CharonY

Unfortunately the translation from genetic information to phenotype is not quite as simple and I would like to start off that I am only speculating here, as I have no expertise knowledge on this specific subject. But in principle it depends a lot on the type of deletion and how the system is regulated. For example, a single copy does not have to result in reduced biochemical activity as it could be compensated by higher expression. What does happen in cases where a copy is silenced or truncated (depends also a lot on where the deletion is) is that regulation could be disrupted. Thus the phenotype could be much more complex than a reduction in cholin transport efficiency, for example. And even if that was the case it does not necessarily mean that nutrient supplement could remedy it as the whole regulation of choline metabolism/conversion/signaling is quite complex. I would ask a specialist in the medical field whether there are things to improve brain health as the simple reasoning is not likely accurate enough to provide good intervention strategies.

The precise procedure should be indicated in the paper. One assay I am familiar with amyloid beta deposits (if that is what you are referring to) involves the extraction in organic solvent and subsequent Western or MS identification/quantification. Histological assays are generally more involved and are more dependent on the expertise of the experimenter.

Short answer: it would not work. The specific enzymes are relatively finely tuned towards the respective metal they are incorporating. The copper in hemocyanin cannot be easily replaced with iron and the same goes for hemoglobin and copper. The closest in terms of ion radius to iron would be manganese and it has been shown that in vitro some ferro-enzymes to incorporate Mn and it also sometimes happen in vitro in prokaryotic cell cultures. Certain enzyemes still exhibit activity, but usually at quite a low rate (and a certain amount of iron is still necessary for survival). There are certain bacteria (to date only to genera are known to my knowledge) that can live without iron, apparently by using manganese, but they are specialists in this regard.

As I said, it depends highly on the nutritional situation. Tap water varies highly, but rat studies have shown that feeding water that has less than 75 mg total dissolved solids electrolyte for a longer time apparently disrupts mineral homeostasis (see Schumann et al. Vet and Hum Tox 1993) . This was also the case despite being on a otherwise sufficient diet and similar effects were observed in humans (see e.g. Med Mo Pharm1993; 16: 146., in German, unfortunately, but I believe there was a position paper of the WHO about this subject). The point is not that it provides insufficient nutrients, but rather that with a (barely) sufficient diet and/or situations where electrolyte loss is already occuring high amount of low-mineral water can push people towards deficiency and disrupt mineral homeostasis. The negative consequences are usually only temporary and thus rarely lead to pronounced health effects, though (I cannot recall whether there were ever studies longer than a year on this matter). Finally, it should be noted that for certain minerals drinking water could be actually quite significant source for some populations as some studies indicate (Rubenowitz et al. Scand J Clin Lab Invest. 1998; Galan et al Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 102 (11) (2002), pp. 1658–1662). Acute effects such as water intoxication is usually only found after excessive fluid consumption after heavy exercise. In this case very low TDS water did not do much of a difference as compared to low-med TDS water. I.e. higher salt intake becomes necessary. As usual, when it comes to dietary concerns ymmv.

Acidic extraction of histones is mostly done to precipitate proteins and components other than histones as they are quite soluble under low pH (often followed by a TCA precipitation). I.e. it is used to enrich histones. Lysis is independent of it and depends largely of the type of cells (though sonication and, as mentioned, mechanic lysis are among the most universal principles). There are quite a few protocols out there fore nuclear proteins and I believe high-salt extraction has also been employed for histones successfully (see von Holt et al. Methods Enzymol 1989)

Well purified water is known to induce diuresis and electrolyte loss. Of course during normal nutritional situations the effects should be pretty low to non-existent. But if you are in situation where electrolyte loss is occurring (such as during heavy sweating), it could become an issue.

Analysis of ion channels on single neurons is routinely carried out using patch-clamp techniques. The resolution with modern equipment allows you to isolate areas of roughly a single ion channel. These generally require the isolation of tissues or individual cells, as far as I know.

