I'm not familiar with the prices ofthe rare cutters, I have little use for them. Most of the others are faitly cheap now, though, so the rare cutters may be, too.
I agree on the SYBR dangers. In another post I postulated that they were using hemotoxylin. No uv needed, and it's non-mutagenic. It's nonspecific, and messy as hell, but who cares about that in this context?
It's probably just like the R2D2's (they look like R2D2) most people have on their benches. Little domed things not useful for much other than making sure everything is at the bottom of the tube before you open it, and maybe packing beads to the bottom of a slurry. The clinical centrifuge your mom uses is most likely middle of the road as far as power goes.
Most restriction enzymes cut frequently, if you used a 6-8 cutter, you'd get a smear. But you could use infrequent cutters (20+) and get some distinct bands, even from genomic DNA. That's probably what they provide.
The product site has info on how to get lambda (phage, I assume)DNA to cut & run, which would give you good banding patterns. Heck, I use lambda/HaeIII as my molecular weight marker.
Re:Anyone know how well it actually works?
on
Home DNA Sequencing
·
· Score: 3, Informative
SYBR green.
And I'm pretty sure it intercolates as well (it only interacts with dsDNA), so it's a potential mutagen. Not proven, but still not up for handing out to kids.
I was just showing that to a labmate, and we think that it could simply be hemotoxylin (sp? I never write it out..as in H&E). It's purple, and since the gel should be fairly devoid of protein, it should specifically stain DNA.
It looks like they may also include some restriction enzymes as well, so you are mapping it. But it's a far cry from sequencing. Heck, if it was, I'd buy one for the lab. That's CHEAP.
You also get to do electrophoresis and take pictures of your product, which is kinda cool. I can just see what's going throuh those kids minds right now....So, how similar are fido and the cat? What if I compare little sister's DNA to mine? Hey, you hold down the dog while I get some blood....oops....
I just looked at the site and they have a really cool drawing of the probe passing Jupiter, but why does it have solar panels??? Doesn't it have a nuclear reactor? Do they really need more power?
OK, I'm a diver. Light does not penetrate to a set depth in water; it depends on the conditions. In some areas, light penetrates only a few meters, giving a visibility in the cm range (this is commonly referred to with the technical term "crappy diving"). In other areas, it can go nearly 100m. But those are extremes. In the ocean, typical visibility in the places where people dive is around 10-20m, and below about 30m there is effectively no light (you can't see without your own light).
The things that adversely affect visibility are, for the most part, a result of biologic activity. If you assume that on Europa there is little to no biological activity, (It would peobably be conditions like under the Earth's ice caps...incredible visibility and colors) the water is quite clear. This allows effective visible light to penetrate perhaps 100m; 200m max. Compare that to "hundreds of miles of ice" and you can safely arrive at the conclusion that nothing's making it to the water from the surface.
Re:Stuck with Windows?
on
PC Annoyances
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· Score: 1
The only thing that keeps people stuck on Windows is their attitudes
And specialized hardware, and specialized software. I work in a research lab, and there are at least four pieces of very expensive equipment in our lab that are shipped with proprietary software, only available for Windows. There are also a number of critical applications for which there is no Linux equivilent (at least not that I've found yet, after extensive searches). I use Linux for most of my day to day work; writing, online research, graphing, etc. but there are many times when I have to use a Windows box, simply because there is no Linux of Mac alternative.
Dammit. Missed the "f". Thanks for pointing it out.
Sorry about that. I retract the whole post, along with the things I said about Roger_Wilco's relationship with Arnold the pig, but didn't removed in the final draft of my post.
Probably is a too much too fast thing, but I'm no clinician, I'm a basic scientist. I can't say anything about that from knowledge.
But I can talk out of my ass, so here goes. The reason free iron is dangerous is that it is required by bacteria; in their natural environment, it's often a limiting reagent in growth. Maybe the influx of iron induces a growth spurt in the gut flora. Or, maybe it's a chemical or osmotic thing, where the iron reduces or oxidizes the intestinal lining, or osmotically damages it, causing sepsis or some other massive inflammatory reaction. Like I said, though...just talking out of my ass there.
And, after that flatulence, here's the Google result. It is a chemical thing, free radical formation by the absorbtion regulation process.
MRI does not look for iron.
It's based on certain isotopes and how they behave in a magnetic and RF fields, mostly hydrogen and oxygen.
