CharonY

It really depends on how you define it, but here is something to think about: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-moderate-middle-is-a-myth/ I.e. the position of folks who think of themselves as moderates are actually more center-left than truly moderate. And another conclusion that came from various analyses including this one is that the positions are kind of all over the map. Is someone who has a strong conservative stance on immigration but a very liberal in of healthcare really left, right or moderate? If you think you can hedge your bet by simply taking the most neutral position possible (a bit like Biden is trying) then you are trying to appeal to an incredibly small fraction of the voters. Or to put it differently, putting out centrist policies is not going to win a significant group. If anything going economically to the left is more advisable to catch the centrist vote, the rest is rather more or less based on the flavour of the day (or whatever facebook decides, I guess).

In the case of Neanderthals it was the opposite way, they took samples from bodies that were clearly Neanderthal and isolated first mitochondrial DNA (around 2008 ish?) and later on other groups extracted more DNA from Neanderthal bones. They knew it was Neanderthal DNA because a) they samples were obtained from Neanderthals and b) they cross-referenced it to modern human sequences to make sure that the researchers did not contaminate it with their own DNA. The sequencing itself is relatively standard compared to other sequencing projects, the really tricky bit is to extract enough workable DNA. Again, this is something you can read up by looking at "ancient DNA" as keywords.

Well, you advocated for someone who is irredeemably centrist. Since they are a dying breed, you have to take what you can get.

DNA is a fairly new method, falling under the ancient DNA set of techniques and are certainly not the "traditional" way to identify the origins of bones. It is an emerging technique to use on certain bone fragments, as mitochondrial DNA can sometimes be retrieved even from them. But as things go, they are fairly new and not quite standard, I would say. Traditionally, identification can be done based on bone fragments alone, but requires some level of integrity. Especially highly fragmented bones are difficult to identify, but as long as key morphological pieces can be found, experts can assign them with a high level of accuracy.

! Moderator Note Off-topic discussions split to trash.

Because the strategy of the last few decades is to rile up your base against the other position (regardless what it may be) rather than being reasonable. If you follow the other thread regarding rationality vs logic vs reason, this seems like a situation where being rational (how to get all the votes) trumps reason (what do folks really want). Also while I am not a voter anywhere (for now) I will note that this trend is not unique to the US. It is employed with various success throughout Europe and it is an increasing trend in Canada (probably by diffusion).

I think that "logical" refers to essentially a narrow set of premises which are being evaluated. "Rational" refers to some broader assessments that will take a broader context into account and might dismiss unlikely (or untrue) premises. I.e. the latter is embedded in a broader body of knowledge. I am pretty sure someone with an actual philosophy background ( @Eise ?) can provide a more complete rundown, especially when it comes to the concept(s) of reason. The one I came across often add an layer of morality. E.g. a rational assessment is often utilitarian and is aimed at maximizing some kind of values. However a reasonable approach could take societal norms and their impact into further account (even if the norms themselves might not appear rational on their own grounds). Some have kind of married these two elements (I would think in the line of Kant's categorical imperative) but I realize that my familiarity with that matter has eroded a lot and I may be way off at this point.

As the article states, by keeping things uncertain, the effective result is that physicians are afraid to perform life-saving measures including in fairly obvious cases such as ectopic pregnancies. The creation of an implicit threat seems to be very much by design and aims to take out medical decisions away from physicians into a morality-based judgement system controlled by law-makers.

https://www.vox.com/22961590/redistricting-gerrymandering-house-2022-midterms Interesting summary on that topic.

Other factors, including mitochondrial degradation related to oxidative stress are also commonly associated wit aging, as well as chronic inflammatory responses (both might be at least partially related to the role of diet in longevity). Further factors include mutations and associated dysregulation, proteomic changes especially related to protein turnover and so on. There are many levels to look at the issue, starting from the cellular, to tissue to organs and organismal levels. As such there are many proposals from different specializations and generally speaking it has become clear that many factors are involved, thought he causal connections and mechanisms are not necessarily clear (e.g. do we see protein damage due to e.g. due to mutations are do those damages impact our ability to repair DNA damages? Or do they cause oxidative damages which in turn cause DNA damage?). While I am not expert in that field I also do not think that we have a clear understanding of the relevance of these elements and which one would be more relevant than the other. Often, it depends on the precise research question.

Or a priest. Another issue is of course that unclear rules can result in MDs to be too afraid to do an abortion, even if it can save the mother's life, since they are afraid of repercussions.

I would want to add that in Ireland a woman died of sepsis after denied abortion (resulting in an amendment of the Irish constitution to allow it in 2018), and in Poland something similar happened just last year. So we got fairly recent examples what is going to happen if an unborn (and even dead) fetus counts less than their mother.

