I'm a molecular biologist at a fairly prestigious university.I have some proposals due soon that I am procrastinating on. Anyone want to ask me shit?I'm happy to answer questions about biology, academia and science in general.

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Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 02/05/15 (Thu) 17:38:54 No.1550

>>1547
Lots of competition for tenure track. You hear about a dozen fresh PhDs rolling off the assembly line for each new position that opens and so on. People tend to be hired by "lower" schools than the one where they did their PhD. You can move up, but you need to get some top-tier publications out and not everyone can manage it. Many years of postdoc supposedly becoming the norm these days before making faculty.

Private is a bit different. It's still a mystery to me exactly how it works, but based on what I got from job ads, it's similar to a faculty position, except they care less about publications and more about having done work in a relevant area. Pays much better, better hours, but more hardcore project management.

With less than PhD it actually looks like you can land some pretty nice entry level positions (with opportunity for promotion).

>>1548
Lab biology these days is a bit weird with names. There's supposedly tons of sub-disciplines but at the end of the day, we all make plasmids, run qPCR, sequence and do Westerns. Same shit, only the names of the genes change.

Technically, molecular biologists take what genetics finds out about function of genes, and try to connect that to what biochemistry finds out about the chemical properties of proteins.

In practice it seems like:
>biochemistry is crystallography, folding, enzyme activity assays, drug design and structure-function relation (effects of mutations)
>molecular biology is model cell lines, signalling cascades, what protein interacts with what, how protein complexes assemble and what they do
>genetics is mutant animals and population genetics studies
>bioinformatics is fucking around with sequence
>computational biology is simulation

>Are you interested in folding proteins?
In general principles that govern it, sure. In folding them myself, not so much. It seems like a very boring problem, all they do is write Rosetta plugins. A few people are trying really cool stuff, like using known folding algorithms to actually design their own proteins with arbitrary function from scratch, but it doesn't really work yet.

>>1549
There's a few I like to fantasize about.

>Programmer
Pays well. Coding is easy and fun (I'm already bretty gud at it, I bet I could be amazing if I studied it for 4 years and did it for a living). Easy to freelance. Didn't do it because I was worried I'd sperg out over code one night too many and snap.

>Finance
Seems like this is the way to get rich. Finance is sort of interesting. Seems apolitical unlike academia. I probably wouldn't cut it, because I didn't go to HYP and I'm not very alpha.

>Mech/aerospace engineer. Building shit is fun and automation is the future. Meritocratic and intellectual work. Probably wouldn't work out because I'm not a math wizard, my grades would be shit.

For all of these, there's a lot more control over your career. In biology, you can't really work unless you have a lab, and you won't get a lab unless you're under some big institute or megacorp. Which means if you don't want to live in a big city, or want to tone down your career and take it easy, you can't really do it. Can't decide on were you will live (you move wherever you get a job), can't decide where the field will go (it's hard to not work on whatever is the latest fad, and you have zero control over what will be the new fad tomorrow).

02/05/15 (Thu) 18:15:43 No.1551

>>1550
>In biology, you can't really work unless you have a lab

Does biology make you an expert at brewing beer?

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 02/05/15 (Thu) 21:31:45 No.1560

>>1551
Biology equips with a lot of knowledge that is helpful for getting good at brewing your beer. However most of this only becomes relevant at industrial scales. If you want to brew your own beer, it's only mildly helpful.

For learning how to brew good beer at your home, you're better off learning from brewers and reading brewing books rather than spending ages on irrelevant yeast biology.

If you mean working at a brewery, that's not very helpful. Big companies do hire PhDs but they probably look for beer nerds who can spout off all sorts of jargon at interviews (just guessing, maybe not true). So you won't get hired simply because you have the degree (and this is assuming you even work on yeast in the first place).

If you mean microbreweries, I doubt your degree will count for much. You will get a lot of competition from people who didn't go to grad school, but simply know their beer and have experience.

Biology helps you brew like chemistry helps you paint. It kinda does, but that's missing the point.

02/06/15 (Fri) 04:04:00 No.1563

>>1541
Sorry but I'm coming from a position of no formal training and while "balance the equation" may be the answer I don't know how.
After years of amateur solid rocketry I'm moving into hybrids, I am doing ok getting my head around liquid and thermal dynamics but I struggle with the chemistry. I'm looking at paraffin wax fuel with nitrous oxide as the oxidizer and want to calculate the ratios (I need stoichiometric and fuel rich for lower combustion temperatures) before I start designing the rocket.
My current understanding leads me to believe that 250N in a 200mm dia. airframe will work well but I need to calculate exact oxidizer volume to get the filled tank weight.

