Re:What about genomic testing before marriage/mati
on
Sequencing the Unborn
·
· Score: 2
They took the blood from the mother after she was pregnant, when there was fetal DNA in her bloodstream and are essentially doing a 'process of elimination' among the fetus, mother, and father. So while you could do a pre-conception screen, and it may indicate probabilities for genetic disorders or diseases with a genetic component, it wouldn't be the same thing as in TFA.
Guess I underplayed it too much. Personally, I'd say Lamarckianism is complete trash but, as you said, he happened to throw a dart and hit something that bore a vague resemblance to reality.
That would be a stretch. More like he wasn't completely wrong, in that epigenetics and methylation can be passed along to offspring. But even then, this article has nothing to do with that, considering changes in the methylation of genes in leg muscles would have no effect on the genes in zygotes.
IANAB (biochemist) but based on the article, methylation of a gene generally reduces its activity. In this case, exercising, forcing contractions in cultured cells, or near lethal does of caffeine in cell cultures resulted in less methylation on some genes involved in energy metabolism, presumably increasing how much they are expressed. The article does note that these genes may still be expressed when methylated.
Or if that's still unreadable, exercise changes how much some genes are active in muscle cells.
Yes, cellulose is a polymer of simple sugars. However most organisms lack the enzymes to break the chain up into its individual units. Ruminants and termites have symbiotic bacteria that digest it for them, and some species of fungus can break down cellulose (think mushrooms on a fallen tree) but as it stands, using cellulosic feedstocks require breaking up the chain via enzymes (expensive) or acids (nasty) so that bacteria can utilize it.
And yes, newspaper does burn quite well, but I'd like to see you stuff it in your gas tank.
Speaking only from my past experience with one company, yes, the managers like to see the live plant operation data from their office, but it was view only. Only the terminals in the plant could actually change anything. Not saying this couldn't be spoofed or hacked in some way, but as you said, if they get that far, you're boned anyway.
So what am I supposed to do if even mowing my lawn every week results in 2-3 bags of grass alone?
If a community is environmentally conscious enough to limit the amount of trash per household, they will have some sort of system to take care of organic/yard waste. Some communities have this system in place already. In my area, you put your yard waste in a special type of bag and it gets picked up and handled separately.
Bill Nye still has a series that airs on PBS called "The Eyes of Nye" (I don't think there are new episodes being produced). Each episode examines one topic in some detail: antibiotics, addiction, the biology of sex, climate change. And he's doing some sort of tour, as he was at my college campus recently giving a lecture (Google cache link since the original requires registration; Google 'lantern bill nye' if you prefer). Unfortunately I was out of town and didn't get to see him or get his autograph.
So he's still around. But I don't think his show from the 90's is still on. Far superior to Beakman's World in my opinion. Maybe it was just a different target audience though. Beakman seemed to be silliness with some science thrown in. Bill Nye was science with some levity.
I've seen a range of numbers, some saying the entire process is less than break-even, some saying it nets energy, but even those that show a net energy gain, the gain is pretty slim, on the order of 10-30%.
I don't like the idea of using food for fuel or energy though. I'd much rather support cellulose to ethanol conversion because it generally wouldn't mean deciding between two very different needs, and cellulose is readily available and often just wasted in food production because it's in the parts of harvested of plants that are not food. I agree with you halfway on this one. I think cellulose has good potential as an energy source, since as you said it's often available as refuse/by-product or can be raised as its own crop (grasses and such). But ethanol isn't necessarily the best end product. Converting the cellulose to sugar has been (and to some extent, still is) the big challenge. Once you have the sugar, it may be more efficient to use it directly in the fuel cells from the article, rather than going through the fermentation and purification/refining process to make fuel grade ethanol.
The potato is providing none of the energy in that example. The galvanic potential between the electrodes is what is producing the electricity. The potato is an electrolyte in (relatively) solid form. In the battery from the article the sugar is actually consumed to produce the electricity, whereas the potato isn't.
The bad thing about using cellulosic materials directly is that they tend to resist being broken down into sugar while they are in their raw/natural state. They need to be pretreated, which usually involves some combination of grinding, heating, soaking, 'steam explosion' (quick pressure release), to obtain a reasonable yield of sugar. If you don't pretreat the feedstock, you won't get nearly as much sugar, and you battery will be bigger because you're only using X% of the initial material. And if you use pretreated material in your battery, why not just convert the cellulose to sugar outside the battery, wher you can better control the reaction conditions and yields? Plus, the enzymes needed to convert the cellulose to sugar and the sugar to electricity may need different reaction conditions, as enzymes are often picky about their pH, concentrations, temperatures, co-reactants, etc.
There is a program through NSF that does almost exactly what you describe, with the added benefit of funding graduate students. It's called GK-12 and is designed to involve science and engineering graduate students in teaching science in public schools. The program at my university focuses on grades 3-5 but other programs focus on different grades. I'm currently involved in the program and I enjoy helping the teachers with whom I work improve their science lessons. We're part technical consultant and part co-teacher, no certificate required, just that you develop and teach the plans together. The grad students get tuition and a stipend and the teachers get the assistance of the grad students and some funding for materials and the like.
