jimmydasaint

Now that is interesting. Presumably what you are saying here is that cancer cells induce immortality by preserving the length of their telomeres. I wonder if immortalised cell lines show the same features as cancer cells?

Also, can the time come when humans can also use the correct chemical cocktail to extend their lives? After all, who really wants to consider their own death?

I think that this is a fascinating subject that needs opening up for further discussion. If it is true (and I may be wrong here) that telomeres are often shortened more as cells age, is it not possible to extend the life of these cells by using telomerase enzymes?

Guns aren't even the issue - I can teach them how to euthanize the animals at a rate of about 40 per hour for only two workers using nothing but a table and a broom handle. It's called cervical dislocation - put the animal on the table, broom handle at the back of the skull pinning it down, then grab the body and yank backwards. Instant broken neck, quickly fatal, almost zero chance for errors. It's used on lab mice and rats, but can be used on just about any mammal up to the size of a medium sized dog.

 

Mokele

And the animal would be still warm enough to be skinned easily.

Sorry guys but how can you NOT believe the video evidence? It did not look faked and it is probably some of the most horrific and inhumane footage that I have ever seen. We have a responsibility to the planet - to humans and all other living things herein. We also have a responsibility to allow humans, these cats and dogs a right to live a life without torture imposed upon them.

The question from the OP is invalid because of the inadequacy of techniques to measure the perception of pain in animals. However, the intention is absolutely clear. Profit is made from the suffering of others and no-one has a right to gain from these horrific practices. As Mokele has mentioned, there are easier ways to skin these animals.

I feel like signing the online petition.

I just wondered if the Mods could set something up which will enable members of this Forum to participate in an experiment where the results can be displayed online?

I can think of an experiment: all members of the Forum should try to influence the outcome of a coin tossing exercise. Each person tosses a coin in the air twenty times and tries to focus their attention on "Heads" as an outcome each time. The results are then totalled and sent to the Mods for compilation. We can then examine the probability of the outcome and list it as an online experiment. Obviously there will be problems with extenuating factors that would involve the outcome of the experiment but it is very simple.

Any ideas on this, or other Forum experiments?

OK, there are a number of different views on human evolution. This is a theory that is not new but seems quite attractive in terms of the hypothesis that is presented. I would like to stimulate discussion on this topic. Please read the following:

Humanity's earliest ancestors did not drag their knuckles along the ground before mastering life on two feet, but learned to walk upright while still living in the trees, according to a team of British scientists. The claim challenges the belief that humans evolved from chimp-like creatures that descended from the trees to roam the savannahs of east Africa, using their knuckles for support, before slowly rising to the upright posture of more modern humans.

 

The theory marks a dramatic twist in evolutionary thinking that suggests some of our earliest ancestors may have begun walking on two legs up to 24m years ago, rather than shortly after the human lineage split from chimpanzees around 6m years ago. It suggests early humans adapted rapidly to open landscapes by honing the basic walking skills they developed to move around the forest canopy.

 

The team, led by Robin Crompton at Liverpool University and Susannah Thorpe at Birmingham University, claim our tree-dwelling ancestors learned to walk on two feet because it helped them edge along outer branches while having their hands free to grasp ripe fruit. The tactic also enabled them to clamber between neighbouring trees without having to descend to the forest floor.

 

The scientists reached their conclusions after spending a year observing the movements of orang-utans in Sumatra. The great apes of the region are the only species to spend their entire lives in the trees. Footage of nearly 3,000 movements showed the apes consistently walked on two legs to reach the outer branches of trees, using their arms primarily for balance. Unlike gorillas and chimps, which bend their knees to walk on the ground, the orang-utans straightened their legs to adopt a more human-like gait.

 

Professor Crompton said such skills would have benefited early human ancestors enormously between 24m and 5m years ago, when eastern and central Africa experienced dramatic climatic cycles and the forests first thickened and then died back. "As the forests became sparse, the strategy of our human ancestors was more or less to abandon the canopies and come down to the ground, where they could use this bipedalism immediately to get around," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329958141-117780,00.html

I had to look this up and found it in an urban dictionary:

http://http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=verklempt

Verklempt - choked with emotion (German verklemmt = emotionally inhibited in a convulsive way)

OY, vey. When that schmuck of a doctor told me I had cancer I got all verklempt.

Anyway, the main thought that came into my mind was first uttered by Gandhi -

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

Mahatma Gandhi

Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 - 1948)

I find that these holidays are often made for me not from the noise of family and friends but by the moments of silence and contemplation in their company. I hope all of you find some tranquility, peace and moments of silence in these holidays.