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 02/06/15 (Fri) 10:09:16 No.1568

File: 1423217356181.png (7.12 KB, 856x82, 428:41, chem.png)

>>1563
Unless I'm mistaken, it's really not a complicated thing.

Take this one for example. Some nitric acid and calcium hydroxide react to make calcium nitrate and water. But how much nitric acid? How much calcium hydroxide? How much calcium nitrate? How much water?

Let's give a letter to each one showing their relative ratios (a, b, c, d). Now, when talking about the amount, you don't want to go by mass because different atoms have different mass so it becomes a mess. It's easier to just count up the molecules and figure out the mass afterward. So the letters indicate relative amounts. For each a molecules of HNO3, you need b molecules of Ca(OH)2 and so on.

Molecules may break up and reform, but ordinary chemistry cannot destroy or create atoms. Therefore, if you have say 7 atoms of hydrogen going into a reaction, 7 must come out. Ditto for every element (and actually, electrons as well).

So let's count the hydrogen. Both of the inputs contain hydrogen. Each a molecules of HNO3 contains a*1 hydrogens, each b Ca(OH)2 contains 2*b hydrogens. So we are putting in a+2b. For the outputs, we have 2d hydrogen. So now we can conclude
>a+2b = 2d
Because otherwise, we would be vanishing hydrogens or conjuring them from thin air. This is our first clue.

Next, let's count the nitrogen. a goes in, 2c comes out. Second clue:
>a = 2c

Now oxygen. 3a and 2b go in, 6c and d come out.
>3a+2b = 6c+d

Last, the calcium. b goes in, c comes out.
>b = c

So now, we have a system of 4 equations of 4 variables:
>a+2b = 2d
>a = 2c
>3a+2b = 6c+d
>b = c
This is a basic math problem, and you can solve it with standard methods. Once you do, you will discover the real values of a, b, c and d (the molar ratio of reactants).

Like most actual reactions, the math for this one is very easy to solve. You don't even need to do much algebra. For instance, if b=c, we rewrite a=2c into a=2b. But if a=2b, we can also rewrite a+2b=2d into a+a=2a=2d. Now we find out a=d. We can now pick a=2, then d=2, b=1 and c=1.

So every 2 molecules of HNO3 react with exactly 1 molecule of Ca(OH)2 and make 1 molecule of each product. Since you can't actually take a microscope and count molecules in real life, you can look up how many molecules there are in a gram of HNO3, and convert these ratios into masses that you can weigh out in your lab.

02/06/15 (Fri) 14:38:28 No.1570

File: 1423233508286.png (5.19 KB, 487x72, 487:72, paraffin_nitrous.png)

>>1568
Thanks for being patient with an idiot. I found pic related for the combustion products and with nitrous oxide having a molar mass of 44.013 g/mol and paraffin having a molar mass of 394.7601 g/mol I'll need 3,741.105 grams of N2O for every 394.7601 grams of paraffin. This give me a ratio of 9.477 nitrous to paraffin by weight.

Now I can start doing tank strength calculations based on 13.7Mpa rupture pressure.

Now I can get this project moving again. Thank you.

02/06/15 (Fri) 18:34:34 No.1573

what is it that decides which parts of the DNA is to be used? if it's some sort of protein, would it not be possible to inject oneself with an engineered protein thus altering oneself?

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 02/07/15 (Sat) 05:41:21 No.1586

>>1570
No worries. I hesitated initially since I didn't want to come across as condescending by explaining something too basic.

With big numbers like in your pic, you want to check if it's really reduced all the way. It's okay to divide all multipliers by the same number, since it's a ratio. In your case, this doesn't apply, the multiplier of paraffin is already 1.

Haven't checked it but your calculations look correct.

One thing that might be important is temperature. Pressure depends on temperature, and your reaction may fuck with that a bit. That's more of a chem eng question at that point,though.

>>1573
What? Do you mean how cells decide which genes to express?

There are transcription factors. These are required to express a gene. A gene for lactase may have a transcription factor that only activates in presence of lactose. TFs ultimately do a lot of the logic of cell behavior and genetics, but there are many other ways of regulation.

Injecting yourself with TFs won't do much. They're proteins and won't be absorbed in your cells. It's possible to inject protein directly into cells, but that's not practical for a whole organism and the protein usually has a short half life, a few hours or less.

A lot of research these days is about injecting shRNA, which is similar to TFs but it binds to RNA not DNA, and it's made of RNA not protein. It still needs to be delivered to cells but this is also a bit easier.

The nice way of altering yourself would be to deliver DNA to your cells somehow. You can make the DNA unstable, so that it lasts only briefly for a temporary effect.

