I did a little book-ish research on Botox last month. Here's what I found.
Botox is basically botulism toxin. Botulism works by imparing nerves from sending neurotransmitters, so your muscles don't work; when your muscles don't work, you can't breathe and you die from asphyxiation. Nice, huh?
Botox is a dilute protein extract of botulism. When injected under the skin, it works by paralyzing your muscles, thereby unabling the muscles from forming new wrinkles (I couldn't find how it actually erases existant wrinkles). I'm not terribly surprised people have fewer headaches, as it blocks nerve signals, although not sensory nerves.
The "problem" with Botox is that its effects disappear after a few months, so a fresh set of injections is needed.
Botox isn't new; as the article says, it's been used for a few years for treatment of other muscle problems, including palsies.
I may not know much about storing CO2, but I do think that messing with the ecosystem is a bad idea. Let's look at what pumping CO2 into the oceans will do:
CO2 itself is non-toxic, however, if you can't get enough of the oxygen you need because there's too much CO2 in the air, you'll still suffocate.
Fish skim oxygen out of water to breathe release CO2, sorta like how we breathe in air. If there's already CO2 in the water, it's harder to pump more in. This could possible suffocate fish and other marine life.
I don't know how CO2 would remain in water for long periods of time. Think of what happens when you leave bottles of soda out on the counter (the CO2 escapes!) How long would this pumped CO2 stay in the water?
CO2 is mildly acidic, so we'd be acidifying the oceans. This can't be good for the conditions of the beasties living there. I don't think it'd translate to acid rain, as the CO2 gas should come out of the water vapor when it evaporates.
Not as exciting (necessarily) as a lock pick set, but a screwdriver with multiple bits and a pair of pliers came in very handy for installing ethernet cards, tightning bolts on lofts...
And I always wished I had a small locked box or same to keep my roommate outta some things.
Okay, I'll admit it... I can't stand football, but I watched the Superbowl for the commercials! Why? Because they're interesting and (mostly) sorta clever.
On the other hand, would tons and tons of "intersting" commercials really keep my attention? Doubtful. I don't even remember which commercials I liked from the superbowl, let alone what they were advertising.
When I was born, I was allergic to gluten (found in most grains), so I couldn't eat any cereal or breads or pasta until I was older. It was all soy-based stuff for me, along with peanut buttered-rice cakes.
I've worn glasses since 2nd grade, and have a prescription that rivals most 40-year-olds. Genetics can't be thrown out the window just yet.
Okay, while it's neat to see that the whole genome thing didn't die after the human genome was sequenced, there's still a lot of work to be done.
Once a genome is sequenced, researchers still need to figure out exactly what each gene does. The second part is much harder as genes don't necessarily produce qualities by themselves (i.e., some cancer "genes" are actually two or three genes that work together).
Besides, although we could conceivably control various properties of grains through gene manipulation, we still won't know until it's actually grown if the stuff tastes good (or if it tastes really good to particular insects and other beasties).
at Kimberly-Clark (maker of Kleenex, Cottonelle, Scott, etc.) one summer, as an intern.
When creating "new and improved" products, paper makers use all sorts of tests to measure the properties of the paper (like shear, bending stiffness, softness tests, and so on). These tests are done on small samples first (created in a laboratory!). If the product passes inspection, it is then taken to a trial mill (like the one used in this article), which is a relatively small machine. If the product holds up through that test, it is then finally taken to the actual mills for production.
The tests done in the full-sized mills (since the product is, ideally, already formulated correctly through all the primary steps), are to check quality.
I don't see how this will save money or trees; it may catch the errors (big holes in the sheet, too thin/thick, not strong enough) earlier, but the already-generated paper cannot be used again in that mill (it has to go to a mill that is equipped for recycling). Granted, a whole roll won't have to be thrown out, but the time in changing the rolls will still cost production time and money.
As most chemists will tell you, during college they probably had to take quantum and physical chem. Many also took spectroscopy. If the chemists you know don't remember it, it's because it's a repressed memory.
