CharonY

Proximity, the last part of your post is specifically targeting science funding. This is actually quite a different discussion as politics (and hence, public pressure) plays a bigger role. Obviously it does has impact on the scientific community (especially as they determine academic careers) but the mechanisms (and thus, outcomes) are somewhat different to those in academic discussions, which mostly happen within publications and conferences. The linked paper addresses the problem of science careers more than anything. And to be honest I feel that the article was written by a junior scientist getting a first glimpse on the financing system, which is a rather depressive view. But I also feel that it is overly simplicistic description of the issue (it reads a bit like a piece from a grad student not actually actively involved in securing funding and managing a lab, but I may be wrong). But if we want to discuss science funding, I would suggest to open up a new thread as it really is a rather complicated issue (not that I have a lot of nice things to say, though).

All cells are categorized according to their their differentiated state. Examples include neurons, myocytes, hepatocytes etc. and can often be subdivided according to specific functions.

A) gene duplication is a classic type of DNA mutation and therefore not considered epigenetics. B) depending on gene, often there is no specific phenotype associated with it. They are only expressed if the upstream region is also duplicated. C) in terms of reversals it is important to distinguish between reversals of phenotype and genotype. With gene duplication the latter is extremely rare, for the former see B. In cases where it is, the regulation is mostly moderating effects D) what is an inactive spot and how would it be move there?

I think it has been mentioned already somewhere but an important point regarding immune response is that it works within certain biological parameters which are determined by regulatory networks. An efficient defense happens within this The strength of a response does not scale with the efficiency of the immune response. In biological context a strong immune system is one that effectively protects the individual from infections while not creating issues (as mentioned above) due to it. Exposure to harmless microinfections (such as per the hygiene hypothesis, but which is essentially also the reasoning behind vaccinations) do not strengthen the response but allow the system to mount an efficient response against something they encountered already.

I remember that a few papers (PNAS and Plos IIRC) analysed cerebral structures of homo- and heterosexual males and females as well as transsexuals using imaging techniques such as MRI and PET. That study revealed that overall patterns are closer to their biological gender also there were certain regions (forgot which) which were slightly different. The other study however, showed that there appears to be differences in the amygdala connectivity and and volumes of the cerebral hemispheres. In these cases the homosexual individuals showed similarities to their hetereosexual counterparts with the same sex-partner preference. I would be careful to use oversimplifications such as male or female brain as these classifications tend to mask important details. This is especially true when extrapolations of the molecular origins are being made (sorry, this is kind of a professional pet-peeve of mine).

Well, from a German viewpoint at least the Bologna process has a lot of disadvantages. One issue is that the German system was a more specialized system than the UK (or US) system and the Bachelor degree was a bit like an extended "abitur". The now added bachelor and masters degrees are now a kind of hybrid which seemingly takes the bad of both systems. But for other countries this does offer benefits, of course. This is one of the benefits of the EU, of course. While some may have to take a hit on their end, other members may be brought to a higher standard, which could be harder to achieve alone. On a different point, one has to acknowledge how much the EU has changed the perception of their member states to each other. Yes, due to the economic downturn there are issues, but just remember that there are no comparison to the tensions that would have existed just six or seven decades ago.

FBS is a sideproduct of animal slaughter. For the blood products (including BSA) slaughter is unnecessary. Though for sometimes blood from slaughterhouses may be used (I am not sure why you would think that sheep are not used for meat, too). Collection of antibodies from animals requires exsanguination, and therefore results in animal death. The only exception are of course the mentioned in vitro generation.

I am starting this as a split from another thread.http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/71115-finally-in-college/ Actually I can think of a worse scenario, write grants that do not hit and then get urged to write further grants for the PI without actually having time to do research of any sorts (and obviously without crediting in the grant). After two years these postdocs may very well leave the position with nothing to show. Also, as a correction to a an earlier post of mine : the NIH grant towards independence is the K99/R00 mechanism. Non US citizens are also eligible for that. I think there was one more for postdocs but can't remember). Then there are those for junior scientists, but they require sponsoring (or a position other than postdoc). H1B was also ok for those. There are several major issues that postdocs are facing. One is the lack of independence, which is a bit of a bigger issue in the USA. The other, more global issue is the lack of not time-limited positions (which I called mid-level positions). A third issue is that long postdoc actually count against you. In other areas, especially in private sector, years of experience allow you to rise in position as it demonstrates industrial experience. In academia the worth of postdoc drop sharply after around 3-6 years (depending on field). After that time a postdoc may be considered a failure as he/she was not able to secure tenure track within that time (again, I am talking about the US system for now). Together with the potential lack of independence it is not easy for the postdoc to get out of that mess. One thing to realize is that careers are generally not made on ones own. There is always the requirement of support from the PI (ideally) or securing the support from the community. Unfortunately most junior postdocs still solely focus on productivity (i.e. publishing papers), but that is not enough. Creating visibility is obviously the major obstacle and I would like to discuss some methods to achieve that as well as maybe discuss strategies to deal with PIs of various types, as well as how to become a good PI yourself. Edit: I do not know how to quote

Actually there are at least two grant mechanisms that you could take advantage of. One which eventually is supposed to give you independence is the K22 mechanism (IIRC). But obviously this does not alleviate the broader issue.