Currently all of this research is shitcanned by FDA because an attempt to use gene therapy to cure cancer a few years back killed the test patients, and govt freaked out.

02/08/15 (Sun) 11:52:46 No.1592

>>1537
are you a student or a postdoc or wat

02/09/15 (Mon) 21:57:33 No.1602

File: 1423519053774.jpg (146.09 KB, 1044x614, 522:307, homospecies.JPG)

Probably no where near your field but here we go.

Attempts in were done in russia to breed foxes for fur with manageable temperaments. The results after only several generations were; Total success! they got the personality of an affectionate puppy consistently. And… Total Failure! the animals showed neotenous traits like the white patches of fir on the chest, feet and elsewhere like you see in domestic dogs. Th9is made the fur useless.
So, if domesticating an animal is so fast and easy could it be done on something like a gibbon or even a chimp?
Talk about the perfect handicapped helper animal.
In fact lets take the greater apes and selectively breed them for neotenous traits as much as we can and see what we get; artificially re-create the events of human evolution.
Question; is there any way to get an estimate of our potential success without all those poopy cages? Can some estimate be gotton from examining DNA or in some other way "on paper" for less cost?

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 02/10/15 (Tue) 00:35:33 No.1605

>>1602
Well the foxes are much easier. They mature quickly, so the generations are very rapid.

Besides these guys were doing some real caveman breeding. If you were really serious these days, and had money and expertise, you could easily combine some hardcore genotyping and IVF to massively accelerate things. They didn't even have a clear goal, they were just randomly selecting (can't even quantify friendliness). Look at how quickly dog breeds are made. It's not hard.

Chimps would be much slower because of slow maturation. Also chimps are much stronger than humans, and pretty dangerous animals. Gibbons, perhaps, could work. Some people already use them to put on shows and make money, I'm sure some train them to pick pockets or steal as well.

As for recapitulating evolution, I doubt it. First of all, humans didn't evolve from gorillas, the common ancestor is extinct now. Besides that human culture and intellect evolved in concert, all against the backdrop of a fading ice age and roaming megafauna. I don't think simply breeding a few monkeys is gonna account for any of that.

Estimate of what? Potential of domestication? Not really. You can say this animal would be very bad, or it would be fucking ass bad. It's so unpredictable that you can never confidently claim selective breeding won't be prohibitively expensive. If you were really excited by artificial selection, I'd advise looking into agri crops: 1 year, sometimes faster generation, much easier to control, much more quantitative and solid goals, very well developed (it helps that you can't go in and modify the genes directly because of irrational public outcry).

02/11/15 (Wed) 22:01:51 No.1636

File: 1423692111806.jpg (340.33 KB, 1158x1116, 193:186, infant ape.jpg)

>>1605

Well, of course all our common ancestors are all long extinct so whatever you got out of selective breeding would not be H. Sapiens. It would be Pan Pan with a very small sampling of the most desirable (for artificial purposes) genes. Consider this: in the lab chimps and gorillas regularly score from 60 to 80 on IQ test designed for young children. If the mean for us is 100 and the record somewhere near 200 then what is the highest for the great apes?
Chimp generation are almost as long as human generations but assuming we have a large enough gene pool to work with there should be some real results with as few as 10 or 12 generations.
The pic is a Pan Pan fetus at six months compared to an adult. The brain/body mass ratio for the fetus is even the same as it is for a modern human.
Clearly we are a neotenous ape.

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 02/12/15 (Thu) 09:54:09 No.1646

>>1636
Chimps are Pan troglodytes. There is no Pan pan.

>chimps and gorillas regularly score from 60 to 80 on IQ test
Really? Do you have a source? That sounds pretty hilarious, given that there are countries which average 60-something.

But yes, especially if the above is true, I'm sure 10-12 generations would be able to create a subservient, hyperintelligent chimp.

I think you could get even better results with gorillas, since they've demonstrated a much better ability to speak than chimps. Of course, on the other hand, gorillas are even harder to keep happy in captivity.

But both are still very dangerous animals. Even after 12 generations, you couldn't easily start keeping them as pets like you could with foxes. Not to say it wouldn't be an interesting experiment, but who would actually go and do it?

02/14/15 (Sat) 12:22:53 No.1665

File: 1423916572736.png (295.46 KB, 637x308, 91:44, Neotenous self.png)

>>1636
You really should be more skeptical of sources that confirm your hypothesis. Your pic related is highly deceptive, so I'm not confident on the rest of your sources.

