jimmydasaint

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. 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. 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. 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.

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: 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?

Livingstone, thanks for the answer. I will read the Stanford entry tonight. However, as for storage of memory, I watched a video about rat neurons cultured in vitro which control the motion of a wheeled machine like a proto-brain. The cultured cells appear to show stronger neurological connections like a stronger memory of something. This research may uncover the true origin of memory and it may finally exclude the thought of a soul driving and influencing matter. Spiritualists may have to look elsewhere for the expression of a soul... Video of the Rat brain controlling a wheeled machine http://videos.howstuffworks.com/reuters/13612-early-cyborg-is-a-rat-video.htm I think this is from the same team: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7559150.stm

I am fascinated by the possibility of storage of memory in neurons. Where could it be stored? Is it a system of layers of epigenetic switches or is it stored in some other way? Any ideas please?

I would agree with Penrose here. He seems to favour dualist arguments. However, the materialist notion can be analagous to the epiphenomenological model which adds to Husserl's ideas of meaning coming from a person's consciousness acting on perceptions. In other words, the consciousness is like a foam which collects in an extremely active neurophysiological pond firing neurons left, right and centre. You can pick and choose if you like the materialistic notion of consciousness but you would also have to answer the objections raised by Penrose about the limitations of a machine (the Turing halting problem and Godel's incompleteness theorem). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem So, in short, you are saying that inputs (or qualia) to the brain are then not immediately turned into outputs but are transformed by an intermediary function into a range of outputs. So this is another form of materialism. The functions can then work in feedback loops to the brain. Would I be right in asserting these opinions? OK, if that is the case, what is the distinction made between conscious and physical states that govern perceptions? For example, when I look at my chidren asleep, I do not think: 'my neonates are in a state of dormant and quiescent slumber' I think: 'aw, they're so cute when they sleep'. The physical and conscious states express a difference. As a consequence of this dichotomy, there is a problem with expressing machine consciousness as anslagous to human consciousness. I think Penrose is a dualist in dualists clothing, to be honest. I have read a little bit about the Orch OR model and it seems to leave the source of the Objective Reduction to 'spooky' other world sources. [sheepish] I tried reading Kant as a primary source and gave up after reading part of his Prolegomena because I could not understand his terminology and reference points like someone in his own time could [/sheepish]

I like the sources you gave to me. In my youth I read some references to Whitehead and Bergson and the source of what we could could memory which seemed to have a spooky unknown origin. This animat where movement is controlled by rat neuron tissue seems to demystify the origin of memory and is worthy of another thread.

OK. My mass of brain tissue is nothing special and I know that. So we are saying that it is a problem of complexity similar to the neural networks in a human brain. I was trying to establish if humans can do something that the computers cannot (at present). For example I seem to recall that Penrose could solve a tiling problem where a surface could be tiled with a small number of shapes without the pattern repeating - I think this is called non-periodic tiling. Apparently this tiling problem could not have an algorithm applied to it. Does anyone know of an algorithm which could solve this problem or come close to it at present? This link is not a primary source: http://dfcord.blogspot.com/

I would highly recommend Roberts, Reiss and Monger. It is for British Sixth Forms (Yrs 12 and 13) but chooses breadth rather than depth and succeeds in entertaining and informing the enquiring mind. For a preview see: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HHaDGynAz1EC&pg=PR7&lpg=PR7&dq=Roberts,+Reiss+and+Monger&source=web&ots=v5VIfcKVux&sig=_ogvClVOtzQK9VSY47YeJJjpEtg&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPR8,M1

Do you guys honestly mean that a computer can 'feel' an emotion. I can pretend to be happy when my wife has spent my pay cheque on rubbish but it is a pretend emotion - not one that is actually felt. A simulation is not the same as a genuine appreciation involving various areas of the brain.

Just musing about the boundaries of Artificial Intelligence, I wonder if AI programming can ever take a machine to the point that it would be able to appreciate the sounds of a waterfall, or a gently murmuring stream or be able to appreciate the works of Wagner. Or to be happy when the UK win gold medals in the Olympics. In short, can our emotions ever be felt and appreciated by a computer, and could it then make mistakes based upon emotion?

These guys used something called Imiquimod: http://www.nature.com/ni/journal/v3/n2/full/ni758.html Now by looking up Imiquimod, I found the following, probably because I lead a sad and meaningless life, http://www.invivogen.com/MSDS/MSDS_imiquimod.doc If this was close enough as an analogue for an MSDS for the original compound would you please enlighten us with the background of how and why it is used.

I think this is reasonably well established: You can learn more here: http://www.medicinenet.com/leukemia/article.htm

Another question to accompany the OP. Is there evidence of intolerance to the pill at all and how would you know? I presume that intolerance would manifest in some immunological or biological contra-indications. From doing a (very) cursory search, it seems that there are only a few contra-indications and most doctors do not seem to hesitate to prescribe oral contraceptives (OC). I found some reference to adverse effects of using OC's: The first suggested that a low amount of women were more likely to be susceptible to venous thromboembolism to certain OC's (possibly due to resistance effects to activated protein C in OC's containing desogestrel). However, these effects were then discounted http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/321/7255/190 Other studies also seem to indicate that OC's are well tolerated in women http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/571231_4 Perhaps it may be wise to say that the jury is still out on this isuue and that evidence of resistance is scant.