Best Wishes guys

So, in answer to the OP, you would have to say that some reflex responses do involve the brain. Would I be correct also when thinking of the ducking response and the response of salivary glands etc...to a nicely prepared meal?

OK guys, what about the blinking response?

The closest I have personally seen is the History of Science course that I did not actually take at University. Karl Popper was a polymath who did not only define the parameters of the hypothetico-deductive method. Personally I have found that the "Aha!" moment comes from a subconciously understood model of how a particular phenomenon works which then emeerges from the subconcious as an apparent moent of inspiration. For example, stuck for months at extracting a suitable culture medium for some cells that I was growing in culture, I had an "Aha!" moment and found the correct combination as I was driving home.

I think philosophy examines and encompasses what we mortals hold as truths in their entirety rather than examining them through the window of logic and rationality in a piecemeal and sometimes unfulfilling manner. People like Hegel would interest you in their particular "Theory of Everything" but which philosophers would you consider as particularly important to Science? Descartes, Wheeler? Even Einstein had his own particular philosophy...

I think this is a start:

Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC)

 

In humans, the proteins coded by the genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) include human leukocyte antigens (HLA), as well as other proteins. HLA proteins are present on the surface of most of the body's cells and are important in helping the immune system distinguish "self" from "non-self" molecules, cells, and other objects.

 

The function and importance of MHC is best understood in the context of a basic understanding of the function of the immune system. The immune system is responsible for distinguishing foreign proteins and other antigens, primarily with the goal of eliminating foreign organisms and other invaders that can result in disease. There are several levels of defense characterized by the various stages and types of immune response.

 

Present on chromosome 6, the major histocompatibility complex consists of more than 70 genes, classified into class I, II, and III MHC. There are multiple alleles, or forms, of each HLA gene. These alleles are expressed as proteins on the surface of various cells in a co-dominant manner. This diversity is important in maintaining an effective system of specific immunity. Altogether, the MHC genes span a region that is four million base pairs in length. Although this is a large region, 99% of the time these closely linked genes are transmitted to the next generation as a unit of MHC alleles on each chromosome 6. This unit is called a haplotype.

 

http://http://www.bookrags.com/research/major-histocompatibility-complex-mh-wmi/

I have found you two genetic methods - one is restriction fragment length polymorphisms much beloved by Medical Geneticists

http://http://ps.fass.org/cgi/reprint/80/8/1109.pdf

and the other is PCR using oligonucleotide primers

http://http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/gte.2005.9.93

I would guess that you would be also required to give a serological method (using antibodies). Good luck

I have grown up believing that Avogadro's number is a constant like the speed of light. However, there must have been attempts to get more accurate figures.

Just out of interest, I wonder what the number is now and how it is calculated?

Thank you for the reply guys. I just got thinking again and wondered where the ice on the land came from in the first place. Is it from glaciers melting and re-freezing? Or from mountain waters freezing up? Also, I wonder if it possible that vegetation would also play a role in absorption of water? Just trivial points though - the Wiki article about a 120m rise in sea levels is a pretty frightening scenario. Lance suggests a negative feedback mechanism where snow over the melting poles would reflect more radiation off the ice masses causing a theoretical drop in temperature. Interesting contributions guys.

If this has been touched on before, I apologise. However, I have a dumb question to ask. If global warming continues, so the story goes, low lying nations will be swamped by the rising sea levels etc...

However I seem to remember an examination question many years back where an ice cube was floating in a glass of water full to the brim and the students were asked to calculate the amount of water that would accumulate under the glass if the ice melted. The answer was that the glass would stay exactly as before because the ice had already displaced its own mass.

The question - doesn't this happen on a global scale if large parts of the ice cap melt? Why are we told that there will be a significant increase in the levels of the Oceans etc...? I would appreciate any light shed on this matter.

From looking at the liver symptoms and the pale stools and dark urine symptomatic of a liver disorder, I would have guessed at yellow fever or hepatitis which both damage the liver causing necrosis of tissue. Yellow fever seems more common in Africa though.

The serology is also important because it will also help to lead you to the correct answer. All you need is a good search engine. Good luck.

I am sorry to say that I am also a boring old fart like you and actually agree with most of what you say mate. I am also sick of the superficiality of most of modern day life and would be quite content with a large warm tent to live in. I think you have seen beyond the curtain of modern day living and seen nothing there, and you are so right. All we are for is to consume, consume and consume.

However, there is some sexual frustration also showing through. You need to get some good loving my friend.