It even looks like your university has this program in place for grades 6-8.
Slashdot Mirror
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/05/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-hands-on-fast-thin-and-a-little-bit-cheap-feeling/
They took the blood from the mother after she was pregnant, when there was fetal DNA in her bloodstream and are essentially doing a 'process of elimination' among the fetus, mother, and father. So while you could do a pre-conception screen, and it may indicate probabilities for genetic disorders or diseases with a genetic component, it wouldn't be the same thing as in TFA.
Guess I underplayed it too much. Personally, I'd say Lamarckianism is complete trash but, as you said, he happened to throw a dart and hit something that bore a vague resemblance to reality.
That would be a stretch. More like he wasn't completely wrong, in that epigenetics and methylation can be passed along to offspring. But even then, this article has nothing to do with that, considering changes in the methylation of genes in leg muscles would have no effect on the genes in zygotes.
IANAB (biochemist) but based on the article, methylation of a gene generally reduces its activity. In this case, exercising, forcing contractions in cultured cells, or near lethal does of caffeine in cell cultures resulted in less methylation on some genes involved in energy metabolism, presumably increasing how much they are expressed. The article does note that these genes may still be expressed when methylated.
Or if that's still unreadable, exercise changes how much some genes are active in muscle cells.
Yes, cellulose is a polymer of simple sugars. However most organisms lack the enzymes to break the chain up into its individual units. Ruminants and termites have symbiotic bacteria that digest it for them, and some species of fungus can break down cellulose (think mushrooms on a fallen tree) but as it stands, using cellulosic feedstocks require breaking up the chain via enzymes (expensive) or acids (nasty) so that bacteria can utilize it. And yes, newspaper does burn quite well, but I'd like to see you stuff it in your gas tank.
Actually, it's not just Democrats that are/were in on it. It was a bi-partisan screw up.
Depending on where you live, and what the age/state of your stuff is, there's also the possibility of Free Geek
I'll forget I read "show" by which they meant movie. 100,000MB / 200MB = just 500 frames for the movie?
Except that 100 TB is roughly 100,000,000 MB
So, 100,000,000 MB / 200 MB per frame = 500,000 frames
500,000 frames / 24 frames per second / 60 seconds per minute = about 350 minutes, or almost 6 hours. It was long, but not that long.
And as far as storage, I'm guessing that was one of the smallest costs involved. Besides, you probably want some backups of the data as well.
Will they be distributing them at the open house meeting? Perhaps that will calm those worried about the doomsday scenarios.
Speaking only from my past experience with one company, yes, the managers like to see the live plant operation data from their office, but it was view only. Only the terminals in the plant could actually change anything. Not saying this couldn't be spoofed or hacked in some way, but as you said, if they get that far, you're boned anyway.
If a community is environmentally conscious enough to limit the amount of trash per household, they will have some sort of system to take care of organic/yard waste. Some communities have this system in place already. In my area, you put your yard waste in a special type of bag and it gets picked up and handled separately.
Bill Nye still has a series that airs on PBS called "The Eyes of Nye" (I don't think there are new episodes being produced). Each episode examines one topic in some detail: antibiotics, addiction, the biology of sex, climate change. And he's doing some sort of tour, as he was at my college campus recently giving a lecture (Google cache link since the original requires registration; Google 'lantern bill nye' if you prefer). Unfortunately I was out of town and didn't get to see him or get his autograph.
So he's still around. But I don't think his show from the 90's is still on. Far superior to Beakman's World in my opinion. Maybe it was just a different target audience though. Beakman seemed to be silliness with some science thrown in. Bill Nye was science with some levity.
I've seen a range of numbers, some saying the entire process is less than break-even, some saying it nets energy, but even those that show a net energy gain, the gain is pretty slim, on the order of 10-30%.
So not so much informative as misleading.
The bad thing about using cellulosic materials directly is that they tend to resist being broken down into sugar while they are in their raw/natural state. They need to be pretreated, which usually involves some combination of grinding, heating, soaking, 'steam explosion' (quick pressure release), to obtain a reasonable yield of sugar. If you don't pretreat the feedstock, you won't get nearly as much sugar, and you battery will be bigger because you're only using X% of the initial material. And if you use pretreated material in your battery, why not just convert the cellulose to sugar outside the battery, wher you can better control the reaction conditions and yields? Plus, the enzymes needed to convert the cellulose to sugar and the sugar to electricity may need different reaction conditions, as enzymes are often picky about their pH, concentrations, temperatures, co-reactants, etc.
Where is the "-1 WTF?" option?
Reposting now that I recalled my login info...
There is a program through NSF that does almost exactly what you describe, with the added benefit of funding graduate students. It's called GK-12 and is designed to involve science and engineering graduate students in teaching science in public schools. The program at my university focuses on grades 3-5 but other programs focus on different grades. I'm currently involved in the program and I enjoy helping the teachers with whom I work improve their science lessons. We're part technical consultant and part co-teacher, no certificate required, just that you develop and teach the plans together. The grad students get tuition and a stipend and the teachers get the assistance of the grad students and some funding for materials and the like.
It even looks like your university has this program in place for grades 6-8.