Depends on what you mean by a nervous system? Do you mean a human nervous system? Plants appear to have excellent 'sensory' systems to sense gravity (geotropism) and light (phototropism). http://www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/content/abstract/60/5/736 There is also fine control of germination or flowering responses to periods of light and darkness mediated by phytochromes. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=157529 Plants also have immune systems recognising foreign antigens http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14616074 In summary, although I have not given you primary references, plants do well at sensing important factors vital for life already. But it is an interesting thought if they start to think...

The story about Britain being touted for even more surveillance does not make happy reading for me. We are already an information poor, entertainment rich society like the U.S. This makes many of us more likely to accept entertainment instead of real 'reality' We tend to passively accept the Government's suggestions for surveillance in order to aid security in this great nation. If push comes to shove, do we just quietly agree to be surveilled using Terahertz technology (not X-rays) which can see through clothes, invasive audio and visual surveillance technology and finally microchipped for I.D.? I cannot see the Americans being so receptive to being treted in this way.

I first thought that the answer was to refer to the simple textbook answer: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/synaptic/public/basics_ch1_2.html Then I saw the word 'why?'. After a bit of searching and reading, I came up with the following paper and this can provide you with a basis for further research and reading : http://nro.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/9/1/46 The emphasis is my own but, suffice to say, nothing in biology seems to be simple. Good luck with your reading.

Not an issue as such, I think it is the Scottish thing about looking peopple in the eyes. I think that it exaggerates the height difference to try to look a tall person in the eyes to an onlooker, so to 'minimise' the exaggerated size difference I can just talk to a chest as comfortably. Anyone's chest - but with women I don't stare at the chest too often as other men do, with the 'talk to the breasts' syndrome that men have. In that case I tend to look down at the floor. It is just sheer convenience. SkepticLance thanks for the information about bullies - so life is all about power, sex and money like my Dad told me....

First of all, define your terms and do your own groundwork. For example what is bare lymphocyte syndrome? It looks like BLS is an autosomal recessive disease which involves severe combined immunodeficiency. Now ask yourself how Adenovirus 12 interacts with certain genes of the immune system by doing a quick search of scholarly articles. Then cross-reference and you will find an hypothesis. I see you have posted this terse enquiry on another Forum as well... Anyway, being a kindly guy, I will give you a lead and you can follow up with a fuller explanation and teach the rest of us in return. Try to think of gene regulation of Major Histocompatability antigens (Class II and I) http://www.authoratory.com/authors/2002/1087946749/1/pubs.htm

I was actually emphasising the neutral surface because the OP wanted something close to good ole H2O without modifications but thanks for the information. I can imagine that the separating channels require a polymer or sieving matrix as you have mentioned. I have learnt something new again. Thanks Charon Y.

Correct. Silica columns have a cut off of 400-500 bp, if I remember correctly. However, there is another method I have found after a bit of searching: (the emphasis is my own). http://www.springerprotocols.com/Abstract/doi/10.1007/978-1-59745-426-1_1 Is this what you were looking for asaroj27?

Yes...I did read that Napoleon was of average height for Frenchman of his time, and the information above is very interesting, but did not know about Hitler. I am only 5 foot 3 inches but thought I was taller for years because my Dad told me he was 5 foot 5 inches. (It turned out later that he was 5 foot 1 inch tall ) Talk about small man syndrome! However I am quite cool and rational and have learned to talk to taller people in a way that does not make me look small. For example I don't look up to make eye contact and sit down whenever I can to reduce the obvious height difference. In the University study in the OP, tall men and short men under 5 foot 5 inches were told they were being tested for reflexes etc...but short people were asked to deliberately rap the taller people on the knuckles. It was found that the taller subjects were much more likely to retaliate and 'get their revenge'. Therefore I think the syndrome should now be renamed 'Tall Man Syndrome.'

I thought everyone must have heard the Physics Guy rap. or is this 'old hat' now?

Being a small man, in most senses of the word, I was surprised to hear that the public perceive small men to be more aggressive and power hungry to overcompensate for their lack of height. However, it seems that this story could be a myth from a recent study by the University of Central Lancashire which shows the opposite to be a strong probability - i.e. Tall Man Syndrome. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6501633.stm However, Napoleon, Hitler and Sarkozy are small men. What do you think?

From a quick scan, and this is by no stretch of the imagination complete, it seems that some introns code for snoRNA's as well as the types of RNA's specified by MedGen. A couple of interesting references, though the second is a Letter and seems rushed for publication: Intron-mediated RNA interference and microRNA (miRNA). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17981704 and Fugu lntron Oversize Reveals the Presence of U1S snoRNA Coding Sequences in Some lntrons of the Ribosomal Protein S3 Gene http://genome.cshlp.org/cgi/reprint/6/12/1227 Others can advance the knowledge here. The microRNA seems to interfere with the expression of mRNA with complementary nucleotide sequences. The snoRNA seems to be small nucleolar RNA with the following function: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SnoRNA