I think you have to make your own choice. Teaching is a spiritual activity. Done correctly, it can touch the very soul of another human being and is therefore very rewarding. However, in the wrong school, you will face 30 students who prefer socialising instead of listening to you and you have to find strategies to engage them.

If you do choose to teach, please go to a good school (65% or above A*-C) and then ease yourself into the profession that way. You also have to remember to take nothing personally and go home unstressed at the end of the day. Do not mind if the 5 hours of preparation for a lesson have gone unheeded. You can catch up another day. Good luck, whatever decision you make.

Is there a predisposition for your characteristics which is hard-wired into your genes? From studying twins there seems to be a genetic link for certain aspects of personality including the degree to which a person is an extrovert etc... However, is there a Gay gene? If there is then heterosexual people can be as guilty as racists if they show 'homophobia'. However, if being gay is purely a lifestyle choice then it is on a different ethical platform.

Scientists appear to consider that there is no Gay Gene:

Dr. Collins succinctly reviewed the research on homosexuality and offers the following:

 

"An area of particularly strong public interest is the genetic basis of homosexuality. Evidence from twin studies does in fact support the conclusion that heritable factors play a role in male homosexuality. However, the likelihood that the identical twin of a homosexual male will also be gay is about 20% (compared with 2-4 percent of males in the general population), indicating that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations [emphasis added]."

http://http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07032003.html

I wonder what others think on this subject.

I will start this off. As a young boy in Scotland I used to dream of having exceptional powers much like Billy the Cat in the comics I used to read. However, this ambition changed to being a lecturer or professor. I got close but left the scientific profession. My new ambition is to be a shepherd of some sort with full Internet access. How about you guys?

Reading about accounts of Near Death Experiences it is difficult to be rational and scientific about the anecdotes of what people claim to have experienced. For example, this account is quite interesting and apparently occurred when brain activity was at a 'standstill':

Dr. Michael Sabom is a cardiologist whose latest book, Light and Death, includes a detailed medical and scientific analysis of an amazing near-death experience of a woman named Pam Reynolds. She underwent a rare operation to remove a giant basilar artery aneurysm in her brain that threatened her life. The size and location of the aneurysm, however, precluded its safe removal using the standard neuro-surgical techniques. She was referred to a doctor who had pioneered a daring surgical procedure known as hypothermic cardiac arrest. It allowed Pam's aneurysm to be excised with a reasonable chance of success. This operation, nicknamed "standstill" by the doctors who perform it, required that Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head. In everyday terms, she was put to death. After removing the aneurysm, she was restored to life. During the time that Pam was in standstill, she experienced a NDE. Her remarkably detailed veridical out-of-body observations during her surgery were later verified to be very accurate. This case is considered to be one of the strongest cases of veridical evidence in NDE research because of her ability to describe the unique surgical instruments and procedures used and her ability to describe in detail these events while she was clinically and brain dead.

 

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html

Is this evidence for a soul? However, I want to hear other views about it and also for suggestions about experiments that can be performed to provide evidence for NDE's.

It would make sense to precipitate the reducing sugars in Coke with Benedicts including the monosaccharides and also some disaccharides as others have already mentioned. You could ask for access to a colorimeter to measure the percentage absorbance of the precipitate.

You would then use a series of dilutions of a known concentration of glucose to compare to the precipitate from the Coke.

Even if you did not have access to a colorimeter, you would still be able to weigh precipitates. I had better stop here in case I give too much away...Good luck.

Are you talking about gap junctions? I thought they were used to transport ions and other solutes between the cells of a tissue. I think storage of memory is more complex than that I don't know from where you got that idea.

 

 

To Jimmydasaint

According to the latest research in molecular neurobiology. We view that memory and learning is nothing but a further differentian of neurons. ( I am not talking about the way our brains produces images this is still a unsolved mystery)

 

Memory is stored between synaptic junctions by the growth of synaptic spines. The plasticity of the information stored in the brain depends on two important factors:-

 

1. The reactivity of the receptors (present in the post synaptic junction) to the neurotransmitters

2. The type of ion that enters through the receptor.(it can be Na+, K+, Cl etc)

 

Stuart Hameroff went on to explain that quantum computation may be occuring in microtubles coupled to actin and mysin which attaches synaptic vesicles (organelles carrying neurotransmitters) to the projections present in the presynptic membrane giving even more plasticity for information storage in the brain.

 

You should also remember that the brain has 9 billion neurons and each neuron is connected to another 100 to 200 thousand other neurons and each neuron further differentiates by making synaptic contact which are very plastic.

 

For an anology it is like a radio, you make all the connections for the perfect working of your radio and just fine tune it to hear some melodies.

