All I know it goes into Non-Euclidean geometry, and its the basis of curved space time.
Iāve been meaning to write a segmented, abstract treatise about this for a while but due to time constraints and general slothfulness I was hindered a bit. In any case, my desire is to start an in-depth discussion about life in all its facets, with the first discussion on its foundation.
My question is, do you think the current definition of life is outdated or at the very least, very strict?
When I was learning about life in various biology classes and books Iāve read independently throughout the years, they all defined life to having these basic characteristics:
[list]
[] Be able to react to external stimuli.
[] Be able to maintain homeostasis, i.e., regulate its internal āarchitectureā against entropy through metabolic processes.
[] Reproduce by whatever means in order to perpetuate its āspeciesā or evolution thereof.
[] Adapt to its external environment.
[/list]
Later on, other categories seemingly became added such as Growth and Organization, whereby an organism has to be able to uniformly accumulate mass and be composed of one or more cells respectively.
For the sake of comparison-
So while a car has its own metabolism, with even some newer models being able to react to stimuli and recharge themselves at power stations, as well as adapt to new situations, a car cannot reproduce or maintain itself permanently- thus, isnāt alive.
A star, on the the other hand, can maintain homeostasis, consume matter to maintain itself; and although not under the strictest definition, also reproduce via supernova. It cannot, however respond to external stimuli, nor can it adapt readily to its changing environment.
For a long while I accepted these definitions as relatively logical parameters, but slowly as I read more and went deeper down the Rabbitās Hole I started to see holes in these definitions.
VIRUSES
The was most apparent point of contention were viruses. There has been an eternal debate on whether or not viruses are truly living things, with a popular consensus from my teachers and professors that they arenāt- just RNA strands encased in a protein capsid that just so happens to invade a cell or bacterium and replicate itself. Otherwise, itās just an inert buoy, bobbing around aimlessly until it can find a matching cell to infect and infest. In essence, they lacked an active metabolism, or intrinsic ability to reproduce and therefore were non-living systems. The irony was, these same educators couldnāt help using words like āthriveā, āattackā, ācleverā, etc. to describe the many ways they perpetuated or attacked biological systems.
But in my eyes, their behavior in itself is far more complex than that of a stray protein, a rock, or anything else we might see in the material world. Not only that, but there were many higher order organisms that behaved just like viruses and yet were considered living organisms. Like viruses, there are a few bacteria like the Rickettsia and Mycobacterium (i.e., leprosy) genera respectively that are unable to reproduce on their own and need a living cell to perform all of their ālivingā functions; otherwise, they would effectively be inert or ādeadā. There are many bacteria that can create spores within themselves, harboring genetic material that can last for millions of years after their bodies die and still return to life under the right conditions or host.
To make things even more complex, you also have giant viruses like the Mamavirus; larger than many common bacteria cells, they possess full DNA strands of over 1000 genes, more complex than many bacteria. Most intriguingly- smaller virus satellites called virophages, actively orbit these viruses and infect them to reproduce. These revelations are causing many scientists to speculate that these viruses mightāve been the progenitors to all the branches of life or even had a more complex functions early on. Mamaviruses also have similar genes with many other viruses, hinting that it may be an original ancestor.
This leads to the topic of virus āintelligenceā, which is a word I use loosely to describe the naturally selected and highly efficient ways viruses, especially obligate parasite retroviruses infect
their hosts and transmit themselves. Letās look at rabies. It attacks nervous system of an animal and paralyzes its throat muscles, which then produces saliva laden with the rabies virus. This paralysis prevents the animal from drinking and washing away the contagious saliva. Rabies also infects the brain and makes the animal more aggressive and prone to biting. While the whole process that developed this behavior certainly took a while down the evolutionary corridor, the inherent complexity of the process shows a similar persistence to continue their existence like any other lifeform.
Lastly, and intriguing aspect of biology, particularly microbiology, is how some complex bacteria or cells occasionally prefer to shed most of their complex processes and genes once under ideal conditions or a proper host. Mitochondria, for example, created a mutualistic bond with eukaryote cells billions of years ago, and now has a close symbiotic relationship; totally incapable of acting independently of its host. Some retroviruses are capable of permanently attaching themselves to the hostās DNA and even reinfect its host by popping out randomly, known as proviral latency; retroviruses are RNA viruses usually containing sparse genomes. This hints that the pulse of life possibly reverberates in both directions- towards complexity and simplicity naturally, and that complex life merely arose as a consequence of simple cells cutting the fat for another variation of cell to take over, gradually building up from there, which is why giant single celled organisms and viruses are so rare in nature. If viruses are considered living they would represent the most successful organisms on the planet by far.
I only very, very lightly studied it. Learning it would be incredibly useful because a big part of relativity is calculating geodesics in various manifolds, so knowing about Riemannian and hyperbolic geometry beforehand wouldnāt hurt. What research are you taking this for?
Iād really like to take part in this discussion, because the physics of consciousness is something that interests me. Admittedly Iāve had next to no time at all for posting here in the science thread for the past few months, but Iāll prepare a reply this weekend.
Older video but still a good topic
2:20 mark of the video
its interesting that the plane, since it flies at 3x the speed of sound, and since the air friction causes immense heat for the entire plane, that its fuel cells are sorta loose when on the ground. but they close up in the air when the heat causes the metal to expand.
point is, is that when its in the air, the heat expansion seals up the fuel containers, since its made/designed more fore its effectiveness in the air, in its natural environment of heat.
but on the ground, the fuel tanks are like open gills. like something with open ridges.
so it bleeds fuel on the ground.
like a wooden barrel that has its wood planks not sealed fully. interesting.
the plane,ā¦is actually very handicap.
they say you cant shoot down a Blackbird cause its flies too fast at too high an altitude.
but i know how to bring it down,
just shoot down the plane that fuels it mid air. cause the Blackbird cant get very far without it.
about that far.