MrFarmer 02/15/15 (Sun) 22:56:45 No.1684

File: 1424041005682.jpg (54.87 KB, 495x430, 99:86, kokoscores.JPG)

>>1646
The term Pan Pan was used by people who did not accept that P. Bonobo was a separate species. I believe this point of view has been discredited but those other three are still considered subspecies of one of the two recognized species.
OK, my next apology for unscientific thought was using the word “regularly” I could find only a few anecdotes to back up my statement. One is in the pic but that is an individual raised in a very enriched environment and she may or may not be mean in her predisposition.
Next is here.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28978132/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/baby-chimps-given-human-love-ace-iq-tests/#.VOEW2tLF9w4
Hardly peer reviewed but a generally reliable news source.
Note that both cases suggest a narrow gap between humans and other apes at an early age. Things are likely very different between 20 year olds.
You know the reason I find this whole train of thought interesting is not because I think we should create a slave race, machines don’t poop themselves, but I think a look at a (slightly) alien intellect could be enlightening.
I still think there is a lot going on down there between those dolphins and whales we just can’t wrap our primate brains around. Understand the kinfolk could widen our horizons a bit.

>>1665
The hypothesis is not mine. It is commonly argued about by biologists. I am a mere dilettante and not qualified to defend the point. but here's the wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny#In_humans

Thanks for the selfie kek.

MrFarmer 02/16/15 (Mon) 00:32:46 No.1690

File: 1424046766664-0.jpg (104.42 KB, 1100x786, 550:393, Neoteny_in_humans2.jpg)

File: 1424046766664-1.jpg (94.78 KB, 850x289, 50:17, 377.jpg)

File: 1424046766664-2.jpg (117.73 KB, 564x443, 564:443, Erectus progressive neoten….jpg)

File: 1424046766664-3.jpg (177.07 KB, 1243x1036, 1243:1036, ChimpFoetus_TXTSide_WordWE….jpg)

>>1665
>>1684
Note that the point of contention is the degree and significance of neoteny in human evolution. The fact that is is there is not disputed. Things like the sagittal crest which develops late in chimp and gorilla fetuses and not at all in humans make that pretty clear. The wiki article gives several pretty convincing examples.
In my layman's opinion (IMLO?) it's probably the 300% increase in brain to body ratio that drove the whole thing even if the more complex structures to fully exploit that increase did not appear until later.
To understand the potential of neoteny to influence a species' development look into marine mammals, flightless birds and the axolotl.

02/17/15 (Tue) 22:05:24 No.1702

>>1537

Why did you get into Molecular Biology?

What did you think you were doing vs what you actually do?

>>1570
>>1563

You're building a hybrid rocket motor?

I'm interested. Want to share?

>Now I can start doing tank strength calculations based on 13.7Mpa rupture pressure.

I've always wanted to understand the pressures inside a rocket motor but I'm not good enough yet ;_;

Biofag!Sf7IqoGAqM 02/18/15 (Wed) 02:30:37 No.1705

>>1684
I didn't know that about Pan Pan.

>IQ tests
That's amazing. Humans of that IQ could be expected to obtain a job and support a family.

I think some of those scores are enough to be a police officer, according to this: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf

Seriously, though, I think this is more evidence of the limitations of IQ tests than surprising capacities of great ape intellect. It just goes to show that there's more to "intelligence" than being good at recognizing abstract patterns in progressive matrices.

Sorry if I'm not saying much that's interesting. Most of my knowledge is really benchtop biology, at the single cell level. Anthropology is a whole subject in its own right that I'm hardly well versed in.

>>1702
>Why did you get into Molecular Biology?
Combination of reasons. It seemed like the field with the most potential to benefit humanity and lead to biggest practical applications, cell biology was a subject that came most effortlessly and intuitively to me, and as I said above I didn't go with CS because I didn't want to be surrounded by autistic nerds. All of this is teenage-me thinking, and pretty naive.

Today, I'd say my motivation is that I'm good at it, and it's intellectually hardcore in its own way. I'm sure some will immediately start the discipline wars, but unlike physics and math (which I grant require much more hard math) biology is a mix of being able to learn an extremely wide breath of information, being able to quickly understand the salient points of unfamiliar information, having an instinctive grasp of statistics, being very clever about experiment design, cognizance of cost of equipment and materials vs. scientific payoff and being good with your hands. If you put all this together, it's a unique set of demands that not everyone can do, especially if you add the constraint that they must do it well and learn it in a reasonable time-frame. You can memorize all the facts you want, and learn any number of technique, but at the end of the day putting it all together to create a worthwhile whole takes raw talent. When you can do it, it feels really good to know you're mastering something 99% couldn't hope to learn. When you can't, you feel like shit.