The short of it is that atoms spin on an axis, and if you put atoms in a strong magnetic field, their spin axes will mostly line up. Adding a strong RF pulse will "tip" them in one direction (like tipping a spinning top) and they will precess while going back to alignment with the field. This precession can be picked up as a seperate RF emission, and the nature of the emission from each atom will be affected by what atoms are around it. It's the same concept as NMR, just that medical MRI looks for the specific signature of water, finding differences in tissue density.
First, it would take more force than is exerted by most megnetic fields to remove iron from heme. And the mass of the hemoglobin is too great to be moved by the same force.
Second, if you have an overabundance of iron in your diet, you just poop more iron. Unlike most other nutrients, your body only absorbs what iron it needs. Iron is a dangerous thing to have too much of, for reasons unrelated to magnetism. The best way to get more iron in your blood is to move to a high altitude.
FDA trials will begin in 5 years. That's for human testing. These will probably be perfected in little furry guys first (mice, rats), then move up to big furry guys (monkeys), then to big fur-less guys (us).
The article also discusses the removal of things like drugs. The scale there is similar; the size of a virus is to the size of a drug molecule as the size of a bacterium is to the size of a virus (Hey! I'm the SAT!).
I would imagine these particles would have more difficulty with larger particles. The magnetic attraction would have to overcome intertia.
The clearance issue wouldn't be that big of a deal. All you need to do is help out the immune system some, clear a large portion of the viral particles and your system can fight off the rest after the load has dropped. For example, many antibiotics only inhibit the growth of bacteria, they don't actually kill them. This allows the immune system to "catch up" with the bugs in the body.
It may be more difficult to make it bind specifically to the virus, but I suppose you could use an antibody fragment for specificity.
What's the diffeence between a garden hose and the male reproductive system?
There's a vast difference.
Chemistry:
The carbonyl is polarized,
The delta end is plus.
The nucleophile will thus attack,
The carbon nucleus.
Addition makes an alcohol,
Of types there are but three.
It makes a bond, to correspond,
From C to shining C.
To the tune of "America the Beautiful"
Geometry:
Once upon a time there were three kingdoms, all bordered on a single lake. In the middle of the lake was a hotly contested island. After decades of fighting over it, the three kings decided to end the dispute, once and for all. Each kingdom would send their best knights to the island and have a all out fight. Whoever is left, gets the island.
The first kingdom is large and wealthy. It sends 50 knights, each with three squires. They arrive the day before the big fight and prepare. The knights drill and carouse, eat and drink, and tell stories of their bravery all knight while the squires cook, shine armor, serve food and prepare weapons.
The second kingdom is not as wealthy, but still quite well off. They send 25 knights, each with two squires. They also arrive the night before and prepare. The knights drill and carouse, eat and tell stories while the squires cook, shine armor,sharpen weapons and prepare for battle.
The third kingdom has fallen on hard times, and has only one elderly knight and his faithful squire to send. They, like the others, arrive the night before and prepare. The knight eats, drills, and prepares for battle. The lone squire can't cook and sharpen weapons, and serve, and shine armor at the same time, so he hangs a pot over the fire with a noose while he readies his master's gear. To buy more time, he cooks the meal slowly by hanging high over the fire.
The next morning, the squires try to rouse the knights for battle. The knights of the forst kingdom are too hungover, and give the squires their swords. The knights of the second kingdom wakes with the same problem, and has the same solution. The poor third squire finds his old master pale and exhausted from his preparations from the night before, so he too goes to battle.
A massive slaughter ensues. It lasts all day, into the night. Back on the shores of the lake, the shouts of battle can be heard throught the darkness, finally tapering off just before dawn. When the smoke clears, the lone squire, injured, bleeding and dressed in tatters comes limping from the battlefield carrying a broken sword, victorious. Which just goes to prove....
The squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the other two sides.
My point was simply that having to put up with assholes is a bad thing. The world would be better if we were all nice to each other, stopped war and poverty, had good skin, and smelled like roses. And I had a lot of money.
The fact that there are assholes means that we need to learn to deal with them effectively, and the earlier we do, the better.
Twelve year olds should NOT have to deal with this.
"There's the way it oughtta be, and there's the way it is."
I don't remember who said it, but it's a great thing to keep in mind. No, a 12 year old should not have to deal with this stuff, but they do have to deal with it. They have had to deal with bullying for thousands of years, and will continue to have to deal with it for thousands more. Bitching about how it's done won't help anyone, neither will outlawing the methods. Kids are inventive, especially when it comes to being cruel. Teaching these bullied kids how to deal with it will help.