Actually the Black Bird has incredible range, its just short if you are trying to take off in California and wanted to spy on Moscow
did you watch the video. it shows and says it has to immediately refuel after takeoff due to its fuel cells leaking while grounded for the reasons i mentioned.
I take anything you posted with a grain of salt.
Does anyone in this thread have a M.S in biotechnology. I was thinking about pursuing a degree in this field. I just wanted to know the challenges in school, ups and downs, and other advice someone could give me.
Those Asian giant hornets are huge!!! No thanks
*Iād like to hear about this as well as Iāll be pursuing a PhD soon and would like to go into the Biotech industry afterwards. Also I was wondering how many of you fine gentleman have publications and how did you find interesting research projects to become a part of. *
I canāt speak to that, but you might try asking in the [Engineering thread](SRK Engineering Thread Even though itās not strictly an engineering question, that thread tends to be more oriented toward such a question.
Friend of mine who has a M.S. in Biology. I think his speciality is in Genetics. Heās working on his PhD.
He found very quickly you need to become oriented in multiple disciplines.
Like for example to get his work done and one of his machines in the Lab breaks down he can ether wait for a $44,000 logic board or do the repair himself with a soldering iron and a $1.05 in Capacitors.
Guess which repair got authorized and paid by the University, they rather just dip into petty cash for the $1.05 than to write a check for 44K
Donāt quote me, but I think youāll have ample opportunities to publish and be a part of interesting research projects 1-2 years within your PhD (this all depends on the program, your PI, and the type of lab you will be working out of). You might be able to publish or coauthor on some papers when you do substanial lab work. My friend finished her PhD in Biology last year; she specializes in neuroscience. Some of the MS students coauthor some papers in her lab. I donāt want to criticize anyoneās work because I know nothing about neuroscience but it would be like 8-10 people on a 5 page paper. Iām like damn man, are you serious? Thatās understandable for doctors (who are well established) but for some who doesnāt even have a PhD thatās pushing it. Anyways, what subject areas are you interested in the Biotech? For me, itās finance.
@āIcy Black Deepā Iāll look there. Thanks!
I finished my M. Sc. in molecular biology in 2015, specializing on signaling pathways in cancer. What I can say about it is that there are good opportunities for an academic career (if your project involves the word ācancerā people will throw money at you), so if thatās what youāre interested in, go for it. The field is also expanding extremely rapidly, to the point where it told Mooreās law to go fuck itself, and there will always be new stuff to keep working on. The international community is also really connected on this, and there are a lot of opportunities to work abroad, so if you want to travel somewhere, thatās definitely a perk.
Keep in mind, however, that youāre kind of locking yourself into a full Ph. D. The job opportunities donāt really open up before you have one, unless youāre very well connected. And even after the Ph.D. youāll likely still be doing postdocs for several years afterwards, unless, again, you have connections. So make sure to network aggressively while youāre studying. Thatās even if you want to go Ph. D. / postdoc, of course, because that opens a lot of doors.
Also be aware of the fact that the labwork is really hit-or-miss. I know some people who truly love the day-to-day labwork, and love the preparation, precision and documentation that goes into this. If thatās your thing, this is somewhere you can probably do really well. I personally realized that I didnāt enjoy it. Partially because I got carpal tunnel in my thumb from pipetting too much. Partially because it takes so long to see progress, and even when things work I have to repeat everything ad nauseam, so I personally feel itās rather unrewarding. But worst of all is losing several months of worktime to a tiny detail which itās incredibly hard to trace back to its source, which has happened several times (I once had to throw away 4 months of data because it turned out a lamp in my instrument was faulty). This happens to everyone, so be prepared for it. And it sucks just as bad as it sounds like.
Cautions aside, I still love the field. And being able to say that Iāve genetically manipulated cancer cells (and, more recently, tried to make yeast cells shoot lasers) is really fun. But you need to actually like the work on the experiments youāre doing, instead of just being interested in the science. I didnāt, so I jumped off to do programming and project management instead rather than continuing with a Ph. D. (in retrospect I should probably just have done bioinformatics, lol)
Thanks man, I appreciate the hell out of your post!
I guess I should clarify a little bit about myself but I currently have 2 publications that made it into journals and Iām currently working on a third at the undergraduate level. My current research project is cancer cell biology centric where the aim is exploring signal transduction pathways. Iām hoping that what Iām working on now will eventually get published because I think itās incredibly cool and potentially illuminating. I originally pursued biology to become a cancer researcher and luckily for me Iāve fell in love with research and I adore the work that I do.
Labwork is frustrating as fuck sometimes but I enjoy the process of troubleshooting. Luckily I have yet to have had any major setbacks with months worth of work being lost (a few weeks sure), but I know itās inevitably going to occur. I also think that Iāve gotten extremely lucky to have had great PIās who gave a little undergrad like myself a perfect mix of oversight and autonomy. Iām not a genius or anything, Iāve just been very fortunate to show what little talent I have while working very hard and being acknowledged.
I guess the intent of my original question was rooted in how to navigate the different labs in which you hold interest, how you landed a spot in a lab/on a project at the graduate and undergrad levels. *
Iād imagine the method of finding projects varies greatly between universities, and even countries. At the University of Oslo, potential supervisors flag out projects for master-students to work on, and then the students compete for those based on their B. Sc.-grades. I know the other big Norwegian universities work differently, and Iād imagine itās different in other countries as well.