>What did you think you were doing vs what you actually do?
Before I started studying my major I thought I would just go through the genome like you read code, find the part that says "avg_lifespan = 70;", add a zero, and collect Nobel Prize for inventing immortality. I thought it was all about walking into the lab, pondering intensely, then after a eureka moment taking an exotic sample, adding a strange chemical, then poof! A great scientific finding happens!

In reality, most of what I do is:
- Routine methods done over and over and over and over
- Troubleshooting experiments that "everyone knows they always work", but which don't
- Figuring out why a published result that you wanted to build on doesn't work when you try it (it's because the paper's authors originally did 10 tries, took the best one, and wrote it up as if it worked on the first attempt)
- Writing endless proposals, paper drafts, grant and fellowship applications, trying to make a two-bit project seem like it will solve every problem ever (for the low, low price of …!)
- Miscellaneous bureaucratic busywork
- Getting drunk on cheap beer with other scientists

Biofag!Sf7IqoGAqM 02/18/15 (Wed) 02:38:45 No.1706

>>1705
I'll add: I guess the difference between biology and the "harder" sciences is that biology very much about craftiness, resourcefulness and perseverance in the face of failure and confusion.

Being part of a lab or a research group is a lot like being in a cult: The immediate practical aspects (such as work hours, pay, etc) don't really seem to justify it, and your every waking moment is spent preoccupied with certain obscure concepts that are unknown and incomprehensible to almost everyone outside your fellow cultists, yet to you seem so supremely important that it is unthinkable to devote your life to anything else. And doing so is somehow perversely satisfying.

02/18/15 (Wed) 20:55:18 No.1712

>>1705
>I didn't know that about Pan Pan.
Back when I went to school prions were called microvirii.

To re-rail your thread; when trisomy 21 or cri du chat syndrome happens in humans is it is it some flaw of meiosis or was there something wrong with the diploid cell before that?
2) same question for the XYY and XXY and so on.

02/18/15 (Wed) 20:58:02 No.1713

>>1712
It's a mistake during meiosis. The thing is the majority of multi-chromosome events result in an abort. Trisomy of chromosome 21 is one of the few that still creates a viable embryo.

02/18/15 (Wed) 21:24:49 No.1714

>>1713
>Trisomy of chromosome 21 is one of the few that still creates a viable embryo.
That leads me to speciation.
I easily understand how two populations drift apart genetically and new mutations work better for one than the other but when it comes to the time when one or both actually have a different number of chromosome pairs than the common ancestor how does that "jump" happen? One day everybody has one number of pairs and later they all have a different number. Are viable odd numbers like trisome21 in humans responsible?
For example, lets assume that two trisomy 21 humans produced a viable offspring it has a chance of having 24 pairs.
I know it is probably not viable how else can a species end up with a different number than it's ancestors?

02/18/15 (Wed) 21:29:51 No.1715

>>1714
Me again wikipedia may have just given me a hint;XXXY are viable (they are male) so right there we have an H. Sapiens (sort of) with 48 total.
Is this it?

02/19/15 (Thu) 02:00:01 No.1716

>>1714
>>1715
In mammals at least, I would not be surprised if multiple sex chromosome events are some of the most common ways in which the number of chromosomes in a clade gets expanded. Most mammals deactivate one of their diploid sex chromosomes early in embryogenesis which means that X chromosome polyploid events are the most likely to be viable.

However, the most common manner overall in which an organism increases its chromosome count is though simple chromosomal splitting events. The reverse often happens as well; chromosomal fusion is why humans have one less pair of chromosomes than our great ape cousins.

Master_Bateman MrFarmer 02/19/15 (Thu) 16:51:36 No.1726

File: 1424364696343.png (2.52 KB, 291x192, 97:64, Chromosome2_merge.png)

>>1716
>chromosomal fusion
Thanks for the excellent search terms.
Now my mad-scientist project is to split the chromosome2 in a human sperm right at the vestigial telomere and fertilize a chimp ovum with it.
My Humanzee minions will be unstoppable!

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 04/26/15 (Sun) 05:42:23 No.2157

Let's see if my trip is still working…

>>1716

Well, there's also polyploidy, which is pretty common, especially in non-mammals. But I would say sex chromosomes are a very minor factor. The mammalian situation is a bit of an exception, part of the picture there is inter-sexual conflict.

Flies for instance don't deactivate sex chromosomes.