In the academic area one of the major issues (IMO) is that there are no real mid-level positions (with very few exceptions). Either you are on the path of getting tenure, or you are stuck on temporary positions. A postdoc is essentially a cheap waiting loop until you either score a TT or find something outside academia. Obviously there cannot be sufficient tenure positions to absorb all graduates (or even just the majority of them), and since there is the political will to increase the number of graduates, the situation is likely to become worse. Sad thing is that I know quite a few people who would actually be content with the equivalent of postdoc positions, despite the low pay. However, the way the system is set up, a long postdoc is likely to hurt your career and make you more dependent on the goodwill of your supervisor (but that is another issue entirely.

One has to be careful with these projections. Virtually everywhere (including US) there is a claim that more engineers or scientists are needed. Truth is that companies demand a surplus of scientists and engineers so that they have a large pool to draw from. Unless the situation is vastly different from Germany there is no guaranteed success, either. Of course this is vastly economy-dependent. During the Biotech boom late 90s and 2000 a lot of people got a job almost immediately post-graduation in the biotech area (mostly sales and product management). The projections at that time were also vastly optimistic. In the mid 2000 many companies had to shrink themselves healthy and lay off people. Since 2011 many are on a waiting loop in terms of new hires. The rather obvious thing is that job projections are (similar to most economic projections) vastly unreliable. And finally, there is of course always the actual mechanics of getting a job. Just because there is a need (assuming there is) and you are qualified, does not guarantee you a job. In the end, post PhD jobs are extremely dependent on networking (even company positions). Another thing that I should mention is that many companies (well, I heard it from German and US companies FWIW) are reducing their commitment for on-the-job training and even entry positions require a certain amount of industrial experience. The reason they can do that is the (relatively) high amount of unemployment of already trained personnel. Only if they cannot find someone with experience to fit the spot (or when specialist knowledge is needed) a real entry-level person will be hired. Captain, IIRC you are working in biotech in the Netherlands? Maybe you can share your experience. I am always interested in info from the private sector side.

The point is that one has to have a realistic understanding of the actual situation. A PhD is nothing more than a base qualification that gives you nothing career-wise on its own. As Arete said, many students just concentrate on their degree and do not realize that getting a career afterwards requires a serious long-term strategy. Another rather depressing aspect is that landing a job is often not a function of your (scientific) abilities. For both academic and private sector hiring is often based on intangibles. In other words, things like a high publication rates alone will not guarantee a job. It is really important also to invest time in career building rather than just doing ones job (goes for grad students as well as postdocs, for that matter).

I suppose he/she is a master student (usually a little bit below a classic German diploma in education, at least on the practical side). There are also a number of nice reviews out there for a lot of different contexts. That being said it would be helpful to closer define the scope (e.g. organism? origins/evolution? functions? mechanisms? etc.)

You will have to look what kind of position actually exist. There are not many pure research positions. Most principal investigators are also college teachers. There are of course research institutes which sometimes have fewer or no research load, but the positions are extremely rare (much more so if limited to a given topic, of course). I am not aware of consulting positions outside of think tanks (again, not really a mass market). TBH what you describe is something most students drawn to science are interested in. Thinking about problems and conduct experiments. In reality the job market and requirements are quite different. Also, if you manage to obtain a non-term, non-teaching research position (again, a very rare thing), your job will mostly entail securing funds, networking, managing people, etc. In fact, the more successful you are as a scientist, the less time you will have for science. Sounds paradoxical, but is unfortunately true (and is another reason why people leave academia). Meeting with people in the job and talking to them is definitely the right way to go. Note that companies tend not to do a terrible amount of research. Often, innovations are grown outside the private sector and then grow into startups, for example.

