Ranvier
@Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
- Comment on Dear Dr. $surname, $firstname 4 months ago:
They try to get you to submit articles to them (usually for a fee too). But they’re kind of sham journals with no peer review or standards who no one actually reads. They’ll publish pretty much anything without even looking. They have bots that just mass email every corresponding author in every paper published just begging for submissions.
- Comment on Benny 😍😍😍 4 months ago:
I ate the onion on this one for a second.
- Comment on Rock Eagle Flag 4 months ago:
Re read, and stop setting up straw men. I criticized teaching seven year olds to shoot. Not teaching actual gun safety.
I said it’s sad that we have to have the “heroes program” to teach pre schoolers about active shool shooters, because gun nuts don’t allow real gun controls or solutions.
- Comment on Rock Eagle Flag 4 months ago:
Stop for one second, re read the conversation, and the link. I’m criticizing teaching 7 year old kids to shoot, not criticizing teaching actual gun safety. That was a straw man you set up to knock down.
- Comment on Rock Eagle Flag 4 months ago:
Teaching kids to use guns doesn’t save kids’ lives. If you want to teach em to stay away from guns, that they’re deadly, they shouldn’t touch it and should tell an adult right away go ahead.
Teaching kids to use guns in the name of gun safety is like saying if you don’t teach a kid to drive what’s to stop them from getting hit by a car.
- Comment on Rock Eagle Flag 4 months ago:
Already in the comment, click the links.
www.safekidsinc.com/hero-program-overview
Here’s where it goes through their curriculum per grade level including pre schoolers.
It’s not teaching pre schoolers to use guns, that was the other link (for 7 year olds and up).
- Comment on Rock Eagle Flag 4 months ago:
The one I linked specifically mentions shooting afterwards…
But yes if guns are at home they should be locked and totally inaccessible to kids. Teaching single digit age kids about guns is not a substitute for that, but of course I’m not saying you shouldn’t teach your kids that they shouldn’t touch guns and what they can do.
- Comment on Rock Eagle Flag 4 months ago:
Kindergarten? Ridiculous. They gotta be at least 7.
- Comment on "Theory" of Evolution (SMBC) 5 months ago:
I get the impression there is not model for why sometimes thousands of base pairs can fuck off with no impact, and sometimes it changes the organism unrecognizably.
No there’s many known reasons that can happen. Here’s just some of them, but I’m the end it all comes down to understanding that genes code for proteins, little molecular machines. Sometimes there are multiple copies of genes that code for similar proteins or even the same protein, so losing one or even more doesn’t really do anything as there’s more where that came from. Sometimes there are genes that used to be important but no longer have a role or were made redundant, and are free to sedit. If a gene codes for a protein called an enzyme, sometimes a change in the active site that binds the chemicals for the reaction it assists might be catastrophic, but a change elsewhere doesn’t do much because it’s not as necessary to the function of the protein. Sometimes changes even result in the a similar amino acid or the exact same amino acid getting put at thag spot (since the genetic code has some redundancies, a different combo might still end up being the same).
Many genes code for proteins called transcription factors. Transcription factors help control expression of many other genes, some of which might also be transcription factors that in turn affect other genes, etc. This can create huge cascades. For instance there are things called hox genes that are very important for creating a cascade that leads to the formation of different body segments, and differentiating the different body segments. Mutations in these genes can be devastating, in some animals leading to the dissappearance or redundant addition of whole body segments.
There is tons more to learn of course on specifics in terms of evolution, genetics, and molecular biology of course. I don’t think it’s comparable to gravity though, which we seem to have a fundamental gap and irreconcilable theories.
At least coming from a background of life sciences personally, it seems to me evolution is probably better understood than gravity. I think a better comparison to gravity in the life sciences might be abiogenesis (how pre life conditions give rise to life to begin with). Once life is going, evolution, that we have a ton on. Not that we know nothing about abiogenesis, but that it’s a difficult outstanding problem.
- Comment on Don't give up 5 months ago:
To be, or not to ble
Damnit he was so close, start again
- Comment on The only time it's ok to snitch... 5 months ago:
I know it’s a shit post, but for anyone not aware the FBI used to assist in the persecution of lgbt people and engage in all sorts of surveillance including infiltrating lgbt rights organizations.
vice.com/…/-the-fbi-secretly-tracked-gay-activist…
outhistory.org/exhibits/show/…/2010-2019
So it’s not only a shit post, but a shit post pointing out some very important recent history.