04/28/15 (Tue) 16:29:24 No.2171

Balkanfag here , Im also a Molecular Biologist 3rd year with set sights in a Phd in Human Genetics . So from what I've been told it seems that if I go to a US uni I don't have to pay anything related to the semesters and the course as a whole (im not really sure as to what the bureaucratic terminology is so sorry bout that ) and I get paid some amount of money for studying there . Is this true

And more importantly are there any Molecular Biology research done in the military sector ? One would think the military would want to invest hardcore money in the chance of making super soldiers

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 04/29/15 (Wed) 00:12:37 No.2173

>>2171

For a PhD, that's true. Any program worth naming (basically like top 200) will pay you a stipend, usually 25-35k per year before tax. If you adjust for cost of living you get almost the exact same, all considered not too terrible standard of life.

Make sure you ask to speak with current students during the application though, especially if there's a STEM grad student union talk to them. At some schools, if you don't win a fellowship (you get paid either way, but if you win a fellowship the money comes out of the government not the department or your advisor's grant, so they like that) you have to TA as "payment" for the stipend they give you. TAing is a lot of work and takes a lot of time so it's much better if you can avoid it.

For MS, us is very bad - almost impossible to get funding, and it costs about 100-200k no matter how brilliant you are. So if you want an MS go to yurop, where THEY pay YOU.

Everywhere else in the academic world, including Europe, Australia and almost anywhere else you also get a salary/stipend. Although outside of US the amount may differ and you may need to apply for grants. Nobody really does a PhD for free, if you ever get offered an unpaid spot just walk away, that's a scam.

It's also common for schools to reimburse you a grand or so for "moving expenses", meaning free plane ticket. If you go to conferences you can usually have them pay that as well, so that's a free vacation if it's some place nice.

That said, a PhD is a lot of work, and you can easily end up putting in 60-70 hours a week. A lot of the time that's just personal stubbornness and passion, so you could do 40 if you really wanted to (and had the right kind of advisor) but my point is, if you're good enough to get admitted to a good program, you're probably good enough to just find a job that pays more (often 2x-3x more by the end of your first year) for less work.

There is a lot of military research, including in the US. The military is actually emerging as a funder superior to NIH/NSF in US even for civilian researchers: They like biotech, synthetic biology, agriculture (plant biology), infectious disease (malaria and so on), wound healing, brain-computer interfaces, human physiology (think blood pressure regulating suits for pilots and so on) and similar things.

Military has their own secret research labs too, I think they work a lot on bioweapons and poisons, in addition to normal civvie tech like above except they believe their idea is too good not to keep secret. However these are usually pretty operator places, most personnel has some kind of officer rank, clearance and so on. I've heard of random foreigners getting jobs at some military labs, but I have a suspicion you'll really feel the drawbacks of being non-American.

For human genetics, I have to say it's hard to see them being interested (although they might, since it has mass public health implications and that is relevant for national security). If you wanted to do that, I'd suggest finding allied fields (say use your experience with signaling and regulation to get into wound healing). I don't think they really do any biology on the super soldier front, as opposed to mechanical devices. There's too much stigma, and these days the military is actually lowering physical standards for new recruits, so it seems like they don't care about how quality their meatbags are. I dunno, maybe they do it but it's secret.

Why do you want military though? Private sector is exploding these days between shit like 23andme and personalized medicine becoming a buzzword. If you learn to code you could do pretty well in California.

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 04/29/15 (Wed) 00:14:43 No.2174

>>2171

>>2173

Oh, btw, if you ever hear people bitching about getting unpaid admits or stuff like that, ignore it. That's social sciences, engineering and other such plebbery. PhD-level funding is very secure in biology, nobody does it 4free.

04/29/15 (Wed) 09:57:41 No.2180

>>2174

From what I've hear the private sector tries to cut as much money as possible , it's more influenced by business then science

As for why I want to do research for the military , is the lack of public attention towards it , no feminist bullshit and SJWs to interfere with research and so on .The less I have to deal with peasants and pseudo scientifically "literate" plebs the better

Also another thing , is feminism prevalent in STEM as they are in social "sciences" .Because from where we eastern europeans and russians stand it's fucking scary .I really don't want to get deported for opening the door for a woman

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 05/01/15 (Fri) 03:03:19 No.2194

>>2180

>From what I've hear the private sector tries to cut as much money as possible

And you think academia doesn't?

>it's more influenced by business then science

And what isn't?

>no feminist bullshit and SJWs

I doubt it. The government has been making the military more and more progressive the past few years. Maybe there isn't much happening in the research divisions yet but you are bound to get at least affirmative action and constant propaganda soon if not already.

>is feminism prevalent in STEM

Biology is majority female and probably 90% liberal. There's lots of "women in science" programs talk of diversity. You're not going to get deported for holding the door but if you want to get cute with someone at work you better watch out.

