/science/ - Scientific discourse

Name
Email
Subject
Comment *
File	Select/drop/paste files here
* = required field	[▶ Show post options & limits] Confused? See the FAQ.

Flag
Embed	(replaces files and can be used instead)
Options	Do not bump (you can also write sage in the email field) Spoiler images (this replaces the thumbnails of your images with question marks)
Password	(For file and post deletion.)
Allowed file types:jpg, jpeg, gif, png, webm, mp4, pdf Max filesize is 8 MB. Max image dimensions are 10000 x 10000. You may upload 5 per post.

File: 1432065493500.jpg (16.7 KB, 300x278, 150:139, 20081026_transsexual symbo….jpg)

Let's explore transsexualism Professor 05/19/15 (Tue) 19:58:13 No.103 [Reply]

After seeing people's differing view on transsexualism, I figured it would be interesting to try and explore the scientific literature concerning this phenomenon. Mainly, how it originates (possible causes) and how much is nature vs. nurture, and the current treatment options available and their effectiveness comparatively.

I've only used Google Scholar to find this literature. I also tried excluding older studies since they'll likely be references in newer literature and are likely outdated.

Also worth mentioning that I haven't looked in-depth in any of the studies presented here, so forgive me if I include some bad studies and/or interpret them wrong in the conclusion.

Origin

To start, let's find out approximately how many people are transgender.

>How many people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender?

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/09h684x2

>[…] an estimated 0.3% of adults are transgender

Now for possible causes.

>Transsexualism: A review of etiology, diagnosis and treatment

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022399998000853

>A first indication of anatomic brain differences between transsexuals and nontranssexuals has been found. Also, certain parental (rearing) factors seem to be associated with transsexualism. Some contradictory findings regarding etiology, psychopathology and success of SRS seem to be related to the fact that certain subtypes of transsexuals follow different developmental routes. The observations that psychotherapy is not helpful in altering a crystallized cross-gender identity and that certain transsexuals do not show severe psychopathology has led clinicians to adopt sex reassignment as a treatment option. In many countries, transsePost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Professor 05/19/15 (Tue) 19:58:58 No.104

Treatment

Finally, let's take a look at some studies with regard to the effectiveness of different treatment options.

>Hormonal therapy and sex reassignment: a systematic review and meta-analysis of quality of life and psychosocial outcomes

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2265.2009.03625.x/full

>Very low quality evidence suggests that sex reassignment that includes hormonal interventions in individuals with GID likely improves gender dysphoria, psychological functioning and comorbidities, sexual function and overall quality of life.

Not sure what to take from this given it's concluding based on "very low quality evidence".

>Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885

>Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.

This seems to be a response to a study, but since it references that it might as well be included.

>[…] in scientific literature there are few reports on the long-term safety of different treatment protocols and on the physical and psychological outcomes of medical treatments. The safety of long-term high doses oestrogen or testosterone in subjects of the opposite sex has been debated and data on long term effects are scant at best. The Asscherman paper therefore represents a very important and reassuring reference for professionals working in tPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Professor 05/19/15 (Tue) 19:59:06 No.105

Extra

I wasn't going to include these, but perhaps they hold some relevance to the discussion.

>Does It Get Better? A Longitudinal Analysis of Psychological Distress and Victimization in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X14007101

>Suicidality and Depression Disparities Between Sexual Minority and Heterosexual Youth: A Meta-Analytic Review

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X11000541

>The Struggle And Strength Of Sexual Minorities And Suicidality: A Qualitative Interpretive Meta-synthesis

https://uta-ir.tdl.org/uta-ir/handle/10106/11609

These studies seem to suggest that suicidality and depression is mostly tied to victimization and discrimination.

I also found this when searching for an image to use, but it's not very worthy of inclusion so I've added it here.

http://archive.cosmosmagazine.com/news/gene-linked-transsexuality/

—————————————————————-

I focused mostly on meta/review studies to give an introduction to the subject to start discussion. Feel free to object and provide other studies I might have missed.

How much is determined by nature and nurture isn'tPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

Professor 05/19/15 (Tue) 22:49:14 No.108

Some questions to get things going.

Is or should transsexualism be understood as a form of mental illness, and what cost or benefit lies in such a classification? Are there better classifications for it?

Does the high mortality rate, especially after sex reassignment surgery, imply that the surgery is mostly to blame? Or is it the discrimination (possibly increased post-op)? Perhaps both (to which degree)?