Just kidding.
The point is, chemists probably did learn how the NMR and IR and Raman and AA machines work, but as they're just using them to obtain data (and not memorizing the intimate mechanisms), they probably don't remember the inner workings any more. There are technicians who specialize in a particular machine (say, NMR), and they certainly know all the magnetic fields and fluxes.
As a grad student, I'll say that there are no Power Macs in my group's inventory (or anywhere else, I don't believe), as almost all of the machines run programs that are Windows-based.
I took a hard-core P-chem class, complete with all sorts of derivations and theories and proofs, and I'm not the only one.
By the way, I've always thought that physicists are rather limited, as they don't seem to see "the end user," but only their own research. Don't ever let a physicist try to explain to you why you need baking soda (rather than baking powder) in cookies.
By the way, because E, I, L, S, and V are all hydrophobic residues, they're often found near each other. It isn't uncommon to find "ELVIS LIVES" in your protein sequence:)
Actually, the abbreviations do follow some sort of logic. "A" is for alanine, "C" is for cysteine, etc. Argenine couldn't use "A", so it has "R".
When you get to asparagine (which was first found in asparagus), A, S, P, R, G, and I were already taken, so it got "N".
Aspartic acid and glutamic acid have the same structures as asparagine and glutamine (except for the carboxylic acid groups on the ends); they got stuck with "D" and "E", respectively.
By the way, if you're counting, the six letters that aren't used are B, J, O, U, X, and Z.
I took biochem in undergrad. When trying to remember the amino acids, we'd spell our names. I was one of two people who could write their *entire* name in amino acids.
I also took to writing sentances. "Chemistry and art. Well, that's an interesting idea. Is it new?" became a printmaking project. It probably doesn't exist though... too many mixed hydrophyllic and hydrophobic residues.
Yes, Tom Lehrer is great. He also wrote other mathematical/sciencey songs, including one having to do with plagiarism ("Lobachevski"). Then there's stuff like "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" and "The Masochism Tango."
The biggest gripe I had was when I'd start work on a paper or lab report, then have to go to class, then try to continue the report elsewhere, but the software I needed wasn't there or was a different version.
Spend the money on making sure all the public systems (or, at least, particular labs) have a standard set of software, including a word processor, a graphing program, a music composer (if that's big at your school), a spreadsheet program, and some kind of low-level graphic-creator (even clip art would work for most things).
High temperatures do not dissociate molecules; high amounts of energy do (there's a big difference). A laser, being a concentrated energetic source, could provide that much energy. By the way, you can't quench thermite with water simply because it's too hot and the water will vaporize before quenching anything.
TiO2 (not "tee-eye-zero-two") is a common catalyst. Catalysts, by definition, are retrieved after the reaction and not consumed. There should be little pollution from the use of this material.
I'm not sure about thermal pollution, but I believe that because air is mostly nothing (there's only a few atoms in a relatively large volume of air), there shouldn't be much increase in the temperature of the air (or deflection of the laser). Once it hits the water on the floating island, the desired reaction should take place. I think most of the energy in the laser would be used to break the water molecules and little would go to the surroundings.
Free hydrogen will not get you cheap hydrocarbons. You'd have to use more energy to do this (although you could easily hydrogenate more of those lovely animal fats in your diet).
The researcher sounds like she's hit upon a great idea. I understand how usng small pores allows the escape of insulin, but how do small pores keep antibodies out? I thought antibodies had to use receptors to "recognize" cells. I suppose if there are no receptors on the nanoparticle's surface, it wouldn't be recognized.
Rats are a good first step, but larger animals will be much more difficult. I assume that since there's effectively no human control over the rate insulin is secreted, it remains at a constant level. What happens when the insulin runs out? Do you get another injection/infusion of capsules? What happens to the old capsules? What about fluctuating diets, which make blood sugar levels rise and fall?
It worked for you when (if?) you had to memorize multiplication tables. Flashcards really help learning definitions.