Distilled water has barely any taste at all, most of the things you actually taste are stuff that got into the water, depending on source and storage of water. That being said, highly purified water is not really that healthy as you may lose minerals. But unless it is contaminated with something there is no good reason why water should make you feel sick, especially as strong reaction as you described. More likely is that you got something else and you associate it with water consumption, for example.

Depends on what you would classify as nanotech but the use of nanomaterials in all kinds of household goods including personal care products is quite widespread already.

Technically one would probably refer to the interaction we have with bacteria as mutualism rather than true symbiosis, though there is no strict distinction. But obviously our bacterial flora influences us to a large extent during non pathogenic interaction. In addition ot effects on the digestive syste, they modulate our immune response or change their respective niches that in turn affects the flora we have. As such they provide us with a passive defense against colonization of novel bacteria that may be infectious by virtue of outcompeting newcomers and so on.

As CaptainPanic already explained killing off a suitable host is usually not a very good long-term strategy. The core of evolution is successful proliferation, not the extinction of other species.

Giving a decent lecture requires to know the audience. Obviously if talking to laymen you would try to convey it in a very simplified way and relate via examples that the audience may be familiar with. Obviously the same would be frowned upon if delivering to an expert panel. In most cases it is a bit better to deliver more on the simplified side as chances are higher that people are not familiar with the specifics of your work. The trick here is to figure out what the core message of your talk is and focus to highlight that rather than getting lost in data, or showing all the work that has been done (this is especially relevant for students) etc. The very same applies to writing a compelling abstract.

Peer-Reviewing paper: Read Abstract -> get interested -> read intro -> shake head in disbelief due to lack in background knowledge-> make coffee -> read discussion -> scratch head in confusion -> check methods ->laugh hard and spill coffee over paper -> read results to pinpoint what went wrong -> write scathing review.

i assume that it would depend quite a lot on how precise you can do it. In my case I was looking at protein expression responses and the results were quite consistent. However I either diluted them into the (bought) media bottle directly and used it for all experiments in one go (although bottle-to bottle variation was not too bad either), for smaller volumes I used either volumetric flasks if I need volume percentages. The controls were also poured into clean flasks, but without addition (to make sure that there was nothing in the glass affecting the results). For w/v percentages I weighed the medium in.

I do not have the definite answer, but in most of these cases we either have a massive initial dilution step to avoid precipitation and/or dilute it directly into large volumes (e.g. the cultivation medium itself).

With regards to MRSA, it is not a disease per se but the short form for methicilin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. I.e. It is group name for specific S. aureus strains that are highly AB resistant. They may or may not cause diseases. Mostly in immune-compromised persons.

If you use certified weights the only thing you generally have to do is to go into the calibration mode, put the weight on it and then just type in the value. If you want to know whether your measurements are within allowed tolerances there are generally reference handbook from NIST (i.e. for overall guideline) or from the manufacturer.

OK in order to explain that one has to be careful from which viewpoint you start the discussion. As such we cannot e.g. state that the role of TSH is to cause hyperplasia, for example. Its production is altered involved, but only under extreme conditions. So again the baseline is the regulation of T3/T4 via inhibitions of TSH. So normally higher iodine concentration would tend to increase baseline T3/T4 up to the point where the levels of their level would inhibit further production. The Wolf-Chaikoff again is a phenomenon happening under conditions when the regulatory system is overloaded but involves a different regulatory circuit. While the circuit itself affects TSH and T3/4 levels, the mechanisms are independent. In fact, the mechanisms have not been completely elucidated. What is known is that organification of iodide is inhibited at this point it depends on how high the actualy thyroid hormone levels are how TSH is getting affected, how long the inhibition is maintained. Often Wolf-Chaikoff can continue for up to a few days, before the escape mechanism kicks in (basically reduction in iodine uptake due to inhibition of transporters). During this time thyroid hormone levels may become depleted and then TSH rises. If the effect is shorter it may not happen (but usually a short inhibition would not be noticed clinically, anyway). Now finally to the point of vascularity. The link between TSH, and iodide treatment to vascularity are much more vague than the OP indicates. I.e. it is not a straightforwarded regulatory control or link between these items. In fact there are studies indicating that iodide treatment has little to no effect on vascularity on Grave's disease patients, whereas other found them to be beneficial, for example. Likewise (at least to my knowledge) it has not been shown with absolute certainty whether TSH or actually TSH receptor antibodies are responsible for changes in vascularity. Finally you have to remember that in cases when iodide therapy is indicated, parts of the usual regulatory control is messed up (which actually leads to e.g. hyperthyroidism). So again using the example of Grave, here we have a case where T3/4 are high, TSH is low whereas TSH receptor as well as antibodies against these receptors are elevated (the primary cause of the condition). I.e. the assumptions in OP are too simplified to explain occurrences (which are not terribly well understood, unless there is some very current literature that I may have not seen).

