Gaylord

Here's a new story about the importance of our moon.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/blog-what-if-the-moon-disappeared-130425.htm#mkcpgn=emnws1

Our planet is rare in the extreme.

Some proteins can refold back into their original conformation. The slower that the protein is cooled, the more likely it is that it can return to its original conformation. It varies from protein to protein. Some can never regain their original conformation. Only a fraction of those that are capable of will fully restore.

This is easy. We did not evolve in an environment of plenty. We evolved in an environment of scarcity. Our tastes have not evolved as fast as our agriculture. We have six basic tastes, sweet, salt, sour, bitter, umami (protein) and fat. We crave sweet, salt, umami and fat, because we need all of those to survive.

First of all, sweet. Sweet indicates safe, high calorie food. A very good things a few thousand years ago. Fat indicates high energy, which was a precious commodity. Protein is always in short supply. And salt is quite rare in most of the world. Just look at how far wild animals will travel to find a salt lick. Roman soldiers were once paid in salt (hence the name salary). Our kidneys are designed to conserve salt.

So, we find most vegetables unsatisfying as most are typically deficient in such nutrients.

On the other hands, we are actually programmed to reject most vegetables. Every plant on Earth is toxic. And our taste buds respond to these phytotoxins by registering them as bitter.

It's evolution.

Celibacy won't allow you to live forever. It will just seem that way.

What do you hope to see?

Extraterrestrial fossils found in a meteorite? http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/150417-astrobiologists-discover-fossils-in-meteorite-fragments-confirming-extraterrestrial-life?

Here's a link about the stabilizing influence of the moon. Note that Mars' axial tilt occilates from 10 - 60 degrees because its moons are so small. I doubt that life as we now see it here would be possible if Earth's axis occilated so wildely. http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/05/who-needs-a-moon.html

If Earth isn't unique, it's darned unusual.

Before life could be possible, a solar system would have to form in one of those rare regions of a galaxy that is not bathed in radiation.

Before life could be possible, a planet would have to form with just enough carbon and carbonates to give life a chance to evolve and generate enough CO2 early in the planet's evolution to protect it from icing over.

Before life could be possible, a very large moon would have to form. Our moon stabilizes our axis so that we do not have extreme climatic occillations. Our moon has been gradually drifting away from the Earth and in a few hundred million years, it will be too far away to stabilze our axis.

Our disproportionately large moon also gives us tides that would facilitate the evolution of land based life.

Before life could be possible, a solar system with distant gas giant planets would be necessary to stabilize the asteroid belt so that the inner, life nurturing planets, are not getting pounded with giant asteroids so frequently that complex life would not have time to evolve.

If you did have wings, they wouldn't do you any good, unless approximately half your body weight was in your pectoral muscles.

I think that part of the confusion regarding global floods arises from semantics. Ancient people typically defined "the world" as that part of the planet that they knew. Alexander the Great was said to have conquered the world, which would have come as a great surprise to the Chinese.

So when an ancient people's world suffered a flood, it meant that the world they knew was flooded. Anyone lived in eastern Washington 10,000 or so years ago would have had the world they knew flooded when lake Missoula emptied. The same would go for any one living on the Snake River plain when Lake Bonneville emptied.

Other than dying, no.

is there any way to stop the flow of the electrons coming from ur brain . if so could u stop them at the top of the spine where the brain meets with the spine . if u know anythingon this topic and are willing to help me then please post back to me and have a chat with me to explain some stuff to me . thanx to onw that xan help

I think it means that non-tenured string theorists will have to start refreshing their resumes.

This probably wouldn't work. Scientists have tried using very high voltage pulsed electric fields to kill bacteria in food products and have have very little success.

Hi.

Passing an electric current, even for a brief second, has devastating effects on living cells, destroying/killing them.

 

If a person has a topical infection, would applying electrical current confined to a short path within the affected area with reduced/minimal effect to healthy surrounding tissues work ?

 

Does topical anesthesia work for minor electroshocks ?

Does healthy skin, muscle cells killed in an electroshock get replaced by new growth ?

 

Electrodes placement would need some thoughtful technique, but nothing seems extraordinary there. Thanks for opinions.

 

-Please move post to proper section of the forum if this is not the correct one-

Check with your local BioMerieux rep. He or she could help you out. One issue with API is that you have to have an idea of what you're looking for so that you can use the proper selective media before you use the API strip.

There are other metabolic technologies out there, such as Biolog.

You could also contact a university that genotyping or ribotyping. One with medical school or a veterinary school might have such services available. Many years ago, I had a gram positive rod ribotyped for about $200.

I work at a pharmaceutical company and Im having trouble identifying a few bacteria. All of the isolates come from a cleanroom so there isn't stuff like anthrax and chlymadia. It's common bacteria found on the skin. I use API Staph strips, Strep strips, 20 NE strips, CHB for rods and 20E strips. Once in awhile i get bacteria that doesnt give results for any of the strips. It seems to be a gram positive rod under the microscope. Should I have other strips in addition to the ones I have listed? Also are there other strips or media that will help identify bacteria that is rod shaped and gram positive?

Browning in fruits and vegetables is often caused by the enzyme polyphenoloxidase. This enzyme can be inhibited by the addition of an antioxidant, such as ascorbic acid, or by blanching or heat denaturation of the enzyme itself. Browning can also be the result of Mailard reactions, which is a reaction between reducing sugars and amino groups.

In food preservation, a combination of strategies is used, blanching, leaching out sugars and addition of antioxidants.