Once you know what something is, you've gotta know what it does. I'm a chemist, so once I could recognize a reaction (on flashcards), I made myself draw out the mechanism and list what it was used for. My brother even worte a simple program for me, so I had to select the right series of radio buttons showing the steps of the mechanism.
Using the info, either by actually employing it or by repeating it in drills, really helps too.
Since Mr. Katz's "earlier times," there's been increased speed in distribuiting information; not only in better printing techniques, more efficient shipping, better and faster broadcasts (even interrupting other broadcasts), but especially the "instant" information on the Internet. Basically, any newly aquired information is immediately posted or displayed or written up for immediate viewing. This means there's often little (or there seems to be little) double-checking of facts and/or validity. This part of the misinformation can be blamed on the news agencies and reporters.
There's also the consumer who reads/ingests all this instant info. Perhaps there should be a personal responsibility to check on the accuracy of stuff before the "news" is passed on (sorta like those stupid email forwards). As someone else mentioned, there can be a saturation of the market, so that everything you hear about has something to do with a particular topic (like anthrax or the mad-cow disease stuff from last year). Because this is "all" you hear about, it's what is talked about. Think of how far those email forwards go before they're sort of refuted. So this part of misinformation propagation can be blamed on the consumer.
There's also the factor of people's desire to hear the greatest or most sensational news (shark attacks get more press than discoveries of new stars). News agencies feel the need to come up with impressive stories and sound bites to attract an audience. Audiences eat them up. This part of distributing misinformation can be blamed on everyone.
Another prof has done this type of numerical comparison before. Check out Prof. David Harpp at McGill University.
I serve on an honor council, so I get to hear a bunch of these not-so-great situations. We've had some doozies, from zero citation on papers to using false excuses for extensions to using brute force to steal exams.
Plagiarism is not limited to copy/paste jobs; it also includes people who choose to not cite anything (essentially a copy/paste job). Give credit where credit's due.
There's a difference between polar and ionic. Yes, the rule is "like dissolves like," so polar things dissolve polar things (and non-polar things dissolve non-polar things). Water and table salt are both polar; table salt (NaCl) also happens to be ionic.
An ionic compound simply means that the pieces basically are held together by charge attractions. In the case of NaCl, chlorine is pulling so hard on the lone electron from sodium that it is almost removed; consequently, Na has a (net) postive charge and Cl has a (net) negative charge. The whole "opposites attract" thing keeps Na and Cl together as a tiny part of a table salt crystal.
Nasty organic solvents are not always polar. Benzene, methane (and other pure carbon-hydrogen chains) are not. Water is highly polar, but because the earth has lots of water, it's cheap and available. Phenol and Xylene are very nasty and very polar. Acetone's not so bad (on a smallish scale).
The NY Times article mentions "the salt," which may be confusing. A salt, in chemical terms, includes a whole family of things and is not limited to NaCl. Neither article intends on using sodium chloride as the ionic solvent (I don't think) because it has a high melting temperature (which is a good thing for the salt shaker in my cabinet). What the researchers in the articles are proposing is a substance that is ionic (like table salt, but not necessarily polar) that has large constituents so that the solvent would not get in the way of the desired reactions.
Dealing with people is a pretty important social skill. I'm not saying that the bullies had perfect manners, but you have to work with all sorts of people during life. Unpleasant as it is, you'll have people who treat you like dirt as well as those who sing your praises. I had some junk tossed at me during high school too (although, not to this extent).
I met several home-schooled during high school, none of whom chose to stay at the school I attended (they were not threatened in any way, but they couldn't deal with being with other students). I'm currently in college, and in this area, there's an association for home-schooled kids, which schedules monthly group outings. Might be something to look into.
Even if Sean decides to keep home-schooling, I would also recommend that the father keep this issue going. If it's dropped, it'll be forgotten, and the same situation will happen to someone else (this is in no way a unique situation). Go to PTA meetings and bring up discipline issues. Spread the story around. Publicity is a big advocate.