If it is not autoclaved or filtered there is a good chance of contamination, even in the fridge. But you would have to sterilize it before use at some point, anyway. If it is sterile storing it in fridge or RT is both OK for a while (but avoid direct sunlight).

I think you got the effect of TSH wrong. As its name (thyroid stimulating hormone) implies, it induces production of thyroid hormones. However the hormones themselves inhibit TSH production and thus limit their own production. Hyperplasia happens if regulation is disrupted.

I think the point he wants to stress is that under the current conditions in many countries that getting killed accidentally is much more likely than killing in self-defense (at least nowadays).

On that note, in which system (i.e. country) is this happening? Since you are in grad school for two years and only have been actively working for 6 months on your thesis I presume it is the UK/US style, which generally involves a committee as swansont mentioned. In that case it would be a good opportunity to talk to other members of the committee to get a more objective view on that matter. There is also a good chance that the data you have collected was presented not in a very concise and convincing manner (which is rather typical if you just start out) and he may have just been confused by it and running out of patience. It would be wise not to tell your advisor to "shut up and listen", though. BTW, is this not more appropriate for the science education section rather than ethics? Unless we want to discuss cases in which advisors try to suppress valid data that disprove their theories, which may or may not be the case here.

The void volume is important in assessing when the unretained i.e. very large molecules pass through. So in certain applications, e.g. for desalting purposes (or group separation in general), your sample should elute at or shortly after the void volume. Checking the void volume is generally to establish that nothing is wrong with the column (e.g. whether channeling occurs) as well as getting a background measurement (e.g. of the solvent itself). In these cases where you want to separate a high MW from a low MW species, the void volume determines how much you can load. In a well packed column this is about 30% if the total column volume. For high resolution separations a lower volume is required as explained by BabcockHall. I.e. it is the other way round, a small volume increases resolution (usually down to 0.5% can be used). On the other hand, assuming equal concentration, a lower volume will get less signal, so if you approach detection limits you will have to increase the concentration or volume (and sacrifice resolution in the latter case).

For enzymes typical some companies to look at include invitrogen, new england biolands, fermentas etc. For DNA I have no clue what you are looking for, as it would be highly dependent on organism. Also, I do not know what PMCR is. Do you mean PCR?

The reason they used yeast and hey infusion is because they were not certain what would be required to generate life, if it happened spontaneously. What was know is that boiling liquids would kill of the organisms, as at that point Pasteur showed that without exposure to air, no "alteration" of the water, as they put it, was seen. The alteration being of course clouding of the liquid due to the formation of microorganisms. Pasteur demonstrated (or rather proposed) in his experiments that particles in the air may have been the carrier of those microorganisms (and he even tried to correlate it by exposing samples to air in different areas which he assumed to be more or less pristine). Pouchet set up to disprove this notion in his experiments. In his case, he used artificial air, as well as heat-inactivated hey. Remember, a that point they did know nothing about the molecular composition of life, Pouchet assumed that living things contained a kind of life force that would spontaneously give rise to new life without parents. And indeed, he found something growing in his experiment despite the fact that there was no exposure to ambient, the main source of microorganism in Pastuer's experiment. Later Pasteur would find that there were sources of contamination in Pouchet's experiments, though.