CharonY

Hum, must be a Freudian slip.

The critical point is joining the right group as a grad. Ivy league universities do not produce high quality scientists, they are just able to attract and hire high quality faculty at a higher rate than mid-range unis. They do not necessarily produce top-quality scientists (that depends on the individual). However, they may give young scientists a head start due to a) the pedigree and b) open up some networks (though the important ones depend more on divisor rather than uni, for the most part. Also one should not IMO focus too much on the big shots. Going into science depends a lot on passion (as you will unlikely get much else out of it). You should be willing to put enormous amount of effort into something, knowing that whatever you do you may still fail (basically around 80%) and do not expect a huge outcome, but still live love (almost) every minute you do it. In the long run that is more important as where you got your degree.

Off-Topic: Pre-reunification Berlin is quite a different beast than compared to the rest of Germany, so it makes sense that there were some oddities not found in other (West-German) states in that area. But it is true that as a non-resident on a student Visa there are quite some hoops you have jump through there. But again, it is the same if you are a student coming to the US as student visas in most countries are somewhat strictly regulated.

Well, most universities that do teaching have teaching evaluations as part of the tenure process. However, if someone is scientifically very successful (i.e. pulls in huge amounts of grants and is well embedded) then the the teaching evaluations may play a minor role. The main point is that tenure is not given for teaching alone and most profs need to balance their time between teaching and performing good research. In teaching unis the ratio tends to be reversed, though.

The point regarding diplomas is valid, at least in Germany they generally want full coverage of your academic records. However, there are also scholarship specifically for foreign students. In addition, as a foreigner you do not need to register with the local police, but you have to have health insurance (same as in US as foreigner, often covered by stipend) and you have to register your primary residence (which is mandatory for all citizens). As a foreigner you have additionally to register with the "foreigner's office" but only need to declare if you change states. It may sound complicated, but honestly, it is not really more paper work than coming to the US, for instance. I cannot really agree with the description of the lectures, however. They are extremely dependent on the teacher (and meds are pretty weird anywhere). Having worked in both academic settings I would say that in Germany more independence is expected from the students. Extensive office hours and tutoring are less common, for instance. However, the system has been revamped recently so much is still in transition.

If you are not proficient in the particular language, it may be advisable to to look for specifically for international programs that are generally taught in English (and if you want to study science, you have to learn English anyway).

I do not see that as a nagging inconvenience. In the countries with higher energy prices often technical but also behavioral elements are in place to reduce energy consumption. E.g. the habit of turning lights off when leaving a room for a longer time. Or to use energy saving light bulbs. Normally, one would not notice it after a while. I would argue that the inconvenience comes from the need to adapt to the different situation, but that goes for basically everything, when you live in a different country. After a while you just stop noticing.

Yes, basically the synthesize and incorporate new lipids, hydrolyse and enlarge their peptidoglycan layer to allow growth, rearrange their overall cytoskeleton and increase their biomass. Only after that do they divide again.

Reviews are out of necessity of course subjective, the goal of a grant proposal is to convince by demonstrating impact, feasibility, resources (that are not dependent on funding), personnel, etc. Obviously it also takes the track record of the applicant into account. That being said, grants that are essentially fishing expeditions are mostly dead in the water. You have to be able to propose a hypothesis that you want to test, or provide preliminary information regarding what may be a possible outcome, before it has a chance to go to review. Also, as a side note, this thread is bloody old.

This is a fair point. However legislature affects everyone, not only those affected. Hence policy-making should keep the overall perspective IMO (not that it does, obviously, but technically it should...). Of course, specially tailored bills (e.g. first responder bill) make sense. But policies that e.g. limit freedom w/o significantly improving life quality/outcome should be eyed more carefully and not give a pass because the topic is terrorism.

I am not shrugging them off. The question is that of risk assessment. You are more likely to die from wrong medications or in car accidents than by a terrorist attack. Murder obviously has a stronger emotional impact (as the reply demonstrate). And for that reason terrorism commands a disproportionate amount of attention relative to its actual risk. People sit in cars and do not buckle up and are at higher risk to die than from bombing. Yet they are afraid of terrorist and not of car accidents. The inherent danger is that policies and legislature in connection with terrorism are much more likely based on fear than on logic or facts.

Also if you have an analytical question (e.g. in terms of specific compounds) you may check either commercial analytical laboratories or the chemistry departments of universities.