 

One more advice, Roger Penrose along with Stuart hameroff have shown that we are very much connected to the fundamental reality than we have thought of and we play an important role in the universe and you just can't exclude what Spiritualist have said that easily.

I don't think Hameroff's model is widely accepted is it? It is an attractive theory but there does not seem to be much real scientifically provable evidence for it although there is a lot of theoretical modelling - much of which I struggle to understand without a grounding in quantum physics.

http://www.quantumconsciousness.org/

CreigUSA is there any empirical evidence for what you say?

Memory is probably not stored in a place. There is a strong likelihood, that memory is "stored" holographically. The "reverberating loops" of neurons first discussed by D.O. Hebb do exist in the brain, but there are many different loops reverberating at once in ever shifting patterns.

 

As for 'highfalutin' language, I'm not entirely sure what that means. If an author uses English that is grammatically correct and terms that are recognised within the discipline (excluding jargon), then I'm not sure where the problem lies.

So let's continue with writers using 'enhance' when they actually want to write 'increase'; 'prevarication' when they mean 'procrastination'; 'atavistic recidivism' when they mean to say 'high re-offending rates'; 'ameliorate' when they mean 'attenuate'; 'ablate' when they mean 'degraded by enzymes''.... I can see the consensus, sadly, is to continue with the status quo.

If I write a lecture (essentially the same in function; to disseminate information) describing the 'substantia gellatinosa as constituting laminae II & III of the the dorsal horn', is that pompous? Would it make the students' lives easier if I talked about 'The jelly-like stuff that makes up the second and third layers of the sticky-out, grey bits in the back part of the spinal cord'? Probably, in the short-term, but not in the long-term. 'Jelly-like substance' could describe snot. Substantia gellatinosa describes specifically the region in which primary afferent inhibition takes place.

Glider, I agree with your point about specificity in the context of what you have written. However, there may be inter-generational differences in approaches to understanding of text by students. I do see a difference in the present generation from my generation, with no Internet and 3 TV channels. As a teacher I use analogy and models quite often with High School students.

I would suggest that you use both examples as stated above; the first example helps with a general understanding in simple terms and the second gives specific terms which are required learning for the students who are lectured by you.

In any case, I would suggest that as long as a writer is using correct grammar and conventional terminology (in whatever language they're writing), then any difficulty in understanding is not their problem.

 

The onus is]/i] on the author to make their meaning clear, but that is not to say that readers have no responsibility at all, do not need to make any effort, and have an innate right to just sit back and be spoon-fed 'Sesame Street Science'.

I think I have said all I can about communication. If the consensus indicates that papers are mostly perfectly adequately written, I won't argue. So be it - the majority have spoken.

As for linguistic differences, I offer the following:

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis essentially consists of two distinct statements connecting the relation of thought and language. Whorf believes that humans may be able to think only about objects, processes, and conditions that have language associated with them (linguistic determinism). The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis also explains the relationship between different languages (French, English, German, Chinese, and so on) and thought.

 

Whorf demonstrated that culture is largely determined by language (linguistic relativity). Different cultures perceive the world in different ways (Chandler 1-2). Culturally essential objects, conditions, and processes usually are defined by a plethora of words, while things that cultures perceive as unimportant are usually assigned one or two words. Whorf developed this theory while studying the Hopi Indian tribe. Whorf was amazed that the Hopi language has no words for past, present, and future (Campbell 3). The Hopi have only one word for flying objects (Hayes et al. 96). A dragonfly, an airplane, and a pilot are defined using the same word. Whorf questioned whether or not the Hopi view the world differently than western peoples.

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/4110/whorf.html

I don't see why. These are all transitional stages; lay people training to become professionals and as such, are not the target audience.

 

Given the role of undergraduates (learning), I would have thought that the onus was on them to learn enough about their area so that papers relevent to their area become clear to them. In short, it is for undergraduates to grow, learn and adapt, not for researchers to 'dumb down' journal articles to cater to them. How would that encourage them to learn?

I would never encourage any researcher to dumb down articles. However, I would demand from them to be absolutely clear in what they write. This means using less overblown and self-important terminology. You also have to cater to readers whose first language is not English.

Undergraduates are not the target audience and publishing journal articles is not all about them. It is their role to learn enough to be fluent in their area. However, research papers are not written deliberately to be impenetrable to them. As I said, they are written for people as qualified as the author. It is not the author's fault that undergraduates aren't and it is the whole purpose of being an undergraduate to become as qualified as these authors.

