CharonY

First of all, that is not how soap works. Others have already mentioned the correct role of soap. Biogas production from sewage is done in specialized systems which encourages the growth of methanogens. They do not harvest skin bacteria to do that. As already mentioned, soap is more of an abrasive and, as a detergent, has general physical properties (i.e. disruption of lipids) as opposed to antibiotics which target highly specific molecules (e.g. a specific ribosomal subunit or enzyme). As the mechanisms are so different and unspecific, it it is rather difficult to develop resistance against it. It is a bit like trying to become resistant against a sledgehammer to the head.

That is neat and describes what happens during sensory deprivation, to some degree.

That is also a classic example, but in some ways it was also a very classic approach. Fleming sorted through petri-dishes and found that plates with mould there were clear zones. From there he formed the hypothesis that something was there inhibiting bacterial growth. On the one hand the plates probably not prepared with the express intention to identify inhibiting compounds, yet the first observation led more or less straight to the correct hypothesis. It goes to what I was thinking earlier, whether discoveries are truly serendipitous or whether it is more or less just the way it works.

And then you should look at the punishments meted out by crimes more commonly conducted by poor vs those by the rich. Consider how much impact, say, the punishment for a parking ticket has for a poor person vs a rich. Also consider who is more likely to influence laws and punishment levels. One concrete example to think about: the opioid crisis was driven largely by the Sackler family and other groups heavily pushing oxycontin to a large extent by providing false information on its safety and potential for addiction and abuse. Then there are folks who sold the drug to others illegally. Guess who is more likely to get jail time.

I think it depends quite a bit on far one might want to stretch the terms. Drug discovery tends a bit on that side as often the discovery pipeline is often not quite as targeted as one might think. One might look for a compound that binds to a certain target but then the a use for it only emerges by some screening experiments with often unpredicted results. There are cases where these discoveries were hypothesis-driven. But the hypothesis was wrong. A historic example is potassium bromide. In the 19th century it was believed that masturbation might cause epilepsy and bromides were known to reduce the sex drive. So Charles Lockock speculated that using potassium bromide could curb the sex-drive, reduce masturbation and therefore reduce epipleptic convulsions. As it turned out, potassium bromide does indeed reduce convulsions, but obviously not by inhibiting masturbation. Potassium bromide had been in use as sedative and anticonvulsant into the 20th century until better drugs came along. Another perhaps more prominent example is sildenafil (viagra) which originally was a candidate to dilate blood vessels in the heart and alleviating chest pain by blocking the phosphodiesterase type 5. But as we now know it actually dilated vesels elsewhere more effectively... In the microbiological field there are certainly discoveries which came from observations and might as such be considered not based on a specific theory, but I am not sure whether that fits the bill quite as well, as in biology hypotheses where where often built after making empirical observations. A lot are thrown out and the few survivors might appear to be a chance finding, while in truth it is simply based on the scientific process.

! Moderator Note Considering that cartoons are not tethered to reality it is rather pointless trying to discuss the the underlying physics of the fake realism. If one wants to discuss specific phenomena that are actually grounded in physical reality, please start a new thread. This one will be locked.

Is a paper referenced?

The previously referenced TOGETHER study has now also published the results of their ivermectin trial. It was a double-blind, randomized, placebo controlled study with 1,358 participants. Not surprisingly at this point no benefits for ivermectin intervention where demonstrated. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2115869

As already mentioned, the paper starts off with a replicating system. So that at least is not an issue. What exchemist pointed out is that because it starts off with a replicating system, it cannot address how the mechanism of self replication arose (something which the news article gets wrong). There are some issues with the idea of the RNA world (specifically with RNA being early or first replicators), related to their instability and the fact that enzymatic RNA (which are not the topic here) are fairly large. What the authors looked at is looking at evolution in once a self-replication system was established. If the youtube is not getting that right, it would really just fall in line of many other videos which, to my dismay, are increasingly used non-critically by students.

It is always the little ones, isn't it? Could be an universal trait. I have heard that they also create hierarchies with other animals, if there are not enough alpacas around (one was apparently top sheep).

Possibly. I would want folks to have some ability to discern fact from fiction. But it appears that this skill is lost. Or perhaps we normalized that facts don't matter anymore.

Groups that have some level of accountability.

I used to be clearly in favour of free information flow, even if counterfactual. The idea was that facts would win out. Algorithm-driven self radicalization and the fact that I got pre-meds citing YouTube as evidence that vaccines are dangerous and don't work, I don't know anymore.

! Moderator Note Similar topics merged.

