The Science Thread

[á´…eparted]

I delcare that this is now a thing. I love science, a lot. Always have as far back as I can remember. It explains the world, and gives deeper clarity and meaning to countless things.

So some general questions: Do you love science? Favorite areas of science? What does it mean to you? Are you a scientist or a scientist in training? Favorite science theories, princples, etc?

Basically think of this thread as a place to talk about science at any level you can.

Discuss!

 

[Yama]

My dad told me I'm not a scientist even though I work in a lab! And wear a lab coat! And make all the media!!!!

I liked space science and biology was kind of interesting too, back in school. But I was determined to never work in STEM EVER. Got my BA in sociology. Uhh, now I'm a media tech and I didn't even know what media was before I got hired but it's fucking fun. Do I know what any of the shit I make is? Not really no. But it's so fun it's just like cooking!!! But it's SCIENCE cooking!!!! I am the laboratory kitchen!! Main lab and path lab wouldn't be shit without me to make their media cuz they don't know how to do ANYTHING in there!

 

[Yama]

Also I have an extremely special, warm, and loving place in my heart for space documentaries from the 80s and 90s. They were so mesmerizing in grade school and now they're nostalgic despite the hilarious visuals and soundtracks.

Space is probably like the coolest fucking thing ever. My favorite planets are Uranus and Neptune. I wish I could go there even though I can't really stand anywhere...

 

[á´…eparted]

My dad told me I'm not a scientist even though I work in a lab! And wear a lab coat! And make all the media!!!!

I liked space science and biology was kind of interesting too, back in school. But I was determined to never work in STEM EVER. Got my BA in sociology. Uhh, now I'm a media tech and I didn't even know what media was before I got hired but it's fucking fun. Do I know what any of the shit I make is? Not really no. But it's so fun it's just like cooking!!! But it's SCIENCE cooking!!!! I am the laboratory kitchen!! Main lab and path lab wouldn't be shit without me to make their media cuz they don't know how to do ANYTHING in there!

Ok, so you might hate me, but I am going to nitpick.

You are not a scientist, you're a science worker. Which, is still very important, useful, and valuable. A science worker is able to tend to labor intensive things that are often time consuming, but absolutely essential. It allows scientists to focus much more on what their primary duty is: doing science, as in using the scientific method to create new things. The scientist (should have the ability / can learn) could do the job of a science worker, but he doesn't because they can take care of it.

I loath people that shit on science workers, or other service positions like secrateries, front desk interfaces, HR, etc. They are doing things for you, giving you more time to do other things and be more effective. It's a net befit all around and everyone wins! I don't understand why people look down on positions like that. Yes, the science worker has no job without the scientist as they are the software (and without it there is no purpose), but that does not change its value at all.

 

[prplchknz]

I find that i enjoy science documentaries, and watching the science youtube videos like ASAP science (which i'm not sure how sciency those actually are) but I find actual science tedious and boring. my mom's i dunno if she's an actual scientist she has her ph.d in nutrition and works in epidemiology and bio statitics but she works in the field doing research. she's currently a P.I. I also know that research studies get replicated billions of times (maybe not billions but a lot) and that you shouldn't come to a conclusion based on one study often times about the world.like take science articles with a grain of salt. I respect science, I'm taking human bio and had my first class yesterday, though it was review of molecular so maybe when we get into the actual body i'll find it more interesting. I wanted to not be bored but i was. I did really like geology a lot though.It's like i love the answer science finds and the discovery i just don't want to do the work, which is why i'm not going into stem. and i also liked chemistry. never took physics. so maybe i just don't like biology

 

[Smilephantomhive]

I always thought it was one of the more interesting school subjects. I think it's cool to learn something new about something you thought you understood.

 

[Yama]

Ok, so you might hate me, but I am going to nitpick.