Try to look at things from the school's perspective though. Especially after Columbine (and the other more recent shootings), it's hard for a school to be too careful. If some kid is pretending to load a gun in front of people he doesn't like, I'd be awfully concerned too.
I know someone who was suspended for bringing a (metal) butter knife in her lunch bag at a school that had a zero-tolerance policy for knives and other weapons.
I also attend a college on the quarter system (Lawrence University), and am working on a double major (studio art and chemistry, neither of which are easily compacted, like a Compiler Design course, I'd imagine).
If the quarter system were to blame for your school's cheating, then schools that have the block system (3.5 weeks of a single class, final, extended weekend break) would have nearly 100% cheaters in their student bodies.
It does sound like your professors have some strict grading policies. I'm sorry you've got such a load, but let me remind you, you picked the school! Go somewhere else for semesters!
I'm also a member of the L.U. Honor Council, which is an educational (and when need be, disciplinary) resource for academic integrity. Basically, we prosecute cases of cheating. We know we don't catch every case, but we think an honor system deters cheating to some extent. Perhaps your school should look into forming one.
Think of "cracking the genome code" not as a claim of understanding something, but as meeting a new species.
Here's an analogy (just play along).
We've met this new alien species (let's call it "George the genome"), which has been around for a while. We're finally able to bring him home and study him. So we examine him and we've finally described how he looks and what he's made of. But we don't know how George works yet. Somehow, he produces proteins and takes in information and can synthesize stuff. We don't yet know how to talk to George. We know that if George is exposed to particular chemicals, he'll react in particular ways. If we try to mimic things that we know George will react to, will he react in the same way or will he ignore us or go nuts? Are there other things that will "trigger" George to react?
We have previously discovered (often by accident) that we can trigger some reactions when playing with the genome. By describing the human genome, we can now start to work on figuring out how it works. It's just the beginning.
However, his painting techniques eventually led into pointilism, the use of small specks of color (like a computer screen) that, from a distance, give the illusion of multiple colors and gradiations.
The classical example of pointilism is Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." In this image, you can zoom in on the specks of colors to see how the yellows next to blues look green. By the way, this painting took years to do and takes up an entire wall... it's huge!
Slashdot Mirror
I did a little book-ish research on Botox last month. Here's what I found.
Botox is basically botulism toxin. Botulism works by imparing nerves from sending neurotransmitters, so your muscles don't work; when your muscles don't work, you can't breathe and you die from asphyxiation. Nice, huh?
Botox is a dilute protein extract of botulism. When injected under the skin, it works by paralyzing your muscles, thereby unabling the muscles from forming new wrinkles (I couldn't find how it actually erases existant wrinkles). I'm not terribly surprised people have fewer headaches, as it blocks nerve signals, although not sensory nerves.
The "problem" with Botox is that its effects disappear after a few months, so a fresh set of injections is needed.
Botox isn't new; as the article says, it's been used for a few years for treatment of other muscle problems, including palsies.
Check out some articles:
Botox
this one on botulism and medicinal uses
the product's site
Europe's Botox equivalent, Dysport
a nice technical pdf on botulism
a sort of faq-like series on botulism and Botox
The competition's lost one of the judges.
I may not know much about storing CO2, but I do think that messing with the ecosystem is a bad idea. Let's look at what pumping CO2 into the oceans will do:
Not as exciting (necessarily) as a lock pick set, but a screwdriver with multiple bits and a pair of pliers came in very handy for installing ethernet cards, tightning bolts on lofts...
And I always wished I had a small locked box or same to keep my roommate outta some things.
Okay, I'll admit it... I can't stand football, but I watched the Superbowl for the commercials! Why? Because they're interesting and (mostly) sorta clever.
On the other hand, would tons and tons of "intersting" commercials really keep my attention? Doubtful. I don't even remember which commercials I liked from the superbowl, let alone what they were advertising.
When I was born, I was allergic to gluten (found in most grains), so I couldn't eat any cereal or breads or pasta until I was older. It was all soy-based stuff for me, along with peanut buttered-rice cakes.
