Nerdy Science Blog

The long term pregnancy study conducted in Australia showed that there is relation between mother and children smoking behavior.

The proportion of the children who took up regular smoking was greater among those whose mothers had smoked during the pregnancy than among those whose mothers had not.

—— ScienceDaily: Pregnant Smokers May ‘Program’ Their Kids To Become Smokers

Although there are other factors that will lead one to smoking, but it is discouraged to smoke during pregnancy.

1. Higher chance of having stillborn baby
2. Higher chance of miscarriage
3. Deliver low birth-weight baby
4. The chance of occurring Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is twice in those who smoke during pregnancy
5. Lead to wide variety of pregnancy complication (premature rupture of membranes, vaginal bleeding and premature placental detachment, etc.)
6. Lead to neural tube defects
7. Harm your developing baby

You can read more for detailed effects of smoking during pregnancy.

Popularity: 11% [?]

LiveScience listed out ten easy paths to self destruction.

1. Eat Junk
2. Smoke
3. Watch TV
4. Stress Out
5. Drink a lot
6. Drive a lot
7. Have a lot of Sex
8. Dumb down your brain
9. Ignore the doctor
10. Sacrifice sleep

If you are really considering of self destruction, I would suggest you to kill yourself a.k.a. commit suicide. Based on the above 10 ways, here are ten simple ways to commit suicide:

1. Eat Junk - Eat rotten animals as junks (preferable birds or mice)
2. Smoke - Smoke beside an oil tank
3. Watch TV - Watch “gloomy sunday” music video (if it exists)
4. Stress Out - Perhaps you can find a roommate and stressed him out, the chance of dying is higher
5. Drink a lot - Many people are having unconcious sex after drinking, perhaps you can try that at Thailand without bringing and condom
6. Drive a lot - and drive fast
7. Have a lot of Sex - with the HIV patients before you still have the ability to do so
8. Dumb down your brain - might just knock the wall with your head
9. Ignore the doctor - try mass murder the doctors in those death-penalty-allowed countries
10. Sacrifice sleep - take a lot of drugs

I guess a lot of scientists did not wait till the day to receive nobel prize as they died young.

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Proteins are one of the major components that build up the bodies of organisms, they are important, they are perform many function such as enzymes, bodies structural elements and etc as you know it.

In our body, proteins assemble themselves, or “fold”. The process of protein folding is crucial; if proteins fold in place, you should praise ‘hallelujah’ every morning when you wake up. Other wise, when proteins misfold, there’s how famous disease like Mad Cow and etc happen. Consequences of the misfold can be deadly. Knowing how proteins fold is thus important, they might help in solving problems related to proteins folding, included Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and etc. However, in many ways, the process remains mystery.

That’s why scientists are keen to find out how proteins fold in molecular level.

This particular website, Fold@home is aimed to understand protein folding, misfolding, and related disease. It is quite interesting. Fold@home is actually a distributed computing project, they provide software for peoples all over the world to download and run software to band together to make one of the largest supercomputers in the world. At current, the are working on Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, huntington’s disease, osteogenesis imperfecta and etc.

We might not proteins expert, and we might not being able to understand what are they doing, but we can always take a peep how are those fellow scientists are working.

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Salk Institute for Biological Studies:

— La Jolla, CA —Chop off a salamander’s leg and a brand new one will sprout in no time. But most animals have lost the ability to replace missing limbs. Now, a research team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has been able to regenerate a wing in a chick embryo – a species not known to be able to regrow limbs - suggesting that the potential for such regeneration exists innately in all vertebrates, including humans.

The researchers discovered that the Wnt signaling system is responsible for the body regeneration. If human’s Wnt signaling is activated, here are three consequences:

1. You can sell your limbs or organs (perhaps some people do not have this Wnt signaling activated)
2. Every soldiers in US army will activate their Wnt signaling.
3. Human species will long live like cockroach.

Perhaps you would like to watch a video of a frog regrow its fully limb within three weeks.

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AIBS is a non-commercial, educational biology website which looks into the following issues:

• Biodiversity
• Environment
• Genomics
• Biotechnology
• Evolution
• New Frontiers
• Education

Link: ActionBioscience.org - examines bioscience issues

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Beginner’s Guide to Molecular Biology is an online resource that provides useful information on molecular biology for beginner like student level. It contains information such as definition of life, cell biology, mitosis and meiosis, DNA structure and etc, which you can easily find in any pre-university of 6^th Form biology text books.

Enjoy learning.

Links: Beginner’s Guide to Molecular Biology.

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“The Prestige”, which was directed by Christopher Nolan, is talking about two rival magicians’ battle. This life-long battle broughts many tragic consequences.

I like the movie (maybe because i’m fascinated with magics). I could not predict what will happen next in the movie. There are some interesting lines in the movie.

Cutter: Obsession is a young man’s game

I saw many researchers lost interests in trying new things and ideas, they rather stick to the old-rules and require you to do the same thing. They just want to see what they want to see, and i think that is kickass.

Rupert Angier: No one cares about the man in the box, the man who disappears

Would you rather be the man in the box or the prestige? Often those nobel laureates did not continue in research field anymore after they got the nobel prize. Even if they want to, but they hardly got chance to fully concentrate in the research.

Rupert Angier: Man’s reach exeeds his imagination!

That is why there is always breakthrough in science and we can still be better.

The prestige is the last part of the magic which will earn respect and applause from audience. The movie is telling us that we are looking at the truth, just that we are fooling ourselves. We often see facts and truth in everyday life, but no one tries to figure out why things are happening that way, just you will never try to figure out why there are images on the television.

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I think this is funny and very true.

The theoretical scientific method is: Observe natural phenomena –> Formulate Hypothesis –> Test hypothesis via rigorous experiment (–> modify hypothesis) –> Establish Theory based on repeated validation of results.

But the fact is: Make up theory based on what Funding Agency Manager wants to be true –> Design minimum experiment that will suggest Theory is true (–> Modify Theory to fit data) –> Publich Paper: rename Theory a “Hypothesis” and pretend you used the Scientific Method –> Defend Theory despite all evidence to the contrary.

I stumbled this at PhD (Piled Higher and Deeper) Comic.

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