Deaths are related to number of infections, who got infected, available treatment options, availability of health care, vaccination rates, public health orders, compliance to health orders, viral variants etc. Generally speaking case numbers declined with firm health orders in place and with delays also the deaths. During summer time health orders were lifted and by fall cases increased sufficiently to create a new wave (also driven by new variants). In the US health orders were more spotty in the UK so the decline during summer was much less uniform (especially 2020). Looking at more worldwide data, the seasonality of COVID-19 is a bit overblown. While folks are more outdoors which could reduce infections a bit, in many areas there is only a short time frame (1-3 months in the summer) where SARS-CoV-2 infections were really low. And in most cases there were health orders in place before that. Without, the seasonality effect is even weaker.

It looks very much like a micronutrient solution to me. If that is the case, I would ask the the lab for their SOP, as differences in preparation, especially with metals, can result in differences in the experimental outcome. But the general procedure is to weigh in the required amount into volumetric flasks and fill up to the indicated volume. If the weight is too low, one can increase the volume or create stock solutions (either of the whole mix or of each compound individually), which depends a lot on the solubility of the components and possible cross-reactions.

Viruses are basically genetic material wrapped in protein (and sometimes other compounds). They do not replicate by themselves but are always spread by a host that produces them. Essentially they get in, inject their genetic material into your cells and forces them to make more viruses. Viruses generally become inactive outside of a body over time, but some are more resilient than others and it also depends a lot on the conditions (e.g. temperature, exposure to UV, humidity etc.). SARS-CoV-2 is mostly transmitted directly via aerosols produced by infected individuals.

Especially with high-dimensional data (incl. MRIs) associations are often spurious. At the same time, only allowing high-participation studies to exist would effectively eliminate smaller labs and result in loss of creativity as studies would only be conducted by a few (successful) folks.

There is also the issue that there are a collections of folks who honestly believe that their way of life in danger from things like the white replacement, homosexual or liberal agendas and so on. To them, someone in a position of power and being openly bigoted validates their own believes, which have fallen out of public favour (or are considered non-PC, depending which vernacular you want to use). To them, a potato with a suit would be suitable candidate as long as it reflects these values, which they see under attack. This victim attitude creates an incredibly loyal group that have long decided that they do not need to be tethered to reality. Ultimately this group also managed to marginalize the reasonable folks in the GOP (i.e. those that can distinguish fact from fiction, even if they sometime pretend they don't).

First, something regarding the "sloshing around" bit. Vaccinations do not leave residues behind. They come in, trigger the immune system and then are flushed out of the system. Actual infections with virus or bacteria could stick around if they are not fully eliminated (though with SARS-CoV-2 we have not seen that happening yet). In other words, what sticks around is really just your modified immune response and not the vaccine. To date, all approved vaccines were developed against the original variant. While there are attempts to target vaccines more specifically to a given variant (similar to flu shots), there is nothing that has outperformed the 1st gen vaccines yet. So far most existing vaccines provide overwhelming protection against severe disease regardless of the SARS-CoV-2 variants. However, protection against getting an infection (and potentially transmitting it to other folks) is waning, especially without a booster. Also, as a side note, there are many, many, many more than eight variants of SARS-CoV-2. A huge number of folks were infected and as a result we have created hundreds if not thousands of different variants. However, only few are spreading successfully and those are also called variants of concern (VOC, but not all VOCs are first characterized by spread, some might be of concern due to mutations that could make them more likely to evade vaccines or changed their virulence). However, the dominant ones currently circulating are Delta (some of its subvariants) and Omicron (and mostly its subvariant BA.2, which has edged out Omicron in some areas). These have displaced most of the other variants of concern (such as Alpha or Gamma).

Ehhhhh...... Wouldn't bet on it. I mean, if what happened is not disqualifying, then nothing is.

Not sure I follow. RuBisco is sensitive to oxygen (or rather, oxygen and CO2 both compete for the binding site) and increasing oxygen levels lower the effectiveness of carbon fixation. Or do you mean their abundance increased in response to oxygenation...?

In addition to scale, the platforms are designed to create positive feedback loops so that users stay engaged. Considering that folks are already biased towards what they assume to be true, this feedback loop can start based on some level of reality. However, with each cycle they can be more and amore outrageous until it becomes and almost impenetrable alternate reality which is not amenable to any sort of discussion anymore. For example, at the beginning there were quite reasonable worries regarding vaccine safety. While clinical data looked good, there are (as we any other vaccine) safety considerations that needed to be looked at. However after a couple of rounds through social media, there are now folks actually believing that vaccines cause infertility and death on a regular basis. Sources are of course social media.

It doesn't help that many provinces have still tied themselves heavily to fossil fuels. At least politically. At least silently they try to diversify a bit away from non-renewables, but it is a very slow process.

Actually buying is legal, but it is just so much more costly to do it properly. Why they went to jail is because instead of official donations they basically bribed their way to fake scores and fabricated athletic profiles. AFAIK Canada does not have a legacy system, but I would not be surprised if the student background plays into admissions.