You are not a scientist, you're a science worker. Which, is still very important, useful, and valuable. A science worker is able to tend to labor intensive things that are often time consuming, but absolutely essential. It allows scientists to focus much more on what their primary duty is: doing science, as in using the scientific method to create new things. The scientist (should have the ability / can learn) could do the job of a science worker, but he doesn't because they can take care of it.

I loath people that shit on science workers, or other service positions like secrateries, front desk interfaces, HR, etc. They are doing things for you, giving you more time to do other things and be more effective. It's a net befit all around and everyone wins! I don't understand why people look down on positions like that. Yes, the science worker has no job without the scientist as they are the software (and without it there is no purpose), but that does not change its value at all.

It's pretty much semantics. What you call a scientist is what I specify as a research scientist, and then I consider "scientist" a broader term that encompasses science workers. It's a good distinction to make regardless, since I think what most people think of when they think of scientists is a research scientist. I think our semantics differ because you're a chemist so you actually create/discover new things. My lab is just a food safety testing lab so no one discovers anything new. So we could all be considered science workers, but we wouldn't have any scientists here lol. To me it's kind of like there are degrees of scientists, and I'm on like the very bottom rung.

 

[Coriolis]

It's pretty much semantics. What you call a scientist is what I specify as a research scientist, and then I consider "scientist" a broader term that encompasses science workers. It's a good distinction to make regardless, since I think what most people think of when they think of scientists is a research scientist. I think our semantics differ because you're a chemist so you actually create/discover new things. My lab is just a food safety testing lab so no one discovers anything new. So we could all be considered science workers, but we wouldn't have any scientists here lol. To me it's kind of like there are degrees of scientists, and I'm on like the very bottom rung.

That is possible, depending on how one defines things. Based on what you have said about your work, most of the folks there would fall in the category we call "technician". A couple of the people in charge might fall under "scientist" or even "(chemical) engineer".

In any case, if you like 80's science shows, have you seen the original Cosmos with Carl Sagan? I really enjoyed those growing up.

 

[á´…eparted]

My favorite educational shows growing up were space-oriented documentaries. I'd chose them over cartoons if they were on.

 

[Yama]

That is possible, depending on how one defines things. Based on what you have said about your work, most of the folks there would fall in the category we call "technician". A couple of the people in charge might fall under "scientist" or even "(chemical) engineer".

Yeah we're all lab techs. I'm a media tech (there's just 2 of us). Then there's main lab and path lab which both have at leach 10 people each. And let me tell you, they're so spoiled! They don't even know the lengths me and my coworker go through sometimes to make their lives easier, lol! But that's just because none of them know anything about how media works and don't know how to make anything.

Manager wants us to teach a few of the main lab techs how to make shots so they can help out with those... I tried twice but don't think they retained anything. There's too many steps, especially for someone who isn't already familiar with the media paperwork that's second nature to me at this point. Plus we only have one dispenser and two hot plates anyway, so they'd kind of just get in the way.

 

[Forever]

Do you love science?

I like science. It's really interesting at times.

Favorite areas of science?

Chemistry (which is just a branch of physics really.. so quantum mechanics and similar areas the most)

What does it mean to you?

Understanding the world at a level where we can really live better, healthier, and more efficient lives.

Are you a scientist or a scientist in training?

For now, no.

I'm torn whether if I should just continue with chemistry/biochemistry and take organic chemistry seriously (I enjoy chemistry I really do, just not the best practical person with it)

Music (Because it's what I spend all my time on at least listening, even just solely listening to)

or Psychology.. which some consider it to be a science, others' don't. I find human relationships really satisfying when it goes well.. (redundant I know) to be a counselor psychologist sounds really cool.

My personality would suggest psychology the most prototypically.

Favorite science theories, princples, etc?

Higgs Boson - "God" Particle

In biochemistry, the way how water reacts with everything is incredibly interesting.
Condensation/dehydration reactions.

I loved chemistry because to me I found it to be the most artistic (in principle at least and maybe even physically) how things can transform.