I put up with it as a kid. I was ostracized, bullied, and had rumors spread constantly. I was beat up by groups of kids until I figured out how to defend myself (well, I grew 4 inches and gained 20 pounds over one summer, that kinda helped). It bothered me a lot, but I eventually learned how to deal with it and that knowledge made me a better person. Because guess what? I deal with assholes today, too, just like 15 years ago. I expect to deal with them 15 years from now. Putting up with those kids back then trained me for today.
Kids have to learn how to deal with bullies, not have the bullies swept away by authority figures in their lives. I've seen the difference in other people who dealt with them in the latter manner.
Anyway, I know that's not the real thrust of your post, the comment just caught my eye. And I've just gotta echo what was said before:
WTF???? One of the REASONS I got picked on was for using computers a lot! Now the bullies use them to pick on kids??? CRAP.
Following your logic, the Unabomber would have seen the devastation of his ways and been deterred
Just because he had the knowldege and foresight to prevent catastrophe does not imply that he has the will or desire to do so. Kasczynski lacked the desire to prevent harm, he knew what would hurt someone and he favored it. This pertains to neither intelligence nor wisdom, but to morality or purpose.
As for the Bomb, they probably either lacked the will or foresight. It is hard to believe they lacked the foresight; anyone could figure it out. The problem was that in the frenzy of discovery, they blinded themseleves to all but the esoteric. Which goes along with:
and quite often you'll find one without the other, especially in the race for discovery and/or acheivement.
The problem is that a cancerous liver cell may differ from a normal liver cell by expressing a surface marker that is expressed in normal intestinal epithelial cells.
Our immune system tries to recognize cells that have volunteered the information that they have gone rogue. There are checking mechanisms in our cells that make sure they don't divide when they aren't supposed to. When the snitches get mutated away, you have a cancer prone cell. You can't just look for the absence of snitches, either. For one thing, viruses don't work that way, and for another, there are some cells that are supposed to divide like crazy, and therefore have the snitches turned off.
Matter cannot be destroyed. Energy cannot be destroyed. Information can be destroyed. In fact, because of entropy, the destruction of information is a requirement of the universe. That is, if you see information as a form of order.
What was that Niven story? I can't remember the title, but it's about a solar flare that hits during the day in Asia, and the story focuses on two people living in California. The moon (Inconstant Moon! That's it!) gets very bright, like daytime bright, and people slowly start to figure it out. Made for a pretty cool story.
It got made into a Outer Limits show once, I think. The new Outer Limits, not the old one.
Did you bother to read the rest of the post? It seems as though you just stopped after that comment.
To quote myself:
To go back to the analogy, it may be that more people are bit within 100m of the shoreline, but this number of attacks represents a very small percentage of the people that were in that region of water...If you go further out, a smaller number, but a greater percentage, are bit...The data is much more useful now.
Good thing for you that you posted as AC. My post wasn't that long. Most people with an elementary school education could have read it in less than 2 to 3 minutes. I'll just assume you were pressed for time.
Re:but is it undercutting its own "superiority"?
on
Human Accomplishment
·
· Score: 1
Which is what I meant when I said that wealth has had different meanings throughout the ages. I did not say that money and wealth have always been the same. In fact, I said just the opposite. "Wealth was measured in different ways throgh history" (spelling errors faithfully transcribed).
I was referring to wealth, not money; the two are separate on the historical scale. In the aristocratic times to which you allude, land and force were valued. These things gave a man power and influence. A man with little gold, but much land, an easily defended home, and many sons (i.e., lots of fighters) was a wealthy and therefore powerful man. At other times, wealth meant lots of sheep, a bigger spear, or more wives.
The pursuit of this value is the idea behind capitalism. Currently, the value is attached to money, and the concept is called capitalism to reflect that. The idea, however; the idea of pursuing personal wealth, predates the connection of wealth to capital.
And nothing personal, but your personal claim that scuentific acheivement has fallen with the rise of capitalism is poor science. It's not even based on anecdote. I am reminded of the five methods to prove that horses have an infinite number of legs.....
Slashdot Mirror
I agree on the SYBR dangers. In another post I postulated that they were using hemotoxylin. No uv needed, and it's non-mutagenic. It's nonspecific, and messy as hell, but who cares about that in this context?
It's probably just like the R2D2's (they look like R2D2) most people have on their benches. Little domed things not useful for much other than making sure everything is at the bottom of the tube before you open it, and maybe packing beads to the bottom of a slurry. The clinical centrifuge your mom uses is most likely middle of the road as far as power goes.
The product site has info on how to get lambda (phage, I assume)DNA to cut & run, which would give you good banding patterns. Heck, I use lambda/HaeIII as my molecular weight marker.
And I'm pretty sure it intercolates as well (it only interacts with dsDNA), so it's a potential mutagen. Not proven, but still not up for handing out to kids.