In grad school I doubt that you could get into much real trouble, although depending on where it is you could end up with a stern talk, being reprimanded, or having people talk shit about you constantly.

Post grad school you can easily turn yourself into a hot potato nobody wants to hire.

You don't get many feminists, but the few that are there encounter no opposition or disapproval, and if you try to shitlord it up you'll quickly find yourself with very few friends.

05/26/15 (Tue) 22:12:27 No.2409

A question to foreignfags who study in the US . Do they want GRE scores along with Toelf .Because what my adviser told was just the Toefl test

05/27/15 (Wed) 00:42:30 No.2411

does molecular biology connect with quantum chemistry or physics on any level?

05/27/15 (Wed) 07:25:24 No.2414

File: 1432711524043.jpg (72.27 KB, 438x750, 73:125, Science anime 2.jpg)

>>2411

connects with physics and chemistry several brutal times .Basically we had 3 different physics subjects that did fuck all , just to prepare us for Biophysics ,which had very little to do with the other physics subjects except for Thermodynamics and Electrical Physics (these are the two meaningful subcategories of physics for molecular biologists)

Inorganic Chemistry , Organic , Anal Chemisty (analytical) and the most important one Biochemistry

You should take a look at Quantum Biology

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 06/02/15 (Tue) 04:03:22 No.2469

>>2409

Almost all programs require GRE and TOEFL (or possibly an equivalent like IELTS). Most recommend GRE Subject as well.

No requirements are ultimately hard and fast and I imagine it's not impossible to get admitted without GRE. But GRE is so easy to do that you are really shooting yourself in the foot by not doing it.

>>2411

No, except for quacks.

Don't know what >>2414 is talking about (maybe it's just because I'm drunk) but if you were asking about courses, then no you wouldn't be required to take QC courses as an undergrad (or in grad school for that matter). Usually you do have to take some physics and chemistry courses as undergrad which skirt the boundary of QM: Heisenberg Uncertainty, double slit experiment, etc.

There are some microscopy techniques that are prominent currently that require QM concepts to understand (eg. FRET, surface plasmon resonance). You can use the equipment without knowing any QM, but if you want to improve the technology, you'd have to know some.

06/02/15 (Tue) 09:15:45 No.2474

>>2469

I have seen what the GRE test is ,the problem is that it is expensive 800 bgn for both tests total .

For the University of Chicago Im aiming for it states only toefl with 26 in all 4 sections , notting about GRE , also I have no idea how they are gonna do the selecting since I have another year of my BA ,but if I don't give the application by december 1 I lose a whole fucking year

06/02/15 (Tue) 10:27:19 No.2475

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>>2474

Apparently I was being retarded again (happens when Im on 1 coffee only) ……………..and doubly so because I just spent 10 min look at the Computer Sciences section ffs

They want just GRE , and that I need my full BA in order to apply which is kinda shit since I lose a whole fucking year

ffs I really wish there was a unified University cabal or some shit like this in which all fucking admissions are handled internally with all the tests and such and not by 3rd party support, shit would be soo much simpler

06/03/15 (Wed) 00:14:58 No.2480

>>1537

how would you fix a communication injury on the axon to help the exchange of Na/Ca influx

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 06/03/15 (Wed) 04:34:51 No.2486

>>2474

>Bulgaria

Figures. Should've gone to college in Germany or something. Don't you get free movement?

>it is expensive

GRE is like $160, bro. If this is out of your budget, I've got bad news for you: Universities take admission fees too, usually about $50-150, more for international applicants. Mailing transcripts and such will also cost you money. TOEFL will cost you money. Sending TOEFL scores will cost like $20 per school.

There are fee waivers but you probably won't get them:

>Please note that with a few exceptions, most programs will only grant waivers based on financial hardship to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. (from UC's grad app site)

>Under University policy, fee waivers are not granted to international students. (from the biology program FAQ)

You better budget about a grand for the whole applications process anyway. $2k if the uni won't reimburse your plane ticket. Borrow money if you have to, it's your future.

If you can't afford GRE, you can't afford applying to grad school, so just forget it.

>it states only toefl with 26 in all 4 sections , notting about GRE

How do you think grad admissions work, you just show up and say hi? There's hundreds of people just like you applying for the same thing. Why would they admit some faggot who didn't even take the test when there's plenty of applicants who took the test and got a good score?

Also, you are wrong at least for UC BSD:

>The GRE test is required for all applications expect to the Public Health Sciences MS program. Please send results to institution code 1832. No department code is necessary.