- Comment on If we get two sets of chromosomes, how does our body decide which genes to use? 5 months ago:
Oh yes absolutely op’s x chromosome is expressed. I just meant unlike all the other chromosomes where in general both gene copies on both chromosomes are expressed, in xx individuals usually one of the x chromomes is inactivated and only one of them is being expressed at a time. The x chromosome has many essential genes. This is why we have x linked genetic diseases as well. Often xx individuals are just carriers or more mildly affected since they have two x chromosomes, and xy individuals are more severely affected since they have no backup copies of that gene.
- Comment on If we get two sets of chromosomes, how does our body decide which genes to use? 5 months ago:
Thank you for clarifying those misconceptions about what recessive and dominant are getting at. A gene isn’t really dominant or recessive. A phenotype (some trait in the organism like blue eyes or a certain disease) can be dominant or recessive though and results from changes in a gene. The same gene could have many different possible mutations, some with dominant effects, some with recessive effects, or some with no effects, depending on the change in the gene and the phenotype.
To go further on that, many recessive diseases are because just one functional copy of many genes are fine from your body’s perspective. Many recessive diseases are due to loss of function of a gene or its protein product, a gene that for a variety of potential reasons no longer leads to a functional protein. Often your body can get by with just one working gene making protein, though both genes are generally always being transcribed and trying to be turned into functional protein.
One big exception to this is the x chromosome. Males only have one x and have a y instead of a second x. The y is very tiny and has very few genes compared to the x, quite different from other chromosome pairs which generally just have copies of all the same genes on each other. Early in embryo development for xx individuals, one of the x chromosomes is generally inactivated, otherwise xx individuals would have double the gene products of all those different genes compared to males, which the body is not expecting for x genes like it does for all the other genes that have a second copy.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-inactivation
If you go even further you also get into the idea of penetrance. A gene codes for a protein, but that protein doesn’t exist in isolation, it interacts with lots of other proteins coded by other genes in the body, plus the environment. So for some genetic changes it might be a 100% chance at leading to a certain phenotype (like a disease or a specific trait), or it could be less, like only 70% or 30% chance or something.
- Comment on Country music 6 months ago:
Do they not use the word country as a synonym for rural? I checked the Cambridge dictionary, it’s their second definition listed, even higher than where that definition is listed in Merriam Webster. It’s like complaining rock music is made with guitars instead of boulders. Does he also think that country is like the only genre of music made in America? Though some country singers do like to put a lot of nationalism in their music which does kind of confuse things.
I’m a firm mayo by itself as a sauce hater though so I’m with him there. Even more abominable are the jello (or jelly for those in the UK) “salads.” It’s not a salad!
- Comment on To put life into perspective 7 months ago:
There’s no one that can make the estimate accurately right now. Any calculation like that is going to rest on lots on many wild estimates and unknowns. Happy to look at it if you have a source though.
- Comment on To put life into perspective 7 months ago:
We’re working with an n of 1 basically. If you’re talking about the drake equation, many of those terms are wild estimates that we simply don’t know the answer to. In the course of astronomy history when we’ve assume uniqueness about earth or our cosmic situation we’ve generally been wrong. Unfortunately the vast distances between stars make an estimation of life in the universe difficult with current technology.
But there’s septillions of star systems in the galaxy with billions of years for life to happen. Intelligent life has happened at least once because we’re here. It would be utterly shocking if we were the only intelligent life out there.
- Comment on To put life into perspective 7 months ago:
That would be very surprising if it were true, considering the incomprehensively vast numbers of stars and planets out there.
- Comment on unsure why we are surprised lol 7 months ago:
I’d say more broadly the legal and political system works against any organizations that threaten the status quo, but yes America’s attitudes toward communism have been pretty obvious throughout the twentieth century. I just took issue with the idea that political parties or idealogies are illegal in and of themselves in the US, constitution still manages to protects some things.
- Comment on unsure why we are surprised lol 7 months ago:
Someone better tell these people they all could be arrested at any moment!
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_USA
No but seriously it’s an unenforceable junk law that no one has bothered to take the time to repeal that was never even really used in the first place. I mean, the communist party runs candidates for office to this day. Someone finally tried to use it in 1972 to keep a communist candidate off the ballot and a federal district Court promptly ruled it unconstitutional.
- Comment on Staying for the week at an AirBnB in Rochester, MN. This is what I just found out I'm stuck with. 7 months ago:
This is bizarre, I looked and Rochester Minnesota has multiple high speed providers, including two that offer fiber.
