CharonY

What you are looking for is the meninges.

Well, an epi-study without statistical evaluation would not be worth much, would it? But fair enough, I did not quote the statistical analysis.

They calculated rate rations and the 95% confidence intervals and for each cause of infant death, which includes congenital anomalies, injury etc. the rate was higher in the USA (within the mentioned CI) with the exception of maternal complications at term.

There was another study focusing on socio-economic factors, but I would have to dig for that.

I think, i commented on ti elsewhere already, but it has to be noted that the bacterium does not have an arsenic base. It only has been shown that it is able to incorporate a lot of arsenic, including levels in which P has presumably been exchanged by As (this has mostly been demonstrated indirectly). Moreover, the data is not perfectly clear on whether the cells really utilized As for growth or e.g. managed to do it in presence of the limited P still present (or released from the increased rate of dying cells). At least that was my impression after a quick read a while ago.

I still have not gotten to re-read it in more detail, but this paper has been criticized heavily elsewhere. I still consider it a very interesting finding, however, it is not a demonstration of an organism with an As base.

There are comparisons like that out there. One that I had saved was between Canada and the US:

Ananth et al. Int J Epidemiol. 2009 Apr;38(2):480-9.

RESULTS: The overall stillbirth rate in the United States (37.9 per 10,000 births) was similar to that in Canada (38.2 per 10,000 births), while the overall infant mortality rate was 23% (95% CI 19-26%) higher (50.8 vs 41.4 per 10,000 births, respectively). The gestational age distribution was left-shifted in the United States relative to Canada; consequently, preterm birth rates were 8.0 and 6.0%, respectively. Stillbirth and early neonatal mortality rates in the United States were lower at term gestation only. However, gestational age-specific late neonatal, post-neonatal and infant mortality rates were higher in the United States at virtually every gestation. The overall stillbirth rates (per 10,000 foetuses at risk) among Blacks and Whites in the United States, and in Canada were 59.6, 35.0 and 38.3, respectively, whereas the corresponding infant mortality rates were 85.6, 49.7 and 42.2, respectively.

 

CONCLUSIONS: Differences in gestational age distributions and in gestational age-specific stillbirth and infant mortality in the United States and Canada underscore substantial differences in healthcare services, population health status and health policy between the two neighbouring countries.

 

An analogy with skeleton and muscles is probably not very helpful, as the cytoskeleton itself is involved in movement. Actin is involved in maintaining cell shape as well as movement, as pointed out above. Microtubuli are also participating in cell shape, but also are part of intracellular molecular movements. Membranes and cell walls are also elements of cell stability, and so on.

I do not think that you got impurities. First, minipreps generally result primarily in OC, CCC plasmids and then you got multimers (but still closed). So additional higher MW bands are perfectly normal. Linear DNA tends to pop up if some mechanical nicking occurred. From the gel it appears that the additional band is only seen in the phosphatase treated sample? Because the digest alone looks perfectly fine (is it the expected size)?

Isopropanol and ethanol are realatively close in terms of their dissolution ability. Ethanol is slightly more polar and more salt tolerant. However, for cleaning purposes denatured ethanol should be used (due to cost issues). I have no idea why a well-equipped lab is insane (well, two bottles is rather poorly equipped, actually).

The other symptoms could be a panic attack associated with the feeling of loss of control. From what I have heard it is not that unusual. Not necessarily in conjunction with orthostatic hypertension, but with all episodes that may result in the (temporary) loss of body control. Somewhat close to a mild shock IIRC.

70% ethanol is for disinfection. For oil removal you can use either isopropanol or ethanol.

Academic merit alone won't get you very far, as the market is just too crowded to shine with that alone. However, having a strong network will increase your chances being at the right place at the right time.

One simple way is ultracentrifugation after lysis. For more fractions creating a suitable density gradient can be used. The latter is a little bit tricky.

Currently that means that people wanted all the tax cuts preserved.

People? Which people? Polls tell a different story. My link.

The people (whoever they are) apparently are divided with a skew towards letting the tax cuts expire for the highest earners.