I agree that Undergraduates are not the target audience and need to learn to read these papers. As an undergraduate student I spent many hours in the Library reading papers cited from an original paper and then attended tutorials where we were assigned to a postdoctoral student in order to 'gut' the papers. It was surprising how many misconceptions there were even amongst the top students. Introducing a misconception is a dangerous thing to do in undergraduates (or even in students of any age).

I used a particularly poor sentence to try and elaborate on my point, which was rightly picked apart by others in the Thread, but I was initially going to paste in some text from a popular scientific journal which I found difficult to read and understand without a notebook to list the main points. Unfortunately, the computer was not cooperating with me that day.

Listing things at the end would make it harder to navigate. A naive reader would constantly be turning to the index. It is better, particularly with abbreviations, to write the full term in the first instance, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, and to use the abbreviation thereafter. For example, "levels of salivary SIgA were measured using Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay (ELISA). Results of the ELISA show....". That way, naive readers have all they need in that sentence, without having to turn to the back to find out what ELISA means.

This point is obviously clear and I could not agree more with it. I would never ask anyone to use anything but the contracted form of the full phrase for ELISA.

Anyway, a lot of this just sounds like "Awww...but I don'wanna learn the big words...". Well, it's all about the learning. We sometimes have students here who complain about the same thing; 'Why do these writers make it so hard for us to understand stuff?' The logic that blames the qualified for the ignorance of the unqualified seems strange to me. Surely these people know why they are students?

Not really. The world of Science seems to be full of people with ego. Scientific writing should not be there to pander to the ego of the writer so that he/she can show how clever he/she is, compared to the rest of us mere mortals. I can personally understand the writing quite easily by scanning, then reading in depth later. However, I am quite honest in disliking journals where an excess of jargon or high faluting language is used for the sake of it and where it does not clarify the main points that the author is trying to communicate. I call that poor communication.

Exactly. It makes perfect sense to people who specialize in that area. Usually the point of the paper is to point out something new, some previously unknown detail or something which adds to the existing body of evidence in some interesting way. It is not intended as a introductory class to the layperson who has zero understanding of the field.

 

Do you think papers on new complex math theories should begin with an explanation of 1+1? No? Then why do you want this for science papers?

IMHO I think that papers are writen for people with a scientific background in the same area of study. OK, fine. However, even if you are in the same field of study, e.g. Cell Biology, it is the job of the author to make his subject absolutely clear and link it to what is going on in the rest of the subject. I am not asking authors to appeal to laymen, that is not the purpose of these journals. However, the primary purpose is communication and overblown language used when it is unnecessary does not help this purpose.

For example, I can say that "a protein with its partner protein molecule sticks out into the surrounding tissue fluid' and every biologists is absolutely clear on that point. However, on writing a paper, the scientist may feel compelled to write: 'the protein moeity is protuberant into the extracellular fluid'. All of a sudden, it is not quite clear what is meant unless you refer to phrases before and after this sentence.

Glider:

You have to remember also who the target audience is. It is usually others involved in the same area of research, which is why papers get published in particular journals. But the most basic consideration of the audience is that they are at least as qualified as you (although not necessarily in your particular field). So, it's ok to use words that are generally understood, but not words or jargon that are specific to your field (without explanation).

I believe that you have to appeal to fundergraduates, final year graduate students and postgraduate students. Your work should be accessible to these paople to give them a feel for the field of study. Making the papers impenetrable to these people will not help. You can contrast the language of specialist papers to grant proposals and will find that it is often different because the scientist must explain his material to possible non-specialists in the Funding Bodies. I agree with you completely about jargon. Jargon destroys the fun of reading about research.

On researching and following up some of the links posted in this Forum, I come across papers that are written in a way that is impenetrable to the casually interested. I will accept that papers are written for fellow specialists who understand the terminology. However, why write the papers in such a mangled and high-fangled way? I am as guilty as this as anyone else. During the writing of a paper, my supervisor changed the words of my original paper to make it more 'high' sounding and insisted I use the word 'moeity' instead of one of a pair of molecules and 'ablate' instead of 'broken down'.

Being as dumb as an ox (and twice as ugly) I did not know the meaning of moeity until I finished the paper. At the end I was obliged to end in the customary way to appeal to funding bodies: 'but more enquiry is required to confirm these findings'.

The best papers I have read go out of their way to explain the results and conclusions in a readable and simple way. The best seminar I ever attended used a few sheets of acetate on an overhead to explain the research in a clear and comprehensible manner. It received a cheer and enthusiastic applause from the audience instead of the usual smattering of thanks at these occasions.

Are scientific papers written for grammatical and syntactic eloquence or to allow research to be reproducible and appreciated by others?