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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 12th, 2023

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  • There’s a lot of assumptions here.

    Significant isn’t specific. A specific number would give us an idea if the rate of crime committed by undocumented persons exceeds, meets, or continues to fall short of the other two groups.

    Next, you’re assuming that the victims of violent crimes by undocumented workers are other undocumented workers. This, to some degree makes sense. But it’s not 100%.

    Next, poverty in of itself isn’t sufficient to predict rates of crime. Crime is a choice taken when there aren’t other avenues available. Arguably, the reasons undocumented peoples move here is because their prospects are better here. That is to say, they chose to leave their people to come here instead of staying there and commiting crime. This isn’t, obviously, specific. But it’s a factor you didn’t consider.

    Finally, what do you mean by class? There’s a lot of usages.

    This isn’t an argument to say you are wrong. It’s an argument that you have been specific or open to other factors.





  • Healthy and unhealthy are composite binary terms that aren’t useful. Specific, contextualized terms are more useful and allow for people to make better choices for the situation.

    Maple syrup has considerable benefits as an alternative to HFCS. First, it’s glycemic index is lower which results in a decrease in blood glucose levels. On top of that, it appears that it promotes insulation secretion.

    Maple syrup is particularly rich in abscisic acid. This acid presents a strong defense against diabetes and metabolic syndrome because it promotes the excretion of insulin from pancreatic cells and boosts fat cells’ sensitivity to insulin.

    As a whole, in order to reduce ones propensity to diabetes, reduce sugar intake. Then, if further steps are needed and reduction is no longer an option, find appropriate substitutes. From the abstract:

    This review presents detailed information about the nutritional, organoleptic, and pharmacological properties of maple syrup. Studies carried out on animal models and a limited number of human models emphasize the potential benefits of maple syrup as a substitute for refined sugars, indicating that it could contribute to improved metabolic health when used in moderation. However, further medical and nutritional health studies based on human health assessments are needed to better understand the mechanisms of action of the various components of maple syrup and its potential therapeutic properties to demonstrate a stronger justification for its consumption relative to refined sugars. In addition, we compare maple syrup and common sweeteners to provide a further critical perspective on the potential nutritional and health benefits of maple syrup.

    And the final sentence:

    More studies are needed to better understand how much maple syrup could be ingested, as part of a regular diet, to promote these pharmacological properties without triggering obesity or weight-related disorders.




  • Again, and I can’t emphasize this enough, this is not my area of study and seems like you have better handling of the subject. But when I read his quote, this part sticks out to me:

    much of the exquisite control over these proteins is held offstage, nested within the noncoding junk.

    Additionally, the article calls into question the role of code and protein production as the only role for DNA.

    Still other noncoding stretches may be buffers against precipitous change, serving rather as flak jackets to absorb the impact of viruses and other genetic interlopers that infiltrate an animal’s chromosomes. Without all the extra padding to absorb the blows, viruses or the bizarre genetic sequences that hop and skip from one part of the chromosome to another – mysterious genetic elements called transposons or jumping genes – might land smack in the middle of a crucial gene, disrupting its performance.

    So there maybe stretches of DNA that don’t participate in protein construction, but still has a role. So I question I idea of centering one type function over another.





  • Good enough for high school biology. But not when you’re doing influential cancer research. The following is from Subanima’s article on the same subject:

    One of the most influential papers in cancer biology published in 2000 was the “Hallmarks of cancer” by Douglas Hanahan and Robert Weinberg. It outlined six of the main capabilities of cancer and laid out a rough program for studying the disease ointo the 21st century. To date, it has over 39,000 citations which, in academia, is officially known as a shitton.

    It was so successful that they released a sequel in 2011 which has over 62,000 citations - also known as a metric shitton.

    But at the heart of both papers is the machine metaphor and the idea that if we just map out all the functions of proteins in one ginormous map, we’ll just have to run some maths and we’ll know everything we need to know to cure cancer. In 2000 they wrote:

    Two decades from now, having fully charted the wiring diagrams of every cellular signalling pathway, it will be possible to lay out the complete ‘integrated circuit of the cell.’

    He also notes the same thing you noted, that it’s a good metaphor for high schoolers.


  • I don’t know too much about the subject, but maybe this almost 30 year old article can help. There’s more specific examples in the article, but this quote captures the direction:

    “I don’t believe in junk DNA,” said Dr. Walter Gilbert of Harvard University, a pre-eminent theoretician of the human genome. “I’ve long believed that the attitude that all information is contained in the coding regions is very shortsighted, reflecting a protein chemist’s bias of looking at DNA.” Coding regions may make the proteins that are dear to a chemist’s heart; but true biologists, he added, know that much of the exquisite control over these proteins is held offstage, nested within the noncoding junk.