And follow-up on the last one: considering risk of mortality decreases with age, how does the hormonal turmoil of teenage years affect the results here?

Given the unique brain structure of transsexuals, would it be too presumptuous to assume psychotherapy alone would be inefficient as treatment, and does that hold true for all or just some transsexuals?

Professor 06/21/15 (Sun) 22:41:33 No.136

They're all degenerates who need to be disposed of.

Question #2 Q93 06/02/15 (Tue) 21:00:58 No.126 [Reply]

Hello /science/

Recently, I pondered about the definition of life and the black-and-white thinking associated with it. In school, I learned about the characteristics (ex. reproduction, metabolism, etc.) that need to be there in order to define something as a living system.

Rather than upholding this "it is either alive or not" reasoning, I would like to propose an alternative approach by adding a grey zone. Things can now be sort of alive, based on how many characteristics they have in common with modern cells.

I am interested in your opinions about that point of view.

Professor 06/07/15 (Sun) 14:24:14 No.127

Usually precision is preferable. With a grey zone there might be confusion.

Professor 06/15/15 (Mon) 15:15:55 No.130

Do you have an example of something that's partially alive? I remember reading a while back that fire behaves like a living organism (has metabolism, grows/spreads/reproduces, etc), it's just missing cells/DNA. But fire's just a chemical reaction (though you could argue that organisms are just collections of chemical reactions). The idea of grayscale life is interesting but I can't think of any reason for it, except maybe the whatever directly preceded the first true cells..

Q93 06/15/15 (Mon) 21:07:32 No.133

>>>130

Viruses come to mind. Although they lack metabolic pathways, they can reproduce, evolve and are made of the same molecules (DNA and proteins). As such, I would classify viruses as residents of the grey zone.

The reason why I propose an alternative approach, is to solve the problem of defining what can be considered 'alive' when one looks at the process of abiogenesis and to solve the problem of what we have to detect on other planets when we look for extraterrestrial life forms.

If anyone is interested, I found a paper laying out the approach in much more detail:

Bruylants, G. et al. (2010), "Is it Useful to Have a Clear-cut Definition of Life?

On the Use of Fuzzy Logic in Prebiotic Chemistry", Orig Life Evol Biosph 40, pp. 137–143

Life's Code Expanded Q93 05/27/15 (Wed) 20:56:55 No.116 [Reply]

"[T]wo groups of scientists are reporting for the first time that two new nucleotides can do the same thing – raising the possibility that entirely new proteins could be created for medical uses.

(…)

Millie M. Georgiadis, Steven A. Benner and colleagues from Indiana and Florida wanted to see if another potential set of letters, "Z" (6-amino-5-nitro-2(1H)-pyridone) and "P" (2-amino-imidazo[1,2-a]-1,3,5-triazin-4(8H)one), would form a helix – and evolve.

The researchers found that multiple Z-P pairs can contribute to a double helix, just as C-G and A-T pairs do, with the same combination of flexibility and rigidity required for natural DNA to function. They also showed that the Z-P pairs integrate well with conventional pairs and that six-letter GACTZP DNA can evolve."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150527113101.htm

Professor 05/28/15 (Thu) 02:52:44 No.117

One ought almost wonder why this isn't common in nature, although the short answer would likely be coincidences made it so that it was neither necessary or useful to do so.

Professor 05/28/15 (Thu) 08:25:43 No.118

I have no idea what I'm reading, someone please explain.

Professor 05/28/15 (Thu) 12:16:08 No.120

>>118

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeno_Nucleic_Acid

Professor 06/15/15 (Mon) 15:31:32 No.131

Is this synthetic DNA? Holy shit, this is going to be fucking huge, isn't it?

Professor 06/15/15 (Mon) 16:46:03 No.132

>>131

Considering it opens for the creation of entirely new proteins, probably yeah.

The composition of genes and phenotypic expression of compositions of genes is still incredibly complex though. It'll likely take some time until we manage to master creation (on a detailed level), so to speak.

File: 1427140953101.jpg (66.69 KB, 860x568, 215:142, lets go to school.jpg)

Free Educational Resources Professor 03/23/15 (Mon) 20:02:33 No.49 [Reply]

Hey /science/, if you've got any free educational resources (pdfs, other files, links to places to access more material for free etc) we'd really welcome you over at >>>/freedu/ There's a Biology thread already but other than that not a lot in the way of /science/ yet. Feel free to promote this board over there too!