I was just showing that to a labmate, and we think that it could simply be hemotoxylin (sp? I never write it out..as in H&E). It's purple, and since the gel should be fairly devoid of protein, it should specifically stain DNA.
You also get to do electrophoresis and take pictures of your product, which is kinda cool. I can just see what's going throuh those kids minds right now....So, how similar are fido and the cat? What if I compare little sister's DNA to mine? Hey, you hold down the dog while I get some blood....oops....
I just looked at the site and they have a really cool drawing of the probe passing Jupiter, but why does it have solar panels??? Doesn't it have a nuclear reactor? Do they really need more power?
The things that adversely affect visibility are, for the most part, a result of biologic activity. If you assume that on Europa there is little to no biological activity, (It would peobably be conditions like under the Earth's ice caps...incredible visibility and colors) the water is quite clear. This allows effective visible light to penetrate perhaps 100m; 200m max. Compare that to "hundreds of miles of ice" and you can safely arrive at the conclusion that nothing's making it to the water from the surface.
And specialized hardware, and specialized software. I work in a research lab, and there are at least four pieces of very expensive equipment in our lab that are shipped with proprietary software, only available for Windows. There are also a number of critical applications for which there is no Linux equivilent (at least not that I've found yet, after extensive searches). I use Linux for most of my day to day work; writing, online research, graphing, etc. but there are many times when I have to use a Windows box, simply because there is no Linux of Mac alternative.
Sorry about that. I retract the whole post, along with the things I said about Roger_Wilco's relationship with Arnold the pig, but didn't removed in the final draft of my post.
But I can talk out of my ass, so here goes. The reason free iron is dangerous is that it is required by bacteria; in their natural environment, it's often a limiting reagent in growth. Maybe the influx of iron induces a growth spurt in the gut flora. Or, maybe it's a chemical or osmotic thing, where the iron reduces or oxidizes the intestinal lining, or osmotically damages it, causing sepsis or some other massive inflammatory reaction. Like I said, though...just talking out of my ass there.
And, after that flatulence, here's the Google result. It is a chemical thing, free radical formation by the absorbtion regulation process.
The short of it is that atoms spin on an axis, and if you put atoms in a strong magnetic field, their spin axes will mostly line up. Adding a strong RF pulse will "tip" them in one direction (like tipping a spinning top) and they will precess while going back to alignment with the field. This precession can be picked up as a seperate RF emission, and the nature of the emission from each atom will be affected by what atoms are around it. It's the same concept as NMR, just that medical MRI looks for the specific signature of water, finding differences in tissue density.
Second, if you have an overabundance of iron in your diet, you just poop more iron. Unlike most other nutrients, your body only absorbs what iron it needs. Iron is a dangerous thing to have too much of, for reasons unrelated to magnetism. The best way to get more iron in your blood is to move to a high altitude.
FDA trials will begin in 5 years. That's for human testing. These will probably be perfected in little furry guys first (mice, rats), then move up to big furry guys (monkeys), then to big fur-less guys (us).
I would imagine these particles would have more difficulty with larger particles. The magnetic attraction would have to overcome intertia.
It may be more difficult to make it bind specifically to the virus, but I suppose you could use an antibody fragment for specificity.
What's the diffeence between a garden hose and the male reproductive system?
There's a vast difference.
Chemistry:
The carbonyl is polarized, The delta end is plus. The nucleophile will thus attack, The carbon nucleus. Addition makes an alcohol, Of types there are but three. It makes a bond, to correspond, From C to shining C.
To the tune of "America the Beautiful"
Geometry:
Once upon a time there were three kingdoms, all bordered on a single lake. In the middle of the lake was a hotly contested island. After decades of fighting over it, the three kings decided to end the dispute, once and for all. Each kingdom would send their best knights to the island and have a all out fight. Whoever is left, gets the island.
The first kingdom is large and wealthy. It sends 50 knights, each with three squires. They arrive the day before the big fight and prepare. The knights drill and carouse, eat and drink, and tell stories of their bravery all knight while the squires cook, shine armor, serve food and prepare weapons.
The second kingdom is not as wealthy, but still quite well off. They send 25 knights, each with two squires. They also arrive the night before and prepare. The knights drill and carouse, eat and tell stories while the squires cook, shine armor,sharpen weapons and prepare for battle.
The third kingdom has fallen on hard times, and has only one elderly knight and his faithful squire to send. They, like the others, arrive the night before and prepare. The knight eats, drills, and prepares for battle. The lone squire can't cook and sharpen weapons, and serve, and shine armor at the same time, so he hangs a pot over the fire with a noose while he readies his master's gear. To buy more time, he cooks the meal slowly by hanging high over the fire.
