells activate B cells when they recognise a foreign antigen from an antigen presenting cell. B cells then either form a plasma cell, which releases antibodies that bind to the antigen and signal for its destruction by the T-cytotoxic cells, or a memory cell, which allow a fast response to the same antigen if it is encountered again. NK cells destroy any cell that doesn't have certain proteins on its surface.

Organic chem, Physical chem, Biochem and microbiology. But it's summer vacation for me right now so I'm free and living on a purdy island, till the start of next year when I'll be volunteering in a genetics lab. Which will hopefully allow plenty of opportunities for evil. *Wrings hands*

By the way I found this interesting which was quoted in a recent opinion article: "Trying to eliminate Saddam...would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible...we would have been forced to occupy Bagdad and, in effect rule Iraq...there was no viable 'exit stategy' we could see, violating another of our principles. "Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we had hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." It's from George Bush Senior's memoir, A World Tansformed. As the journalist pointed out, "it's a pity his son can't read." Now back to the topic.

In some ways people in the west are safer from terrorists, al Qaeda has been busy in Afghanistan and it seems is diverting some of its people to Iraq where the US troops are easier targets. They have a good opportunity to undermine the US there and have been finding it harder to move money around, so they aren't as likely to be doing any of the riskier attacks overseas.

I'd like a Japanese kids show style theme, with a yellow and orange flashing background that causes seizures in certain individuals. A cute anime rabbit-like character could take over from the globe as the site mascot.

From what I know most chem eng is about putting in place and maintaining processes for producing chemicals. It is more concerned with the process (and ways of making this more efficient) than the precise chemistry involved.

I think the dealy with compressing space infront and expanding it behind is the sides, which would require negative energy.

watchin' tha wickedy cricket, austraya startin' to kick it, those injuns ain't got shiznit

Don't both the warpdrive ideas and wormholes rely on there being negative energy?

"a few other rarer conditions that benefit from its vasodilating properties." I thought that NO was used for those

http://www.catandogs.net/english/

I think DutchE means when it stopped spinning relative to us. From this site: "The Earth's rotation carries the Earth's bulges slightly ahead of the point directly beneath the Moon. This means that the force between the Earth and the Moon is not exactly along the line between their centers producing a torque on the Earth and an accelerating force on the Moon. This causes a net transfer of rotational energy from the Earth to the Moon, slowing down the Earth's rotation by about 1.5 milliseconds/century and raising the Moon into a higher orbit by about 3.8 centimeters per year. (The opposite effect happens to satellites with unusual orbits such as Phobos and Triton). The asymmetric nature of this gravitational interaction is also responsible for the fact that the Moon rotates synchronously, i.e. it is locked in phase with its orbit so that the same side is always facing toward the Earth. Just as the Earth's rotation is now being slowed by the Moon's influence so in the distant past the Moon's rotation was slowed by the action of the Earth, but in that case the effect was much stronger. When the Moon's rotation rate was slowed to match its orbital period (such that the bulge always faced toward the Earth) there was no longer an off-center torque on the Moon and a stable situation was achieved. The same thing has happened to most of the other satellites in the solar system. Eventually, the Earth's rotation will be slowed to match the Moon's period, too, as is the case with Pluto and Charon." I guess the moon has always been rotating at around the same rate relative to earth. [edited to include the italicy bits]

In as light, absorbed by the earth which radiates it out as heat.

I'll just add that science is based on assuming new ideas are false until a situation can be shown in which the previous beliefs are false and the new ideas hold out.

Hmm I would be careful, see a doctor about it if you haven't already, and consider seeing a neurologist, especially if you get any pains or weakening in you arms, as nerves to the arms run from the neck.

Are you asking why there are seperate phases? The phases properties are formed by the different interactions between the molecules. Phase changes occur at a certain corresponding pressures and temperatures. As the molecules are brought closer together by lower temperature or higher pressure, intermolecular forces and bonding occurs. Gases are pretty much free of intermolecular forces as they are usually so far apart. Liquids are held together by van der Waals forces (ion-dipole, dipole-dipole and London dispersion forces) and hydrogen bonding. Solids can be bound by the same forces as for liquids, also by covalent bonds, ionic bonds or the delocalised electrons in metals. With H2O there is lots of hydrogen bonding in the liquid phase, but in ice it forms a lattice of hydrogen with long bond lengths which is why it is less than dense than water.

Some UN stuff General page http://www.un.org/peace/index.html Charter http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/index.html Statute for criminal court http://www.un.org/law/icc/statute/romefra.htm

Ok yeah, I just used it because I didn't know the delta H's of the water/hydronium, and it was just sposed to be an analogy of energy equilibrium. I.e. there's an energy transferance, but not change.