Professor 03/26/15 (Thu) 18:38:10 No.52

File: 1427395090381.jpg (39.77 KB, 537x720, 179:240, 6e488b9173c5adcd52ec0e2c35….jpg)

You could visit >>>/edu/ too!

Professor 05/28/15 (Thu) 18:27:17 No.121

Good.

Fungus doom Professor 05/28/15 (Thu) 11:52:06 No.119 [Reply]

How scientifically plausible in a book the following scenario:

~2050, global temps are 2 degrees higher

rapidly evolving fungus/mold

humanity threatened by fungus colonizing arable soil and buildings

fungus is non-toxic, but reproduces very fast

humanity last chance is a fungal virus that can work only if the fungus doesn't evolve in specific way

Professor 05/11/15 (Mon) 00:54:13 No.99 [Reply]

Alright, really stupid question, you can delete this shit if you want.

I consider myself someone who is pretty fucking stupid in many categories. Most of my life all I really cared about was anime, surfing the internet, and videogames. all but 1/4th of what I learned in science class has been all but forgotten. Very basic shit.

But not too long after really questioning religion, I started slowly wondering how the universe works, and I want to start learning this stuff again from square one. Where would be a good place to start?

Professor 05/19/15 (Tue) 20:13:55 No.106

>I want to start learning stuff again from square one

Where is square one? What scientific subjects interest you?

The Extended Phenotype is a good book on evolution.

The Grand Design is a good book on physics and the universe.

Consciousness Explained is a bit challenging yet interesting look into, well, consciousness.

How far do you want to go though? Perhaps you should learn first-order logic (start with simpler logic first), improve your maths skills on Khan Academy, get a book on statistics (which will help you read scientific papers).

It's a bit hard to help when you're being this general.

Professor 05/23/15 (Sat) 20:36:14 No.114

>>106

Sorry for being so general, it looks like there isn't quite a starting point like there is in math.

From what I see, khan academy has has some organization problems. There are some things that are misspelled and shit they haven't taught yet that they expect you to know. Otherwise it's a good site yeah.

Thanks for the recommendations.

File: 1432367522573.png (203.13 KB, 496x959, 496:959, question_mark_3d.png)

Question. Professor 05/23/15 (Sat) 07:52:02 No.113 [Reply]

When traveling at a subsonic speed during the last one hour of hyper sleep, which vector of the Romulan Nebula will suffer the wrath of the impenetrable quickening? And, for extra points, how many wraths to the nearest molton? Be specific. This is a real question.

Professor 05/30/15 (Sat) 01:55:06 No.123

>>113

>subsonic speed

So slower than the speed of sound.

>hyper sleep

Constant REM sleep?

>which vector

The vector you're traveling at. :^)

>how many

42.

File: 1427135628779.png (89.86 KB, 500x500, 1:1, fragezeichenblondine.png)

Homeopathy Professor 03/23/15 (Mon) 18:33:48 No.47 [Reply]

If homeopathy is pseudoscience, then how come it's in nearly every pharmacy as a legit medicine?

Why is this even allowed?

Even fringe herbalism or traditional chinese medicine would be more legit.

2 posts omitted. Click reply to view.

Professor 04/03/15 (Fri) 23:44:20 No.69

>>68
That's some nice placebo you have there.

Professor 04/07/15 (Tue) 02:51:05 No.74

>>68
It seems strange you would link stuff that invalidates your claims. Take the first link for example, where you find a meta study on veterinary homeopathy:
>Nine of the 15 RCTs displayed high risk of bias; only two comprised reliable evidence.

Holy shit. Well, what did we get from those two then?
>For the two RCTs with reliable evidence, OR = 2.62 [95% CI, 1.13 to 6.05]; P = 0.02).

Do we even need to read the conclusion?
>Meta-analysis provides some very limited evidence that clinical intervention in animals using homeopathic medicines is distinguishable from corresponding intervention using placebos. The low number and quality of the trials hinders a more decisive conclusion.

Systematic reviews/meta studies are about as good as you get too.

One ought almost dismiss the other two links just on the basis of them having "homeopathy" in them. The last link requires a login, so I guess there's a possibility of you being part of the clique, explaining your bizarre defense of this pseudoscience purporting that water has memory and shit which basically breaks the known laws of physics.