I've worn glasses since 2nd grade, and have a prescription that rivals most 40-year-olds. Genetics can't be thrown out the window just yet.
Okay, while it's neat to see that the whole genome thing didn't die after the human genome was sequenced, there's still a lot of work to be done.
Once a genome is sequenced, researchers still need to figure out exactly what each gene does. The second part is much harder as genes don't necessarily produce qualities by themselves (i.e., some cancer "genes" are actually two or three genes that work together).
Besides, although we could conceivably control various properties of grains through gene manipulation, we still won't know until it's actually grown if the stuff tastes good (or if it tastes really good to particular insects and other beasties).
Check out an experiment (originally through Emory University) here.
When creating "new and improved" products, paper makers use all sorts of tests to measure the properties of the paper (like shear, bending stiffness, softness tests, and so on). These tests are done on small samples first (created in a laboratory!). If the product passes inspection, it is then taken to a trial mill (like the one used in this article), which is a relatively small machine. If the product holds up through that test, it is then finally taken to the actual mills for production.
The tests done in the full-sized mills (since the product is, ideally, already formulated correctly through all the primary steps), are to check quality.
I don't see how this will save money or trees; it may catch the errors (big holes in the sheet, too thin/thick, not strong enough) earlier, but the already-generated paper cannot be used again in that mill (it has to go to a mill that is equipped for recycling). Granted, a whole roll won't have to be thrown out, but the time in changing the rolls will still cost production time and money.
As most chemists will tell you, during college they probably had to take quantum and physical chem. Many also took spectroscopy. If the chemists you know don't remember it, it's because it's a repressed memory.
Just kidding.
The point is, chemists probably did learn how the NMR and IR and Raman and AA machines work, but as they're just using them to obtain data (and not memorizing the intimate mechanisms), they probably don't remember the inner workings any more. There are technicians who specialize in a particular machine (say, NMR), and they certainly know all the magnetic fields and fluxes.
As a grad student, I'll say that there are no Power Macs in my group's inventory (or anywhere else, I don't believe), as almost all of the machines run programs that are Windows-based.
I took a hard-core P-chem class, complete with all sorts of derivations and theories and proofs, and I'm not the only one.
By the way, I've always thought that physicists are rather limited, as they don't seem to see "the end user," but only their own research. Don't ever let a physicist try to explain to you why you need baking soda (rather than baking powder) in cookies.
By the way, because E, I, L, S, and V are all hydrophobic residues, they're often found near each other. It isn't uncommon to find "ELVIS LIVES" in your protein sequence :)
Actually, the abbreviations do follow some sort of logic. "A" is for alanine, "C" is for cysteine, etc. Argenine couldn't use "A", so it has "R".
When you get to asparagine (which was first found in asparagus), A, S, P, R, G, and I were already taken, so it got "N".
Aspartic acid and glutamic acid have the same structures as asparagine and glutamine (except for the carboxylic acid groups on the ends); they got stuck with "D" and "E", respectively.
By the way, if you're counting, the six letters that aren't used are B, J, O, U, X, and Z.
I took biochem in undergrad. When trying to remember the amino acids, we'd spell our names. I was one of two people who could write their *entire* name in amino acids.
I also took to writing sentances. "Chemistry and art. Well, that's an interesting idea. Is it new?" became a printmaking project. It probably doesn't exist though... too many mixed hydrophyllic and hydrophobic residues.
Yes, Tom Lehrer is great. He also wrote other mathematical/sciencey songs, including one having to do with plagiarism ("Lobachevski"). Then there's stuff like "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" and "The Masochism Tango."
The biggest gripe I had was when I'd start work on a paper or lab report, then have to go to class, then try to continue the report elsewhere, but the software I needed wasn't there or was a different version.
Spend the money on making sure all the public systems (or, at least, particular labs) have a standard set of software, including a word processor, a graphing program, a music composer (if that's big at your school), a spreadsheet program, and some kind of low-level graphic-creator (even clip art would work for most things).
