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 to their journal. Whenever an article is published in a reputable journal, one author has to have contact information publicly listed so they can answer any questions about the paper, and these predatory journals just scrape that info. It’s bad, so many emails every day.

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 in 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.

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.

Or

Have you considered mentioning this barely relevant subject in the discussion, in particular this aspect, which has a recent paper you can cite? Totally not mine by the way, I am very anonymous. But this should definitely be mentioned.

The problem is there is no recourse like in a normal job. It’s not like you can just say, working conditions here are bad I’m going somewhere else. Working conditions are miserable everywhere for residents, 80 hour weeks are a norm not an exception, and switching to other programs is near impossible. There’s a specific exception in US anti trust law that helps keep this all going and make it so programs effectively don’t need to compete with each other on things like pay and benefits. If a resident were to leave their program, they’d be saddled with 6 figure student loan debt, be unable to use their degree for the most part, and be very unlikely to be picked up by any other program. And if they did, it’d likely be an even worse situation (why else would the position be open?). Though some programs may be better than others, even the best case scenarios are ridiculous and unsafe to any reasonable person looking at them. It’s this bizarre case of group insanity where people figure it must be reasonable if so many people put up with it, but anyone outside of medicine would be horrified. The entire residency system is broken, has been from the start, and all the external incentives on the residency system are pushing it to get even worse, not better. Need change forced by law from above, the monopoly ended, or resident unions, all three really.

I understand the sentiment but it’s not really helpful. They’re still the ones on call, they need to talk to you, and will be writing your orders and things anyways. Not really like they can just say, oh yeah I am tired I’ll just go home and sleep and abandon all these patients here, why didn’t I think of that?

Helpful things would be writing congressmen and senators about reform to the residency system, supporting unionization efforts. Change will only come if forced from above or if residents get more of a say. Ideal situation in my mind would be a more typical work schedule capped at closer to 50 hours a week, maybe with increased residency training time overall and increased pay during that time to compensate (need to keep up with cripplingly high student loan debt for those who didn’t have wealthy parents who payed for medical school).

Even attending physicians will really need to start unionizing if they don’t want to get totally lost in the shuffle, since they’re mostly employed directly now instead of running their own practices or specialty group, they get very little say in how things are done.

Unfortunately a common experience. While they don’t tell you to lie, the system is set up to make that the only reasonable option. And even if they were holding to 80 hour max (open secret this limit is broken many places) it would still be too much for any job, let alone something high risk like a doctor in training. If you were on a plane with a pilot in training who’d worked almost 80 hrs and been up for 20 hours straight already, you’d rightfully be very concerned.

Don’t forget mandatory resiliency lectures after your 24 hr shift to really rub it in and gaslight you that all of this is somehow your fault.

Well they can buy puts without margin accounts, since those have a cap on the losses, which would also get more valuable if the stock price decreases. While technically a side bet, the options sellers often want to remain neutral in their risk with respect to movements of the underlying stocks, so buying options may influence stock price as well because of the downstream effects the options seller may undertake.

The expanded leverage of short term calls, though not directly buying the stock, may have been one thing that helped explode the GameStop share prices, as options sellers had to buy more shares to limit the losses on calls they had sold as the price increased (a gamma squeeze).

Residents in the US have 80 hours with maximum of 28 hour shifts, not a ton better. Though average salary is better at 58,000. Still, considering the hours worked and 8 years of schooling up to that point, ugh.

Residency is just a terrible idea through and through, absolutely insane. Where else could you start a job and be told “right so you’re new here, this is life and death decision making, we’d like you to stay up working for 28 hrs straight doing this. Alright, get to work!”

If a resident gets two days off, it’s called a “golden weekend.” What most people refer to as, a weekend. It’s just exploitation. Even more so when you consider Medicare pays for residents (and they even pay the hospitals more than the resident’s actual salary! So the hospital pockets that difference and benefits from all the direct value the residents generate too). There’s even an exception in US anti trust law to make the system legal. Glad more residents are unionizing here as well. Residency is horrible and needs to go.

https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/programrequirements/cprresidency_2023.pdf

There’s even this lovely line:

The program, in partnership with its Sponsoring Institution, must ensure adequate sleep facilities and safe transportation options for residents who may be too fatigued to safely return home

So, so tired not even safe to return home (which I mean they’re right, it is not safe to be driving after staying up 24 hours straight) but continue doing patient care while you’re that impaired, it’s fine.