Another problem you might be encountering is photooxidation. Exposure to light, especially sunlight and fluorescent light is damaging. It's the ultraviolet spectrum tha does most of the damage.

Have you talked to the folks who preserve insects and flowers in lucite? They must have some tricks that are not available to food scientists.

Hello,

I was wondering if someone could help me. After weeks of research it is driving me crazy! Any help would be greatly, greatly, greatly appreciated! I am looking for someone that could help me understand the chemical reactions and processes of fruit and vegetable preservation and could suggest processes that will work with what I am trying to create. I am a artist that is working with fruits and vegetables who is trying to create vegetable and fruit paper bowls here are some examples:

 

link to images

 

I have done some research on line and I am still having problems understanding the preservation of the organic materials and color. I have looked into food storage and preservation techniques removing sugars, water, and microorganisms that cause browning. I have researched processes like brinning, curing, freeze drying, fermenting, dehumidifying, aging, and adding ascorbic acid. So far I have found one process that sort of worked with kiwis. I sliced the kiwis into thin flat slices with a mandolin slicer, I then arranged the slices overlapping them into a circular shape and placed it in between two pieces of paper towel. I then microwaved it for short periods of time each time replacing the moist paper towels to remove most of the water. Then I sandwiched it with newspapers and pressed it in between to large pieces of particle board with a cinder block on top for extra weight, similar to how you would press flowers. I changed out the wet paper with dry paper every day for about 4 days which seemed to press it into the mailable paper material I needed as well as taking the remaining moisture out of the kiwi. The microwave heating process seems to attach the slices together as well as get alot of the water out but it is only good for small bowls, it takes some of the color out, and it gives it a slightly cooked or wilted look.

 

I was thinking about trying a different process of brinning, which is boiling the fruit or vegetable slices in a part salt solution for 3-4 minutes and then shocking it by placing it in ice water which stops the cooking process, arrange the overlapping slices like I did before, then do one good press to get the majority of the water out and then press slowly like I did before. Also I was thinking about misting the shape with ascorbic acid after the initial first press.

 

I really need advice that can help me know what processes I should be using so that I can make this a success!

Could epigenetics have anything to do with this? According to epigenetics, experiences can influence gene expression for generations.

Perhaps you could explain why it is that, historically, Europeans who have migrated to Africa did not descend to the same level as the natives in terms of their intellectual faculty? Conversely, you might also try to explain why those blacks who have migrated to developed countries have never managed to attain the same I.Q. level as the host society, which is a consistent reality over several generations of the immigrant descended peoples being adapted to a different environment?

 

There is no reason at all why the immigrant descended population should not have the same median-IQ as the host society because there is no reason that their environment should be any different to the indigenous population. If there is any observable difference over the course of several generations, then that is surely a result of heritable differentiation.

I suppose that a rogue chemist could take what he learned making insecticides and apply that knowledge in his basement garage.

I'm also just interested in toxins in general. Few people realize what a toxic world we live in. I get a kick out of vegetarians when I tell them that every plant on earth is toxic.

Most are not acutely toxic to humans or even mammals. Most are aimed at insect predators. And some of those toxins we actually seek out. Caffeine and nicotine come to mind.

Another under appreciated class of phytotoxins is the phytoestrogens and phytoprogestins. These act as birth control pills that reduce the reproductive activity of the predator.

Neurotoxins are the most interesting though. Acetylcholine esterase inhibitors and acetylcholine mimics especially.

 

http://books.google....id=V7gwAAAAIAAJ

 

In the case of the organophosphates there are a number of ways in which they make chemicals that are more toxic to bugs than to people.

One important one is to use thiophosphates rather than phosphates.

The insects metabolise them and convert the thioester to the oxy ester which is much more toxic.

On the other hand, mammals hydrolyse them which pretty much destroys their toxicity.

 

There are a whole bunch of regulations concerning, not just pesticides, but all chemical products on the market.

This one is a particularly good cure for insomnia.

http://eur-lex.europ...001:0849:en:pdf

 

There are also regulations that apply just to pesticides.

http://www.legislati...0/contents/made

 

What do you think a rogue chemist could actually do if he worked in the product development group?

On a related subject, what influences the potency or species specificity of organophosphates. As I understand it, all organophosphates act as non-competitive, irreversible acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. But some work very well on arthopods but have little effect on humans. And, of course, some organophosphates are so lethal to humans that they make particularly ghastly chemical weapons. What distinguishes insecticide organophosphates from military organophosphates? How closely are developers of insecticides supervised by governments? The idea of rogue organic chemists getting product development jobs at agricultural chemical companies is the kind of thing that makes me nervous.

I am pleased that this has generated some discussion from real physicists. I ask this because the possibility of faster than light information transmission should permit instantaneous communication with distant satellites and make unmanned interstellar exploration feasible. We still have to get the probe there and that would take time, but with entangled particles we could receive and transmit information instantaneously, with no loss of signal strength.

I see that neonicotinoids are getting much of the blame for crashing honeybee populations. Originally, they were touted as a safer alternative to organophosphate insecticides.

Can anyone help me out as to the molecular mode of action for neonicotinoids and the biological activity and environmental persistence of neonicotinoid metabolic products?

I am not a physicist. I don't begin to have the math aptitude to become a physicist. But I think about it a lot, from a philosophical perspective.

I read in the news recently about a method for generating fairly large numbers of entangled particles. Here is a link to a New York Times article on the topic: Billions of entangled particles advance quantum computing.

Because the entanglement does not require that the particles be anywhere near each other, doesn't that make it possible to use entangled particles to transmit information instantaneously and therefore, faster than the speed of light?