Before we go off into too much speculations check this out My link. I still have not found the time to read the paper in more detail, but she picks out and elaborates a few things that I have noticed by skimming, as well as things that I have missed.

OECD studies are probably good for international comparisons.

Using aggressive methods essentially all plasmids can be transferred into the cell. They just may not propagate (lacking e.g. the proper ori, being lethal to the cell, etc.)

So we have to dance to the tune of the funding agencies as well as to the public? Darn.

Standard curve: plot size and migration length on semi-log paper. You cannot measure size with undigested plasmid with this (think about why and how it is different from the other products).

If you can see the markers but nothing else you likely made an error somewhere, as mentioned above.

Magnification/numerical aperture; mechanical tube length/cover glass thickness (for higher NA)

What I have to add is that the bacterium did not have a totally altered phsyiology per se. It is just able to withstand enormous concentrations of As and incorporate it into its chemistry and still survive that. I have only skimmed the paper but from the data it appeared to me that they generally just measured the proportion of P to As (and P was not 0), indirectly suggesting a gradual replacement, rather than full utilization of As. However, I would to find a quiet minute to read it more thoroughly.

Widdekind, the error in that picture is possibly based on the assumption that there is some kind of base state that consists of defined elements. A cell, however, is in constant flux. There is, for instance generally, not necessarily a standard mass m, but rather it would be the minimum mass, immediately after the division. Depending on situation the cell could stay at that for a while, increase mass up until a certain extent without division, or increase mass with division. Cell division regulation is not necessarily coupled to cell mass. In addition, none of the daughter cells is really the original cell. Both really are. The original cell just formed a septum and split itself in two. Except in cases of budding both are pretty much equivalent and it is pretty much arbitrary to define one of the cells as the original.

In bacteria you could anchor it on the original DNA molecule, as during replication a second one is formed and moved to the other side of the cell division site. For eukaryotes this is not possible as during mitosis each half of a chromosome gets moved to each new cell. It is purely by chance whether it is the newly synthesized chromatid or the original one.

Pioneer, you are heavily confusing meiosis with DNA replication. That is not helping.

Lemur, you kind of misunderstand the research on evolution. Research in the are could e.g. be focused on the use of molecular clocks to time divergence. In that case a hypothesis regarding how it could be done is made and the subsequent analysis should contain controls.

Studies geared towards falsifying evolution (and failing) is basically like proposing to build a perpetuum mobile (and failing). It does not add scientific relevant information.

Having the decision made by "the people" might be better than having it made by the beancounters.

Which beancounters are you referring to?

I just came across that bit here:

My link

Essentially Eric Cantor proposes to cut wasteful spending by having citizens sift through grants approved by the National Science Foundation and pick out grants that are "questionable". As you may know, grant applications go through a rigorous review process and the vast majority of all grants are kicked out (depending on mechanism success rate is somewhere between 1-10 %).

In the "Search Award For" field, try some keywords, such as: success, culture, media, games, social norm, lawyers, museum, leisure, stimulus, etc. to bring up grants. If you find a grant that you believe is a waste of your taxdollars, be sure to record the award number.

While outreach is a good thing, this call puts the science to be discussed already in a negative perspective. Moreover, NSF grants require a statement of their broader impact. From the submission guidelines:

It must describe as an integral part of the narrative, the broader impacts resulting from the proposed activities, addressing one or more of the following as appropriate for the project: how the project will integrate research and education by advancing discovery and understanding while at the same time promoting teaching, training, and learning; ways in which the proposed activity will broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.); how the project will enhance the infrastructure for research and/or education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships; how the results of the project will be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding; and potential benefits of the proposed activity to society at large.

What do you think about that?

An interesting article regarding the more practical aspects of death penalties.

My link

Depends on the definition of cultures. Not all are anchored to humans. Or do you mean we should not use precisely those definitions?

I am using that in terms of traditional culture. I.e. passing down behaviors along the generations without actually direct exposure to the initial source leading to the rise of the given tradition.