CharonY

I wished those were around 10 years ago (but my own has grown sufficiently to be workable now). With regards to tools I can only recommend to use a decent system for organizing and citing papers and stick to it. Other than that probably figuring out whether one really wants to stay with something like Word (or other office packages) or try to use something like Latex (later on there will be less time to try out things). Other than that most tools would be somewhat specific to the type of research one is doing I would think. However a very useful tool in many areas is the use of something like onenote or similar that can take and organize a variety of data types (e.g. microscopic images as well as spectra for example). While many still like to use a lab book as primary source, I found that in my area the amount of data easily overwhelms paper-based organization. And hybrid approaches tend not to work out too well, especially for the PI, trying to make sense out of them.

Well there are news reports on that alligator. And apparently it was not trying to get through the fence, but on top of it, presumably to hunt a racoon. Link

Grmbl. I know it is supposed to be funny, but several things bug me. a) evolution is not just a theory, b) I am not sure whether god is a proper hypothesis but worst of all C) if you wear gloves don't fucking touch your face!!!!

A couple of the questions are unclear to me. What does shopping mean, for instance? I would assume that pretty much everyone has to go grocery shopping, unless you are able to grow food yourself. With regards to dating, does going out with one's significant other count? Do you mean movies with or about scientists ?

It should be noted that generally products are not acutely harmful. Depending on the product there may be components that may have minor health effects if used for a long time, due to bioaccumulation. Nonetheless, unless ingested routinely, chances are that overall health effects are likely lower than say, pesticides in food or air pollution in many areas. In addition, certain components may elicit allergic responses (including the perfume component).

Hmm yeah, engineers and mathematicians, eh. Sure sounds lame to me

A kind of amusing take on this overall issue. My link

In addition the fact that it has not shown conclusively a link between religion and wealth, it strikes me as odd that the more important issue, namely history, has been rather completely ignored. These blanket statement is an example of extreme oversimplification with no real basis. During the early middle ages Islamic countries were extremely wealthy as compared to the west European nations (I am using nation in the loosest possible way considering the fluidity of the concept at that time). Much of it due to their role in trade between east and west. The interesting thing is that there was no strong feudalistic system in place and still they maintained a loose coherence based on faith (also note that there was no central church or similar organization). Nonetheless they developed a rich and highly advanced culture. Meanwhile after the installing a feudalistic system with close ties to a centralized organisation (i.e. the catholic church) the West was slower in consolidating its power base. Roughly during the later middle ages they became a power to rival the Islamic states. The true source of Western dominance were rooted in the industrial revolution which gave them a significant edge against other advanced nations. Together with expansive imperialism European nations became the de facto power in many areas of the Earth, with consequences still felt today. Thus, to understand the current situation in any country, it is important to track its history. As has been shown in this thread, religion (or any other single factor) is not going to be a good predictor for wealth.

Actually all regions of China (as far as I can see) are above average in science and mathematics and only Macao scored worse in the reading scale. However, if all schools, even those in the poor low-industrialized areas are taking into account, the overall score for China would be arguably low. Individual accounts still indicate that at least in mathematics they may be above average US public schools, though (which I find quite astonishing, if true).

Let's make it apnea dive basket weaving and I am in.

That is generally called molecular biology.

A detailed view on science reporting Guardian

Predicted does not mean that the sequence is predicted (it has been sequenced) but that it has been predicted to be an open reading frame. This topic should be covered by most molecular genetics text books (e.g. Genes). Again, the function of a locus is predicted but the sequence itself is based on data (though depending on source it may be faulty, but that is another issue).

Depends on the concentration, though most DNA extraction methods yield relatively pure DNA. On the other hand PCR is relatively robust and if detection limit is not too much of an issue even relatively dirty samples yield products. I assume that you mean parasite eggs? If you need it pure you can use cleanup methods after the floatation and subsequent disruption.

It depends on what you are looking for and what kind of database you use. Sequences for already well characterized proteins tend to be useful in most cases. However due to the automated pipelines that are used nowadays errors could still be there. Swissprot, for instance is a better curated database, yet with overall fewer sequences. As a rule of thumb reality checking with well-characterized reference genomes are helpful, especially with regards to functional assignments. But again, it really depends on what you are looking for (e.g. single protein vs whole genome analyses, intergenic regions etc.)

A warm welcome to all newcomers. Share topics that you are interested in and get started.

A welcome to all the newcomers and what is so great about tonsils?I would rather keep a spare kidney, for instance.

Well, at the moment I got my lab for me alone. But I guess I may have some grad students to teach, soon.

Severian wins. Hands down. The only thing I could show are a couple of MS. And maybe the AFM (but I have seen calculators that look like more).

I hope these are not prefilled chambers? Those are rather nasty. Cervical dislocation is usually better, but one needs some skill to pull it off (no pun intended). Actually CO2 use is getting much disputed in a number of labs.

Funny, for some reason I either never checked this thread, or did it and immediately forget it.

Demosthenes, it is not that confusing if you read carefully. In the first quote they are refering to genes. That is, defined stretches of DNA that has been annotated to carry coding information. 99% are annotated to have the same function, but may vary slightly in the sequence. In the second quote they compared whole DNA stretches (I admit, I got the issue lying around here somewhere but did not actually read it...). So in the second quote they basically say that we do not only have the same genes, but even the sequence of them is very similar (with exceptions).