 

[nonsequitur]

Not going to participate in the discussion regarding definitions of "scientist" because that rabbit hole runs deep into epistemology, role of the endeavour in society, and where to draw arbitrary lines. It's been done to death in my social media circles and is extremely unproductive. I'll just answer the questions.

Do you love science?
Yes.

Favourite areas of science?
Hard question to answer (pardon the pun). Hmmm. I'll take the question to mean "what's your specific areas of interest?"

I'll just write something general and if people are actually interested, answer further questions. Right now, primarily the interaction of physiological systems with environments, and the role of biological networks/decision-making in how these systems shift. At the heart of it are questions like "why do people do what they do?" and "how does biology shape behaviour/environment and vice versa?". I find it endlessly fascinating because these systems are so dynamic.

What does it mean to you?
To me, science is a tool to analyse and systematise complex reality.

Are you a scientist or a scientist in training?
Yes.

Favourite science theories, principles, etc?
My first passion was chemistry. I was introduced to atomic orbital theory through the VSEPR model when I was 14. Linus Pauling was an early hero. I majored in chemistry in university and went on to learn about the Bohr atom and quantum chemistry. Eventually I moved to life science through structural biology, but that still remains incredibly beautiful and elegant to me. I still love the shape of molecules and relation of structure to properties and function.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I don't know where to put this, but I just came back from a lecture on microbiomes, and on the way back, it occurred to me how cool it would be if someone made a Planet Earth-style documentary about microorganism. If such a thing already exists, please tell me about it!

 

[nonsequitur]

I don't know where to put this, but I just came back from a lecture on microbiomes, and on the way back, it occurred to me how cool it would be if someone made a Planet Earth-style documentary about microorganism. If such a thing already exists, please tell me about it!

I doubt they would because it would mostly be animation. That field is moving so fast and evolving from month to month - not my specialty, but it's interesting and I can barely keep up with reading. If you'd like a good intro, Ed Yong has written a fantastic book called "I contain multitudes" that gives a general picture of the state of research (though it's a 2016 book so it's already a bit out of date), and extends the picture of us as a microbiome ecology to different natural contexts. Highly recommend it, it's well-written and accessible.

 

[Smilephantomhive]

In my bio class my professor said that the mitochondria may have been from bacteria entering some cell, and then it being beneficial, so it eventually became the norm. I find the idea of some viruses/bacteria having positive effects very intriguing.

 

[nonsequitur]

In my bio class my professor said that the mitochondria may have been from bacteria entering some cell, and then it being beneficial, so it eventually became the norm. I find the idea of some viruses/bacteria having positive effects very intriguing.

Yes, mitochondria (and chloroplasts) are the result of eukaryotic endocytotic events that took place billions of years ago. That's why they're both double-membrane bound organelles.

"Positive" and "negative" are based on human valuations. In nature, whether a change persists or dies out (natural selection) depends on whether it adds value - either to the organism (increased fitness), or to an ecosystem. There are many, many examples of organisms that cannot survive on their own, and have established co-dependent relationships with others (this is known as mutualism).

If we're talking in a gut microbiome context, the ecological relationships between these bacteria, bacteriophages, the intestine lining and the immune system determine if a person gets sick or is healthy. It's not as simple as "a bacterial invasion causes infection", which is the simplistic medical model that is used. For e.g. with a Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection, it's not so much the presence of the bacteria (it's present in many individuals but doesn't cause illness there) but its overgrowth that causes illness and death. Other bacteria keeps it in check, competing with it for resources, and so do bacteriophages. It's a very dynamic system. The "good" and "bad" paradigm with regards to bugs needs to die, it's all context dependent. That's also part of the reason why inappropriate usage of antibiotics for an infection can make things worse - it's essentially carpet-bombing your allies that are helping to keep it in check.