Let's have a glance at the second link though:
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

Professor 04/19/15 (Sun) 04:59:02 No.79

I've looked into homeopathics when I want some placebo effect.

Professor 04/19/15 (Sun) 22:06:11 No.88

>>79

Is it cheaper than sugar pills?

Professor 05/19/15 (Tue) 21:53:30 No.107

>>68

>>74

>Someone who defends homeopathy can't read journals.

What a startling discovery

File: 1431183334936.jpg (13.71 KB, 480x360, 4:3, fun_things.jpg)

What’s the Point If We Can’t Have Fun? Professor 05/09/15 (Sat) 14:55:34 No.98 [Reply]

http://www.thebaffler.com/articles/whats-the-point-if-we-cant-have-fun

Why do we play? Do animals play? What is fun?

File: 1430791207723.gif (33.29 KB, 229x414, 229:414, vibrating_platform_trainer.gif)

heat vs vibration Professor 05/05/15 (Tue) 02:00:07 No.94 [Reply]

If heat is vibration n then why is woman unboiled by standing on one for fitness?

All I figure is this is macro while burning is micro.

Professor 05/05/15 (Tue) 16:57:27 No.95

Well clearly she should be boiling, so reality must be wrong!

File: 1426589794467.jpg (35.83 KB, 420x420, 1:1, 1418749478291[1].jpg)

Professor 03/17/15 (Tue) 10:56:34 No.24 [Reply]

Is this book a scientificaly accurate depiction of going fast?

Professor 05/03/15 (Sun) 08:31:52 No.93

I've read this; I didn't see anything particularly wrong with the science.

File: 1430257700094-0.gif (770 KB, 331x265, 331:265, 1430063095643.gif)

File: 1430257700102-1.png (1.59 KB, 262x60, 131:30, 1430067893119.png)

File: 1430257700103-2.gif (12.72 KB, 400x200, 2:1, 1430072310625.gif)

File: 1430257700103-3.png (186.47 KB, 712x640, 89:80, 1430206856730.png)

File: 1430257700103-4.jpg (128.45 KB, 720x480, 3:2, 1430256655973.jpg)

Interesting /b/ thread on Math and CompSci Professor 04/28/15 (Tue) 21:48:19 No.92 [Reply]

As of now, it's still going.

http://8archive.moe/b/thread/2477857/

File: 1429459170036.jpg (2.48 MB, 3200x1766, 1600:883, energy-oil_rig-1.jpg)

Professor 04/19/15 (Sun) 15:59:29 No.83 [Reply]

Should we be genuinely worried about peak oil?

Professor 04/19/15 (Sun) 22:00:42 No.87

We should be worried about not letting the oil stay in the ground without means to capture CO2.

Hydrogen fuel might work as an alternative even though you have to spend more energy to make it than it gives back. Other than that we do have electric cars and shit.

Professor 04/19/15 (Sun) 16:01:54 No.84 [Reply]

Is this a meme free board?

Edit:

Congratulation on being chosen for file deletion in order to see the new file deleted image!

Post last edited at 05/06/15 (Wed) 22:59:08

Professor 04/19/15 (Sun) 16:07:36 No.85

JUST

CHECK

SIX

SIGMA

Professor 04/19/15 (Sun) 21:59:02 No.86

YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.

It's a non-science meme free board.

File: 1428369317612.png (116.77 KB, 757x451, 757:451, 1413071072490.png)

Worldwide Populations Professor 04/07/15 (Tue) 01:15:17 No.73 [Reply]

What trends do you see appearing before you when taking a look at birthrates and correlating them to immigration and emigration?

If we assume that peak oil is a thing and we are already past the climax then we can extrapolate that data to predict some possible conclusions happening in the countries currently taking on large numbers of immigrants.

>Many grandchildren will attempt to return to the lands of their forebears
>Governments will become increasingly authoritarian to keep the landless poor in check
>Corporations will attempt to build headquarters/fortress towns near deposits of future valuable resources.
>Internet will cease to exist as we know it because intercontinental connections will be too expensive and satellites will eventually fall into disrepair

Professor 04/19/15 (Sun) 05:36:43 No.82

Internet will never cease to exist even if it's "too expensive".

Delete Post [ File] Password

Reason [Global]