Hold on to your horses, Fermi.
High temperatures do not dissociate molecules; high amounts of energy do (there's a big difference). A laser, being a concentrated energetic source, could provide that much energy. By the way, you can't quench thermite with water simply because it's too hot and the water will vaporize before quenching anything.
TiO2 (not "tee-eye-zero-two") is a common catalyst. Catalysts, by definition, are retrieved after the reaction and not consumed. There should be little pollution from the use of this material.
I'm not sure about thermal pollution, but I believe that because air is mostly nothing (there's only a few atoms in a relatively large volume of air), there shouldn't be much increase in the temperature of the air (or deflection of the laser). Once it hits the water on the floating island, the desired reaction should take place. I think most of the energy in the laser would be used to break the water molecules and little would go to the surroundings.
Free hydrogen will not get you cheap hydrocarbons. You'd have to use more energy to do this (although you could easily hydrogenate more of those lovely animal fats in your diet).
Nice big cycle; you do hafta love science.
The researcher sounds like she's hit upon a great idea. I understand how usng small pores allows the escape of insulin, but how do small pores keep antibodies out? I thought antibodies had to use receptors to "recognize" cells. I suppose if there are no receptors on the nanoparticle's surface, it wouldn't be recognized.
Rats are a good first step, but larger animals will be much more difficult. I assume that since there's effectively no human control over the rate insulin is secreted, it remains at a constant level. What happens when the insulin runs out? Do you get another injection/infusion of capsules? What happens to the old capsules? What about fluctuating diets, which make blood sugar levels rise and fall?
It worked for you when (if?) you had to memorize multiplication tables. Flashcards really help learning definitions.
Once you know what something is, you've gotta know what it does. I'm a chemist, so once I could recognize a reaction (on flashcards), I made myself draw out the mechanism and list what it was used for. My brother even worte a simple program for me, so I had to select the right series of radio buttons showing the steps of the mechanism.
Using the info, either by actually employing it or by repeating it in drills, really helps too.
Good luck in your certification studying.
Since Mr. Katz's "earlier times," there's been increased speed in distribuiting information; not only in better printing techniques, more efficient shipping, better and faster broadcasts (even interrupting other broadcasts), but especially the "instant" information on the Internet. Basically, any newly aquired information is immediately posted or displayed or written up for immediate viewing. This means there's often little (or there seems to be little) double-checking of facts and/or validity. This part of the misinformation can be blamed on the news agencies and reporters.
There's also the consumer who reads/ingests all this instant info. Perhaps there should be a personal responsibility to check on the accuracy of stuff before the "news" is passed on (sorta like those stupid email forwards). As someone else mentioned, there can be a saturation of the market, so that everything you hear about has something to do with a particular topic (like anthrax or the mad-cow disease stuff from last year). Because this is "all" you hear about, it's what is talked about. Think of how far those email forwards go before they're sort of refuted. So this part of misinformation propagation can be blamed on the consumer.
There's also the factor of people's desire to hear the greatest or most sensational news (shark attacks get more press than discoveries of new stars). News agencies feel the need to come up with impressive stories and sound bites to attract an audience. Audiences eat them up. This part of distributing misinformation can be blamed on everyone.
Right on!
Another prof has done this type of numerical comparison before. Check out Prof. David Harpp at McGill University.
I serve on an honor council, so I get to hear a bunch of these not-so-great situations. We've had some doozies, from zero citation on papers to using false excuses for extensions to using brute force to steal exams.
Plagiarism is not limited to copy/paste jobs; it also includes people who choose to not cite anything (essentially a copy/paste job). Give credit where credit's due.
There's a difference between polar and ionic. Yes, the rule is "like dissolves like," so polar things dissolve polar things (and non-polar things dissolve non-polar things). Water and table salt are both polar; table salt (NaCl) also happens to be ionic.