To put that into perspective (and I believe CaptainPanic was trying to make the point that perspective is important here): Unintentional poisoning Deaths : 29,846 Car deaths : 42,031 In the USA alone (2007) My link

Lamarckism is a way of inheritance, however and as such does not constitute an alternative to natural selection. It can be considered an alternative to Mendelian inheritance, however. Of course epigenetics does support a variation thereof, now, as mentioned above. But again, it is a mode of inheritance, it does not, as such act as a selective agent.

Depends on how narrow you define invasion and how broad you want to define oppressed, but there are quite a number of known instances where US interventions toppled or destabilized (more or less) democratically elected governments which were not US- (or US-ally for that matter) friendly. This includes Iran 1953, for instance. There are in addition a number of strategic invasions during the cold war. The goal tended to be more weaken communist threat as freeing people, of course. And before that the US also dabbled in imperialism which was very en vogue throughout the 19th to early 20th century, though to my knowledge not on the scale as the European big shots as e.g. Great Britain. An example would be the US-Phillipine war. Bottom line is that high-powered politics and power games are never a clean issue.

You can convert not too complicated formated pdfs to mobi with calibre, btw.

Well, reproducible RNA extraction is often somewhat tricky (hence all the normalization steps). I have not used cartilage, by my feel is that the reproducibility of initial lysis is the major factor here. The low cell to crap (i.e. ECM) ratio makes it hard to have precisely the cell amount, as well as inhibit complete homogenization.

Well, unless you got a contamination the results indicate that there has been mannitol fermentation. I am not sure how you streaked them out (looks a bit weird). However, you are right in assuming that the color change indicates fermentation somewhere in there. Well, technically it indicates acid production...

Technically, it is possible. This is especially true, if you know someone to introduce you to a given group, or if you directly know the PI. If you are an unknown quantity it is still feasible, however you are likely to have more chances if you got some own money (e.g. a postdoc grant). It is less likely to get a position in a different field that requires working on a running grant with looming deadlines, unless you can demonstrate that your acquired abilities can be transferred to that particular topic. Note that depending on what your goal is it may not be wise to change fields too much (I am not familiar with either discipline and your invovlement in them, so I cannot evaluate how far a stretch it would be). You want to be able to establish yourself in a particular field, if your goal is an academic career, for instance.

I would actually focus less on the study topics upon entering grad school and network more (or rather train myself in networking). Also I would have though harder about the requirements and necessities to get a science job. If I wanted a industrial job, a focused internships or equivalent may have been an option.

I only read quickly over the post and may have missed some finer points, but I see no real problems here. One legitimate concern is that of what you want to do, assuming you have a PhD. There are basically two major aspects to it. 1) Research in academia: the only positions that are not on soft-money (i.e. grants) are tenure position. While you will be leading a group, your direct involvement in actual wet-bench research (if that is your goal) will be relatively small. Also, the competition is fierce (e.g. only 20% of all PhDs in academia are likely to get tenure). I suppose the link you provided will provide information on it. 2) I am far less familiar in industrial research, but from what I heard of colleagues they are not too many positions doing wet-bench research. The PhDs there are mostly in sales or have organizational duties (e.g. preparing paperwork for pre- and clinical studies). Alternatives: If you want to engage in research (and again, we are talking wet-lab here) setting yourself up as a technician may be a possibility. Microbiology and molecular biology would be more fitting in the biotechnological area, whereas in areas of drug development pharmacy or similar is preferred. Also, pharmacists with PhD are often preferred by drug development/production companies are preferred over bio PhD. Regarding financing, if you are accepted into a graduate program you can usually get financed by TAing or working on a funded projected. Of course, there are no clear-cut rules and each individual path will look slightly different, but there are some common guidelines that one may want to look into.

The NIH has set up a database for that. It is called research portfolio reporting tool (report) or something like that. Should not be too hard to find with a google search.

Actually that is not gluconeogenesis, but glycogenolysis (sounds similar). Gluconeogenesis refers to the formation of glucose by basically inverting the reactions of glycolysis with three bypasses of essentially irreversible reactions. Other than that, yes glycolysis is glucose to pyruvate. Glycogenolysis is from glycogen to glucose-1-P. With a mutase it is converted to glu-6-p and can enter glycolysis from there.

Interesting, care to point out the inconsistencies? Also note: GIGO.

Actually this sounds like a plausible question that a non-specialist would ask during an exam to bring something up. It is rather uncommon that all the members of a committee are specialist in what you are doing. That being said, I would advise against personal attacks. People may or may not be who they claim. Refute their arguments, if necessary, but personal attacks serve no purpose.