In a prospective study, new medical interns went from 3.9% meeting criteria for major depressive disorder to 25% after starting. And depression was linked with increased medical errors to boot. Of course mean work hours was a major association of depression too.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/210823

Totally asinine, a whole enormous meat grinding machine that needs to go, but is stuck in place by historical inertia and current profits for large hospitals.

Kind of? They call it that sometimes but it doesn’t look like a true no first use policy in the same vein as China’s and India’s. Putin also threatens nuclear weapons if NATO troops were to get involved in Ukraine, and openly questions the policy.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/09/europe/russia-putin-nuclear-weapons-intl/index.html

I’m not sure any nuclear country would stick to these policies if they truly faced an existential threat, whether that threat was nuclear or not. Russia’s policy has a carve out for any existential threat including conventional weapons. US and Russian policies are pretty close, basically okay to use for any existential threat. Doesn’t hurt to try and negotiate more no first use policies and reinforce the norm though.

Looks like the UK, France, and Pakistan also lack no first use policies.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use

As far as I can tell the article is correct, China and India are the only current nuclear powers with true no first use policies. If that’s incorrect happy to learn more though. Israel not on here cause officially not a nuclear power, but hey we weren’t born yesterday.

Saying you get Parkinson’s disease from anti psychotics is a gross over simplification that is basically untrue. Yes they are dopamine depleting drugs, so some of the side effects (which unfortunately can persist even after stopping the drugs in some cases when used over extended periods) are similar to symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Usually doctors will use the word “parkinsonism” to make clear they mean some of the movement symptoms from dopamine depletion like Parkinson’s disease, but not Parkinson’s itself.

Parkinson’s disease is caused by the toxic buildup of alpha synuclein bodies in many different centers of the brains, including centers that make dopamine but many more as well, eventually resulting in severe dementia in the end. That is not what is happening when people who take anti psychotic medications get parkinsonism symptoms.

The terminology gets quite confusing, but just want to be clear that while anti psychotic medications can sometimes cause Parkinson’s like symptoms (parkinsonism), it is not a cause of Parkinson’s disease itself.

https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1353-8020(14)00214-4

There might be contracts that make it hard to remove in some cases. This tenant board had to sue to get it removed off their building in 2018:

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/02/607785452/in-the-new-york-real-estate-market-trumps-name-may-be-losing-its-luster

A lot of buildings have successfully taken it off though.

I’m surprised it’s only a 5% value hit. Says a lot about the desperate state of NYC real estate though I suppose.

In short, fungi are much more closely related evolutionarily speaking to animals than bacteria are. It’s harder to find substances that are toxic to fungal cells but not to animal cells because of the similarity between the two. Even our current anti fungals tend to have high rates of adverse affects and a lower therapeutic index as it is (meaning the line between helpful vs poisonous is pretty close for many of those drugs).

Forer’s motion will likely face legal hurdles, because the law only permits lawmakers to be expelled for racist incitement or for supporting armed struggle against Israel, and it is not clear whether Cassif’s actions meet these two conditions.

That’s quite the stretch. It would just be extra judicial facist nonsense if they actually go through with this.

“Lose weight and rejuvenate dry leg skin with this one weird trick!”

Not some home brew theory. And it is very convoluted, but it’s bascially more “one China” policy word games.

The Taiwanese president unofficially stated in 1991 they do not claim mainland China, but this was never affirmed by courts and there’s no force of law behind it. They cannot officially do this currently without greatly antagonizing China. China’s view is that Taiwan limiting its borders to include only Taiwan and not all of China, would signal the end of the “one China” policy and be a precursor to Taiwanese independence. If Tawain were to declare different national borders that include only the island itself, then China would view it as a violation of their anti secession law passed in 2005, which threatens military force in retaliation. In China’s view, they are another government still within China and still in civil war, without the authority to re-define national borders.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Secession_Law

Continuing to claim mainland China as part of the same country is continuing the current status quo, any deviations from that would be viewed as an attempted separation of “indivisable” China. So the claim to the mainland at this point in history is primarily to not antagonize China and continue the status quo situation.

So he’ll fit right in then.

Russia invading neighboring countries “could provoke military incidents,” NATO warns

Interestingly China would also be quite upset if Taiwan stopped claiming sovereignty over the mainland. To them that would signal an end to the one China policy. So Taiwan maintaining its claim to the mainland is actually to keep China happy. I don’t think the Taiwan government is under any illusion that they will someday take over the mainland.

Google it yourself for other sources then, not hard to find info on the many anti democratic actions Hungary’s leader has taken or his rollbacks on human rights over the past decade. I don’t think even his supporters contest that, they just contest if it’s wrong to do or not.