And the isp you have is a wireless isp that doesn’t even list Rochester as within its coverage area. It gets close but not quite in Rochester, but maybe they’re sitll able to access (slowly) since it’s a wireless provider.
- Comment on Do straight lines and flat planes exist in nature? 8 months ago:
Unfortunately (fortunately?) the space they’re traveling through is curved. It was a good attempt though neutrinos.
- Comment on reviewer 1 8 months ago:
Have you considered answering this other question that would take three years and six figures of funding to complete? Maybe just add that to the paper quick with the next revision.
- Comment on Is Google deliberately slowing down YouTube video buffering for adblock users? 10 months ago:
Comment from a unlock developer on this:
There is a lot of chatter in the last days about how Youtube is slow with content blockers. Those performance issues affect only the latest version of both Adblock Plus (3.22) & AdBlock (5.17), and afflict more than just Youtube. uBO is not affected.
- Comment on [deleted] 10 months ago:
They aren’t expected to do more here. Not sure what they’re on about.
- Comment on [deleted] 10 months ago:
If a patient doesn’t want to take it, they just say they don’t want to take it, no one is force feeding people or calling security. Patients refuse medication all the time for many different reasons. In this example, the nurse should just document the patient refused and why, notify the doctor what happened, and continue on with their work. Not stand there in an hour long staring contest until the patient takes it.
It’s very important the medical staff know what things you have and haven’t actually taken. If it’s a medication you really need, your doctor will probably come and explain why refusing is a bad idea. If people don’t like the plan, don’t want any treatment, or don’t want to stay in the hospital, they can just walk out and leave. It’s a hospital not a prison. Your doctor may just ask you to sign something just to document they explained to you why leaving is a bad idea.
- Comment on murder 10 months ago:
Poor point of comparison, lol.
snopes.com/…/donald-trump-fifth-avenue-comment/
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters, OK? It’s like incredible.”
-Donald Trump
- Comment on What is an average person living in the US supposed to do about corporations raising prices? 10 months ago:
You’re not wrong that it’s the profit margin that tells the story, and you can’t tell just from the nominal amount alone.
But average profit margins in the United States have reached a record high percentile not seen since the 1950’s. So it’s not just the dollar amount that’s gone up for corporations, it’s the margin percent that’s gone up too.
- Comment on Are MRNA vaccines any riskier than other vaccines? 10 months ago:
It wasn’t exactly “fast tracked,” a little misleading phrase (not helped by the official name of the operation called “warp speed”) that I think makes people more nervous than they need to me. This kind of implies they didn’t go through the same testing as other vaccines. They have gone through the same stringent criteria as any other vaccine at this point. A lot of what was done to speed things up was the government subsidizing and risk guaranteeing, so multiple steps in vaccine testing and deployment could be done in parellel rather than in series. Normally you wouldn’t be mass producing experimental vaccine doses or medications before you know they work, or else you’ve wasted a ton of money. To speed things up the government basically said they would cover the losses on the vaccines if they ended up being useless. This allowed production of these vaccines to start being distributed as soon as the research was complete. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been churning out millions of doses already with a lot already stockpiled and giving doses of it to icu staff only three days after it got emergency authorization (full formal approval would follow about nine months later).
Honestly people get way more nervous about vaccines than they really need to be. Some of the lowest risk things we use in all of medicine. Though not that they shouldn’t be, since they’re deployed on such a mass scale.
- Comment on If cannabis gets rescheduled to III, how can it ever get the state - federal differences resolved when it comes to the recreational market? 1 year ago:
Totally. It’s not impossible to harm yourself with weed/THC, especially if it’s in combination with certain other drugs or medications or interacting with certain health conditions. And some of the doses you can get now in the dispensaries I’ve also noticed are pretty massive. The synthetic cannibinoids are potentially more dangerous, having even more blood vessel constrictive properties than typical cannabinoids (can increase stroke and heart attack risks). But weed doesn’t hold a candle to the dangers and damage of perfectly legal alcohol or tobacco. And there’s plenty of other still illegal without a prescription but more dangerous drugs that are lower on the schedule list than relatively safer ones like marijuana and psychedelics (pretty much all schedule I).
- Comment on If cannabis gets rescheduled to III, how can it ever get the state - federal differences resolved when it comes to the recreational market? 1 year ago:
Withdrawal can be lethal sure, but you can just overdose on them, like alcohol. They have a very simily mechanism of action to alcohol. It’s also why they’re so dangerous combined. The scheduling system has little relationship to medical reality.