...if you dare.

What has been the most difficult part or section of your studies so far?

What are dem big wurds you r useing?

What has been the most difficult part or section of your studies so far?


The part where nobody knows WTF is going on and I have to make up something to explain how I might potentially go about figuring it out :D  I think the profs are just interested in picking our brains to see if we actually have some brilliant ideas hidden within our lobes.

Mostly it's trying to integrate all the different pathways we have to learn into one big network to see how the cell works...with 30000+ genes, multiple splice forms, and cell-specific expression of these genes/splice forms, you can imagine how difficult it is to set up an experiment with the proper controls.


What are dem big wurds you r useing?


I dunno...I'd much rather say "This cell is all messed up" rather than use all them big words.

Is Bioscience named after some guy named O'Science who is Bi?

What are dem big wurds you r useing?


Why is your son talking about photosynthesis at such a young age?  :D

Is Bioscience named after some guy named O'Science who is Bi?


Yes, Bioscience is actually an Irish import.  Back in the 18th and 19th Centuries when the Irish ran out of potatoes and drunk themselves silly, there was a sharp increase in the number of cases of liver failure and cirrhosis, so Wallace O'Science decided to figure out why.  Wally O actually had two lovers, one female who became his wife, and Paddy McToole, who became his poolboy...this was not publicly known at the time but in 1953, after Watson and Crick discovered the true structure of DNA, they found some evidence of O'Science's three-way trysts in the O'Science archives. 

By the way, your joke sucked and I'm reporting you to a moderator.


Why is your son talking about photosynthesis at such a young age?  :D


He likes being outdoors :)

Yes, Bioscience is actually an Irish import.  Back in the 18th and 19th Centuries when the Irish ran out of potatoes and drunk themselves silly, there was a sharp increase in the number of cases of liver failure and cirrhosis, so Wallace O'Science decided to figure out why.  Wally O actually had two lovers, one female who became his wife, and Paddy McToole, who became his poolboy...this was not publicly known at the time but in 1953, after Watson and Crick discovered the true structure of DNA, they found some evidence of O'Science's three-way trysts in the O'Science archives. 

By the way, your joke sucked and I'm reporting you to a moderator.


That's terrible. And you're probably going to get reported for stereotyping the Irish, you conservative bastard.

Ooh, now I'm going to get reported for calling you names. Maybe we should all just shut up now.

Well, his joke DID suck!  This is like the first time I've ever seen a joke require a wheelchair and a breathing apparatus, it was that lame :D

No offense or nothin'.

Well, his joke DID suck!  This is like the first time I've ever seen a joke require a wheelchair and a breathing apparatus, it was that lame :D

No offense or nothin'.


Sorta like that episode of Tiny Toons with the Lame Joke and the Running Gag and stuff.

Sorta like that episode of Tiny Toons with the Lame Joke and the Running Gag and stuff.


The Lame Joke died :(

when are yall gonna quit messin' around and cure cancer already? dag.

when are yall gonna quit messin' around and cure cancer already? dag.


See above about the 30000+ genes that are crashing all around in each cell.  You have no idea how difficult it is to sort out one pathway, and considering that pathways are interconnected, redundant, and threshold-driven, that adds yet another layer of complication into the mix.  Couple that with the scientific method where you have to design carefully controlled experiments to prove your hypothesis.

But in the past 50 years, we've gone from just chopping off chunks of tissue to zapping tumors with finely-focused radiation to targeted drug therapies (i.e. Imatinib for certain leukemias) so it'll happen.

The "cure" for cancer isn't really a good word.  Cancer happens just about every day in your body, you just have really good mechanisms of dealing with it.  The "cure" is really to make the cancer die or regress or at least stop growing and invading your vital tissues.  Problem is that the cancer cells essentially derived from your own cells and that means that we have to design therapies that can distinguish minute differences between normal cells and cancer cells.  Not so easy...almost needle-in-a-haystack-ish.

So yeah, it's really frickin' hard to cure cancer.

See above about the 30000+ genes that are crashing all around in each cell.  You have no idea how difficult it is to sort out one pathway, and considering that pathways are interconnected, redundant, and threshold-driven, that adds yet another layer of complication into the mix.  Couple that with the scientific method where you have to design carefully controlled experiments to prove your hypothesis.

But in the past 50 years, we've gone from just chopping off chunks of tissue to zapping tumors with finely-focused radiation to targeted drug therapies (i.e. Imatinib for certain leukemias) so it'll happen.

The "cure" for cancer isn't really a good word.  Cancer happens just about every day in your body, you just have really good mechanisms of dealing with it.  The "cure" is really to make the cancer die or regress or at least stop growing and invading your vital tissues.  Problem is that the cancer cells essentially derived from your own cells and that means that we have to design therapies that can distinguish minute differences between normal cells and cancer cells.  Not so easy...almost needle-in-a-haystack-ish.

So yeah, it's really frickin' hard to cure cancer.


Well maybe you shouldn't spend so much time on here. Then you'd accomplish something. ;D

Well maybe you shouldn't spend so much time on here. Then you'd accomplish something. ;D
http://i9.tinypic.com/49kaln9.jpg

although that's true of me as well. :-[

Well maybe you shouldn't spend so much time on here. Then you'd accomplish something. ;D


Go Jess,there's nothing i enjoy more than a wife putting her man in his place :)


My question:

What made you want to study bioscience?

What made you want to study bioscience?


I like to learn stuff :)  Even if you don't believe in God or a higher power, there is something magical and mysterious about how a bunch of random molecules came together to form life in its present form.  There is an incredible amount of knowledge left out there to discover, and one day the magic can be broken down to its base parts, but for now, it is amazing to think of how several key events set forth a few billion years ago jumpstarted the phenomenon we call life.  Order out of nothingness, y'know?


Well maybe you shouldn't spend so much time on here. Then you'd accomplish something. ;D


I wouldn't spend so much time on here if you weren't here either ;) :-*

I like to learn stuff :)  Even if you don't believe in God or a higher power, there is something magical and mysterious about how a bunch of random molecules came together to form life in its present form.  There is an incredible amount of knowledge left out there to discover, and one day the magic can be broken down to its base parts, but for now, it is amazing to think of how several key events set forth a few billion years ago jumpstarted the phenomenon we call life.  Order out of nothingness, y'know?




I know,that's a great answer,i don't hate you so much anymore ;)

I know,that's a great answer,i don't hate you so much anymore ;)


Don't be hatin' :D

Does bioscience include cloning and genetic engineering? Most of what we hear about gene-splicing almost always has to do with agriculture and how they modify certain plants to make them grow faster or be more resistant to bugs or weeds, but how do we know that there aren't some mad scientists out there doing more sinister experiments? Sometimes I wonder if there isn't some nutjob in some secret underground lab somewhere in the Middle East who right now is working feverishly on creating a super race of flying land sharks, and one of these days he's gonna turn them loose and they'll come swooping down out of the sky and start devouring us all.  :o :o :o

How close are you now to curing cancer?

Rice, if you ever come back here, what do you think of the folks behind the OpenPCR kit that was released this week?  

(And more generally, how did things go academically, and how's the DIY Bio scene in your neck of the woods?)