Huh, seems that these things require me to get out of the lab more. Not so sure about the facebook thing. Don't trust these newfangled things. I heard they eat your soul. Or maybe soles, not sure, since my spellchecker seems to be on strike. I think I am stepping back from that one. I tried to follow the conversation on how you made it and I think I had shortly an impression of what a grad student understands when I try to tell them how to do something. I mean, nothing that learning, trying and effort won't fix, but not sure about the time commitment nowadays. But still, absolutely intriguing and really makes me want to at least try, if I only could find the time.

Wow, really nice. I keep destroying my cutting boards- (only the big 2 incher survived so far). Now I really want to learn how to do it (or perhaps splurge on a really expensive one, though it won't look at nice at this one).

No, even highly conserved genes we you will find sequence differences and they generally scale with the distance between organisms. Specifically for DNA replication there are marked differences in the structure and replication between eukaryotes (such as us) and prokaryotes (such as bacteria) and require different polymerases to work.

Would you consider table salt (sodium chloride) electrical ?

No to both points- at least not in the way you probably think about it. What happens in neurons is that there are ion channels that open and close and thereby control the flow of ions. What you need to maintain those is to feed on said ions. I.e. things containing potassium, sodium, chloride and so on (and in non-toxic forms, too). Licking an electrical outlet won't help in that regard.

Agreed, a very defined and rigid use of language works well for science, where we want to minimize ambiguity. However, for poetry or even ordinary prose it takes the life out of it. One of the reasons perhaps why Asimov had wonderful ideas for his works but the prose he is using is incredibly dull.

You mean whether coronavirus are known to jump species? If so yes. The most notable cases before SARS-CoV-2 are obviously SARS and MERS. But the viruses are present in many mammals and there are many signatures indicating mixtures and exchanges between species. I.e. spillover to humans are not unexpected.

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Fundamentally the article does not highlight anything that we did not know before. I.e. I do not see a smoking gun there. All the things the authors mentioned have been discussed in literature elsewhere and while one cannot unequivocally prove that it has not been manipulated in any form (which would only be possible if there was something really unique), wildlife is still remains the most likely origin. While deeper probes are fine (though it has some practical implications for researchers and research) I fear that this line of thinking feeds into something that I think of as a Hollywood narrative of catastrophes. In movies catastrophes just don't happen, there are always good, simple and identifiable reasons, and there is almost always a simple and clear solution. The COVID-19 pandemic does not conform to such narratives. Things the way they did for many reasons (including, behavioural, economic and societal ones) and simple heroes (perfect vaccines) simply do not exist. Even if it turned out to be a lab-strain, it would at best give us a false sense of security, as the next inevitable pandemic is likely coming from elsewhere, anyway. I know that this is not the point, but the virus is SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 is the disease. It just annoys me that even in microbiology classes students keep mixing it up and we are already years in this particular pandemic.

In the given example (reading and recalling a paragraph) it is often less about memory but more about comprehension. Though parts (such as short-term memory) can play a role, what generally happens when your read a paragraph is that you create a mental summary of sorts that you may or may not recall later on. If you you need to re-read a paragraph just to get the whole elements internalized, it seems that you are losing focus. I.e. you may read the words, but not creating meaning out of them. There are several techniques to increase focus, starting off with cutting away immediate distraction (phones/messengers), try only to do one thing (i.e. reading) and some seen benefits from applying mindfulness techniques. Go slow at first summarize each sentence in your mind to see whether you got it, before moving on.

! Moderator Note Off-topic discussion that does not deal with depression has been split off to reduce further derailment.

It is really just the icing on the cake. The good thing about the hearings is that they took a lot of effort to remove any potential ambiguity regarding the attempts of Trump and his inner circle to overthrow the election. Those who didn't care won't likely be swayed, those few who try to find the most accommodating interpretation (e.g. that these were only loud musings) basically have no other option than to acknowledge that, if they were arguing in good faith to begin with. The issue is that even if Trump gets prosecuted, there are more folks than before who see what he has been doing as a template. And if those folks are not as grossly incompetent, it does not bode well for American democracy.

Perhaps it is just an elaborate process just to annul his marriage. It helps to consider that a) white supremacists are not necessarily internally consistent (well clearly they aren't, it is actually one of their hallmarks, similar to certain forms of facism) and b) that they also have a deep root in misogynist thoughts. Specifically, abortion empowers women, which puts them into a station where should not be and as such it is degenerate and to be opposed. At the same time, white supremacists see themselves as victims, so they "feel" that abortions (which they are already opposed for above reasons) are clearly targeting their race (even if evidence shows the opposite). While they are also unhappy with contraception (for similar reasons as mentioned), they are alright with that being provided to black folks or other minorities, though outright sterilization is of course preferred. Ultimately it boils down to the issue that these folks need to always consider themselves as victims to justify their behaviour.