An ionic compound simply means that the pieces basically are held together by charge attractions. In the case of NaCl, chlorine is pulling so hard on the lone electron from sodium that it is almost removed; consequently, Na has a (net) postive charge and Cl has a (net) negative charge. The whole "opposites attract" thing keeps Na and Cl together as a tiny part of a table salt crystal.
Nasty organic solvents are not always polar. Benzene, methane (and other pure carbon-hydrogen chains) are not. Water is highly polar, but because the earth has lots of water, it's cheap and available. Phenol and Xylene are very nasty and very polar. Acetone's not so bad (on a smallish scale).
The NY Times article mentions "the salt," which may be confusing. A salt, in chemical terms, includes a whole family of things and is not limited to NaCl. Neither article intends on using sodium chloride as the ionic solvent (I don't think) because it has a high melting temperature (which is a good thing for the salt shaker in my cabinet). What the researchers in the articles are proposing is a substance that is ionic (like table salt, but not necessarily polar) that has large constituents so that the solvent would not get in the way of the desired reactions.
Dealing with people is a pretty important social skill. I'm not saying that the bullies had perfect manners, but you have to work with all sorts of people during life. Unpleasant as it is, you'll have people who treat you like dirt as well as those who sing your praises. I had some junk tossed at me during high school too (although, not to this extent).
I met several home-schooled during high school, none of whom chose to stay at the school I attended (they were not threatened in any way, but they couldn't deal with being with other students). I'm currently in college, and in this area, there's an association for home-schooled kids, which schedules monthly group outings. Might be something to look into.
Even if Sean decides to keep home-schooling, I would also recommend that the father keep this issue going. If it's dropped, it'll be forgotten, and the same situation will happen to someone else (this is in no way a unique situation). Go to PTA meetings and bring up discipline issues. Spread the story around. Publicity is a big advocate.
Try to look at things from the school's perspective though. Especially after Columbine (and the other more recent shootings), it's hard for a school to be too careful. If some kid is pretending to load a gun in front of people he doesn't like, I'd be awfully concerned too.
I know someone who was suspended for bringing a (metal) butter knife in her lunch bag at a school that had a zero-tolerance policy for knives and other weapons.
I also attend a college on the quarter system (Lawrence University), and am working on a double major (studio art and chemistry, neither of which are easily compacted, like a Compiler Design course, I'd imagine).
If the quarter system were to blame for your school's cheating, then schools that have the block system (3.5 weeks of a single class, final, extended weekend break) would have nearly 100% cheaters in their student bodies.
It does sound like your professors have some strict grading policies. I'm sorry you've got such a load, but let me remind you, you picked the school! Go somewhere else for semesters!
I'm also a member of the L.U. Honor Council, which is an educational (and when need be, disciplinary) resource for academic integrity. Basically, we prosecute cases of cheating. We know we don't catch every case, but we think an honor system deters cheating to some extent. Perhaps your school should look into forming one.
Think of "cracking the genome code" not as a claim of understanding something, but as meeting a new species.
Here's an analogy (just play along).
We've met this new alien species (let's call it "George the genome"), which has been around for a while. We're finally able to bring him home and study him. So we examine him and we've finally described how he looks and what he's made of. But we don't know how George works yet. Somehow, he produces proteins and takes in information and can synthesize stuff. We don't yet know how to talk to George. We know that if George is exposed to particular chemicals, he'll react in particular ways. If we try to mimic things that we know George will react to, will he react in the same way or will he ignore us or go nuts? Are there other things that will "trigger" George to react?
We have previously discovered (often by accident) that we can trigger some reactions when playing with the genome. By describing the human genome, we can now start to work on figuring out how it works. It's just the beginning.
Actually, Van Gogh did mix his colors.
However, his painting techniques eventually led into pointilism, the use of small specks of color (like a computer screen) that, from a distance, give the illusion of multiple colors and gradiations.
The classical example of pointilism is Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." In this image, you can zoom in on the specks of colors to see how the yellows next to blues look green. By the way, this painting took years to do and takes up an entire wall... it's huge!