From http://gradprograms.bsd.uchicago.edu/prospective_students/applications_faqs.html#requirement_faqs

>how they are gonna do the selecting since I have another year of my BA

They look at your grades from past 3 years + application essay + recommendations + publications (if any) + interview if you get called for one. They also ask you to estimate what your final GPA will be and when you will graduate. It's very rare that something happens in the last year of undergrad that turns you from a non-admit to an admit or vice versa (if you have papers in review you can just say in the application that they were submitted but not published yet).

You can be like "oh I'm gonna get A+ in every course after this, trust me man" but if you average C up to now they obviously won't believe you. But if you averaged A+ for 3 years, you can say you'll get A+ in last year, get your admit, then just get C in every course after that, and there isn't much they can do about it. Pisses them the hell of though, because they thought they were admitting eg. 4.0 student and instead get a 3.5 student.

If you find that you can't graduate on time after getting an admit (should be very unlikely, since if you were failing that bad academically you wouldn't get an admit in the first place) you could probably talk to them and get your admission deferred for 1-2 years. This is common for things like people taking a year off, family issues, sickness, etc. For "sorry guys I was a lazyfag last year lol" they will probably be less sympathetic, but I doubt they would go back on their admit offer. Admit decisions are considered pretty binding for both sides after April 15.

Biofag!!xPUx5n0pMY 06/03/15 (Wed) 04:38:43 No.2487

>>2480

I wouldn't, since I'm not a neurologist.

What are you asking? Like, in principle, or actually, or as a homework answer?

>communication injury

What does this mean?

>on the axon

Axon of what?

>help the exchange

Is the injury helping the exchange? Is the problem because exchange is blocked? Why do you want to "help the exchange"?

>exchange of Na/Ca influx

Come again?

06/03/15 (Wed) 16:01:38 No.2492

>>2486

well 2.5 gpa (with 4 failed exams) with me barely even trying ,gotta get my ass in gear then

probably gonna lose a year though so fuck it

tnx m8

06/04/15 (Thu) 05:24:13 No.2500

>>2492

Ah. Not to be mean, but I'll be honest, with 2.5 you're looking pretty bad. It would be very hard to get into a top 50 US program with less than 3.0, and usually <3.5 severely hurts your chances. (getting into so-so programs is risky because academia is a pyramid scheme and it makes life as post doc very hard)

If you have

>strong recommendations (preferably mentioning that grades don't reflect your potential for whatever reason)

>research experience that you can spin well (ie. explain the research clearly, show you understand the science, and are aware of how your contributions make a significant impact)

>perfect GRE score (not too hard if you grind for a few months), preferably also high GRE Subject

Then you might still make it even in top 20. If one of these is weak but 2 are strong, or one is strong and two are medium, you're still good.

I was in a very similar position to you once (shit GPA, so-so recs, shit school) and I'd recommend you to forget PhD for now, it's a hail mary and even if you manage to get lucky and get in, you'll still be hamstringing yourself by committing to a PhD program that is not the best you can get.

Pull together whatever connections and resources you have, and get into a decent master's program in your country or elsewhere in Europe. You want:

>good resources (lab space, funding, etc) but not too selective

>professor who doesn't entertain strange notions of trapping you into becoming his PhD student (you will be able to get into much better PhD programs if MS goes well)

>professor prepared to work with you to get a paper done at the end of year one with you as first author (meaning decent project where you lead, no being some postdocs bitch for maybe middle authorship)

>professor okay with you focusing on research in year 1 and then finishing up course requirements in year 2 (you will be applying at the beginning of year 1 anyway, so almost nothing you do in year 2 matters for the application)

>if professor has connections in top schools and can help you get in that's also nice (look at their past affiliations/coauthors/collaborators)

If you try hard enough to do well on GRE/sop/interviews you have a decent shot of getting admitted to this MS. Then focus completely on research in year 1, because that will be your main selling point during the application and biggest compensator for low grades.

In your second fall, you will apply to a US PhD (if you want some Euro ones too, since those usually require an MS anyway), and you will look pretty good if you can say "look at how much better I did in my MS, my GPA is high now thanks to the 1-2 piece of cake grad classes I took, my prof loves me, I did all this research and presented at conferences/published a paper/submitted a paper, so what if my undergrad grades were bad". After the application is done, just do the bare minimum to make sure you can defend your MS thesis and graduate. Use all your free time to prepare for the job market in case all your PhD apps fall through.

An alternative is to simply obtain a research tech job in a prestigious institute/uni in the US, or a good but less prestigious one in a very big and active lab. The idea is to work 1-3 years, get letters of rec from your boss who should be a big-name prof, get your name as middle author on a few papers they publish since you helped do bitch work for them. Also makes your application look very strong, but getting the job can be hard for a foreigner if you haven't made connections as summer intern or something.