This is most definitively not the case. As a note to Ringer´s data, they are from an older survey and the situation has gotten much much worse due to the economic downturn. Also note that the majority of PhD holders do not remain "lab-rats". Actual in-lab positions for PhDs are almost always transient and based on term-contracts. Postdocs are in quite a way waiting positions with a lot of uncertainty of getting a tenure-track position (which is filled with uncertainty of actually getting tenure). The funding rate of 18% mentioned by Arete is actually way lower for junior scientists (usually assistant prof level) as the majority of funds are awarded to well-established groups (i.e. often groups that already had funding). First-time success rate was way below 10% (often around 2, I was told). Just to reinforce what Arete said, a PhD alone is not a goal to anything. You will have to identify the position you want to get and for some you may need a PhD. However getting an academic position is very competitive (roughly 20 % of all PhDs will get tenure eventually) takes a long time (depending on discipline most tenures are granted around the forties). There are arguably more industrial positions, but even they can wait and select the best fit. This does not mean having a PhD but having a lot of hard and soft skills (especially the latter) that makes a candidate more attractive. Just to give some real-world number: the average number of candidates for a given tenure-track position are usually 100-200 (depending on how attractive the position is), in industrial settings the numbers I have heard range from 50-200. All of them with PhDs and usually considerable relevant experience and skills. As you can see, a PhD barely covers the basics. Note: this is not to deter anyone from pursuing a PhD (we need cheap labor, after all), but it is important to decide on a career path prior to entering a PhD track. This is more akin to a technician position and most of the time requires a master degree (or bachelor plus proof of experience).

As StringJuy said, the hand lens is not held at fixed distance from your eyes,which would force your eyes to change focus. Instead, you normally keep your eyes relatively relaxed and adjust focus by moving your hand.

Bleach is actually not that great, as it will render the bones brittle. IIRC a standard way was to macerate in warm water (which will take quite a while and is not terribly pleasant). Boiling is probably faster though, but has to be done somewhat carefully to preserve the skeleton. To bleach it up hydrogen peroxide can be used.

Moved to speculations.

The scope of the question is actually quite broad and not easily addressable in a short post. One has to understand that DNA is not a simple static molecule in which only the sequence of bases carries information, but it also has a certain dynamics which involves e.g. proteins that control actual expression of encoded genes. Among the factors that are actually inheritable, DNA modification (i.e. methylation). By methylating specific areas on the DNA, expression can be altered. These methylation patterns can be maintained and passed on. Reversion of mutations can occur on several levels. Either an additional mutation restores the former phenotype, or, the mutation site can mutate again back to the original base (or one that results in the same encoded AA, usually the third base in a triplet). The latter is not terribly common, but may be selected for. This means that while for any individual cell a reversion is unlikely to happen, within a large cell pool those revertants (i.e. cells that restore the original codon or a homologous one) may be selected for if cell functions are inhibited by the mutation. Hence, the rate of revertants may be higher than expected (again, provided there is positive selection). For regulatory areas more leeway may be there in terms of restoring functions, but one must keep in mind that regulation is based on equilibrium reactions and there are generally only quantitative changes (rather than on/off regulation). Note that one should not confuse it with epigenetic control as the modification of DNA (i.e. methylation) is generally not considered a form of mutation.

I am not sure whether we are talking about the same thing. A truly photographic memory would entail a high-detail (i.e. photographic detail) in your mind, regardless of the ability to e.g. draw or reproduce it. If the flight over New York was memorized photographically, he should be able to recall accurately the number of windows from on a building from a given point of view, for example. I.e. walk back in the saved memory and recall everything with absolute detail (again, something that would somewhat clash with the way we think perception works). The drawing itself, while providing quite some more details than most would be able to reproduce, have nowhere that amount of detail. It would be interesting to reproduce photographs from corresponding angles to see whether at least the rough details were accurate, though. To me, there appears to be discrepancies (though it could be a perspective thingy).

I would agree with that. Especially due to the way memories are re-created in the brain it is highly unlikely that something true photographic could exist (at least not with high level of detail).

I would be careful to extrapolate these studies. First of all we are talking about mice. Perinatal development is quite different to humans, so discussions into that direction are at best premature. It is quite interesting, though and it may be worthwhile to look at it more closely.

Well, AFAIK there is little evidence that photographic memory actually exists.

Using glasses with different dioptres can result in headaches until the brain adapts to it. In addition, the eyes (and long-term presumably also the brain) adapts to the different focus while using certain glass strength and after removing them they will focus wrongly. Continuous use of glasses of a wrong strength will result in your eyes adapting to them and may affect your normal eyesight. Ideally, you should have reading glasses that correct your eyesight as little as necessary (i.e. have it measured by an optician) to avoid larger problems.

None that are homologous to bacterial ones (AFAIK) or which are referred to as restriction enzymes. However, there enzymes with nuclease activities in eukaryotes. Often, they are involved in DNA repair. In addition there enzymes that are involved in DNA dynamics and replication with endonuclease activity. Generally they are not very sequence-specific however.