Edit: Coincidentally enough, Wired just published an article today (originally from Quanta) about using mathematical modelling to map an ecological community of microbial interactions! How Math Can Help Unravel the Weird Interactions of Microbes | WIRED

Biology is complicated:

In fact, according to his study’s findings, the number of required samples scales linearly with the number of microbial species in the system. (By comparison, with some popular modeling-based approaches, the number of samples needed increases with the square of the number of species in the system.) “I consider this really encouraging for when we talk about the network reconstruction of very large, complex ecosystems,” Liu said. “If we collect enough samples, we can map the ecological network of something like the human gut microbiota.”

Those samples allow scientists to constrain the combination of signs (positive, negative, zero) that broadly define the interactions between any two microbial strains in the network. Without such constraints, the possible combinations are astronomical: “If you have 170 species, there are more possibilities than there are atoms in the visible universe,” said Stefano Allesina, an ecologist at the University of Chicago. “The typical human microbiome has more than 10,000 species.” Liu’s work represents “an algorithm that, instead of exhaustively searching among all possibilities, pre-computes the most informative ones and proceeds in a much quicker way,” Allesina said.

As for why we should care (they make the same point that I did):

Such a collaboration could have practical applications, too. Xavier and his colleagues have found that the microbiome diversity of cancer patients is a huge predictor of their survival after a bone marrow transplant. The medical treatments that precede transplant—acute chemotherapy, prophylactic antibiotics, irradiation—can leave patients with microbiomes in which one microbe overwhelmingly dominates the composition. Such low diversity is often a predictor of low patient survival: According to Xavier, his colleagues at Sloan Kettering have found that the lowest microbial diversity can leave patients with five times the mortality rate seen in patients with high diversity.

Xavier wants to understand the ecological basis for that loss of microbial diversity, in the hopes of designing preventive measures to maintain the needed variability or interventions to reconstitute it. But to do that, he also needs the information Liu’s method provides about microbial interactions. For example, if a patient takes a narrow-spectrum antibiotic, might that affect a broader spectrum of microbes because of ecological dependencies among them? Knowing how an antibiotic’s effects could propagate throughout a microbial network could help physicians determine whether the drug could cause a huge loss to a patient’s microbiome diversity.

There's a section in the article about interaction between dynamic biological systems and environment + vice versa.

 

[Kas]

That is possible, depending on how one defines things. Based on what you have said about your work, most of the folks there would fall in the category we call "technician". A couple of the people in charge might fall under "scientist" or even "(chemical) engineer".

In any case, if you like 80's science shows, have you seen the original Cosmos with Carl Sagan? I really enjoyed those growing up.

It was really good!

 

[Kas]

Do you love science?
Yes, I do.

Favorite areas of science?
Currently astronomy, medicine, philosophy, math.

What does it mean to you?
It represents human curiosity, asking questions about their existence and conditions around them; longing to understand. Sounds like worth effort trying to find any answers. Noticing more practical side, science is simply making our life easier every day.

Are you a scientist or a scientist in training?
No. I would like to though.

Favorite science theories, princples, etc?
I would love to read more about Whitehead theories esp "Process and Reality".


Btw it must have been long time since I've seen started by you thread, because "discuss" in the end made me smile widely

 

[Norexan]

Do you love science?
Yes.

Favorite areas of science?
Chemistry, Physics and Biology

What does it mean to you?
Science is the best way to observe the world.

Are you a scientist or a scientist in training?
No. I studied Medical Biochemistry for a while,now I am on Computer Science (finished soon). But soon I will go into Physical Chemistry which I planned a long ago by the way.

Favorite science theories, principles, etc?
I like to study what is move behind the scenes of eyes. I like to learn how real nature operates.

 

[á´…eparted]

I don't know where to put this, but I just came back from a lecture on microbiomes, and on the way back, it occurred to me how cool it would be if someone made a Planet Earth-style documentary about microorganism. If such a thing already exists, please tell me about it!

Oh man this WOULD be really cool! The problem is the shots would not be as asthetically pleasing as most nature documentaries are, but if it could be animated it might neat, but the amount of work involved in that to make it scientifically accurate would be staggering!