The next morning, the squires try to rouse the knights for battle. The knights of the forst kingdom are too hungover, and give the squires their swords. The knights of the second kingdom wakes with the same problem, and has the same solution. The poor third squire finds his old master pale and exhausted from his preparations from the night before, so he too goes to battle.
A massive slaughter ensues. It lasts all day, into the night. Back on the shores of the lake, the shouts of battle can be heard throught the darkness, finally tapering off just before dawn. When the smoke clears, the lone squire, injured, bleeding and dressed in tatters comes limping from the battlefield carrying a broken sword, victorious. Which just goes to prove....
The squire of the high pot and noose is equal to the sum of the squires of the other two sides.
Stephen Wright goes nerd?
The fact that there are assholes means that we need to learn to deal with them effectively, and the earlier we do, the better.
"There's the way it oughtta be, and there's the way it is."
I don't remember who said it, but it's a great thing to keep in mind. No, a 12 year old should not have to deal with this stuff, but they do have to deal with it. They have had to deal with bullying for thousands of years, and will continue to have to deal with it for thousands more. Bitching about how it's done won't help anyone, neither will outlawing the methods. Kids are inventive, especially when it comes to being cruel. Teaching these bullied kids how to deal with it will help.
I put up with it as a kid. I was ostracized, bullied, and had rumors spread constantly. I was beat up by groups of kids until I figured out how to defend myself (well, I grew 4 inches and gained 20 pounds over one summer, that kinda helped). It bothered me a lot, but I eventually learned how to deal with it and that knowledge made me a better person. Because guess what? I deal with assholes today, too, just like 15 years ago. I expect to deal with them 15 years from now. Putting up with those kids back then trained me for today.
Kids have to learn how to deal with bullies, not have the bullies swept away by authority figures in their lives. I've seen the difference in other people who dealt with them in the latter manner.
Anyway, I know that's not the real thrust of your post, the comment just caught my eye. And I've just gotta echo what was said before:
WTF???? One of the REASONS I got picked on was for using computers a lot! Now the bullies use them to pick on kids??? CRAP.
Just because he had the knowldege and foresight to prevent catastrophe does not imply that he has the will or desire to do so. Kasczynski lacked the desire to prevent harm, he knew what would hurt someone and he favored it. This pertains to neither intelligence nor wisdom, but to morality or purpose.
As for the Bomb, they probably either lacked the will or foresight. It is hard to believe they lacked the foresight; anyone could figure it out. The problem was that in the frenzy of discovery, they blinded themseleves to all but the esoteric. Which goes along with:
and quite often you'll find one without the other, especially in the race for discovery and/or acheivement.
Our immune system tries to recognize cells that have volunteered the information that they have gone rogue. There are checking mechanisms in our cells that make sure they don't divide when they aren't supposed to. When the snitches get mutated away, you have a cancer prone cell. You can't just look for the absence of snitches, either. For one thing, viruses don't work that way, and for another, there are some cells that are supposed to divide like crazy, and therefore have the snitches turned off.
Matter cannot be destroyed. Energy cannot be destroyed. Information can be destroyed. In fact, because of entropy, the destruction of information is a requirement of the universe. That is, if you see information as a form of order.
It got made into a Outer Limits show once, I think. The new Outer Limits, not the old one.
To quote myself:
To go back to the analogy, it may be that more people are bit within 100m of the shoreline, but this number of attacks represents a very small percentage of the people that were in that region of water...If you go further out, a smaller number, but a greater percentage, are bit...The data is much more useful now.
Good thing for you that you posted as AC. My post wasn't that long. Most people with an elementary school education could have read it in less than 2 to 3 minutes. I'll just assume you were pressed for time.
I was referring to wealth, not money; the two are separate on the historical scale. In the aristocratic times to which you allude, land and force were valued. These things gave a man power and influence. A man with little gold, but much land, an easily defended home, and many sons (i.e., lots of fighters) was a wealthy and therefore powerful man. At other times, wealth meant lots of sheep, a bigger spear, or more wives.
The pursuit of this value is the idea behind capitalism. Currently, the value is attached to money, and the concept is called capitalism to reflect that. The idea, however; the idea of pursuing personal wealth, predates the connection of wealth to capital.
And nothing personal, but your personal claim that scuentific acheivement has fallen with the rise of capitalism is poor science. It's not even based on anecdote. I am reminded of the five methods to prove that horses have an infinite number of legs.....