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Doomroar
Well clearly i don't appreciate my time enough, with me being here, writing this, but the same goes for you reading this waste of time, aren't we quite the unoccupied fellows? Procrastination sure is something....

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Maybe facing a screen.

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I see you have found a new member to educational grounds: http://normchipmunkiii.newgrounds.com/

it's for a middle school audience, and I consider this more of a late teens-adult site, but it's encouraging nonetheless, but tbh I didn't know sh*t about chemistry and biology or science in general as teen and young adult, I was more invested in music, politics, and women (to a larger degree) at the time LOL

re: your review on matter and atoms- hmm, there should always be some type of disclaimer when trying to simplify scientific events...but for the sake of communicating to a young or novice audience, I don't see anything wrong with a planetary model that shows electrons orbiting the nucleus...while orbiting is the fundamentally incorrect action, electrons do exist outside and around the nucleus. To explain the more accurate motion of subatomic particles would require quantum physics...which can be demonstrated by non mathematical Mickey Mouse terms at a high school level, but perhaps not a more fundamental level at middle school.

Oh when you are young chemistry is a pain in the everything, specially counting electrons, valance, configuration, man i swear, it was only until recently that i remember how cool chemistry actually was and i got to open back to it, but my teacher got me traumatized with those ugly ass tables, well as a teen i was interested in music, art, and i avoided politics like hell, people were getting killed over shit back in the day from 2005 to 2010, the state labeled everyone who disagreed as a guerrilla sympathizer, luckily things calmed down, but still is not like we are far from that day, maybe that is why i am more interested on ethics than politics themselves.

Yeah, i agree but this is also a good time to start debunking wrong notions, actually your review on the newer vid covered more critical things, didn't knew that water was a string of H without O at all, man i have to actualize myself!

well I guess one could argue that politics boils down to applied ethics, or lack thereof.

No!! There is no such molecule that is just a string of H's (hydrogen). Atleast not in biochemistry...Water is an oxygen atom bounded to two hydrogen atoms...hence H2O. surely you've heard that before?? In the video, it was portrayed as a bunch of H's. Which is fine for the sake of the video, he was just showing it as a hydrogen source for plants to synthesize their food (sugar- which was also drawn incorrectly as a hydrocarbon). When in reality, it should be a bunch of individual water molecules. And sugar has the form CxH2xOx- usually glucose where x = 6. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose- look at the second picture, gray is carbon, red is oxygen, white is hydrogen)

The energy from the sunlight causes the water to disassociate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photodissociation#Photolysis_in_photosynthesis). This is portrayed with two water molecules, thus 2 H2O molecules joined together via intermolecular forces is split into 4 hydrogen atoms (which is what I think the creator was trying to illustrate-but they do not bind together) and molecular oxygen (O2) that is released by the plant. Those 4 hydrogen atoms then bond with two molecules to form CH2O + H2O. There's acfually more convoluted chemical processes in this step (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis#Light-independent_reactions) but geez I think I'm getting overly technical here... Note that CH2O is just a general formula for sugar...not the chemical formula itself...as CH2O is formaldehyde a highly carcinogenic compound LOL!! oh oops...getting a bit off tangent. I was supposed to just cover the structures of molecules in photosynthesis, not the actual process but I get carried away with anything biology or public health related...As long as you know a plant (even some microbes too!!) take in carbon dioxide (a metabolic waste product released by all organisms, including plants themselves...they aren't like AXECOP whose metabolic processes are always 100% efficient- he's never pooped in his life!!) and water, and use sunlight to ultimately produce sugar/carbohydrates for themselves, and release oxygen (and some water- but more water is absorbed by the plant in the process than released in healthy plants) for other organisms to breathe...ergo the cycle of life continues.

Yeah.

It was a joke... no need to gave me a full paragraph about it XD, but you know think about it, i agree that the video could be better, but since it is for a younger audience it would be unfair to add all this info on that 1 minute video and hope for them to understand it, is the same critic you gave me about my review XD.

You know if you could send him just the last part (after AXECOP, btw Black Dynamite is cooler) i think he could do a nice video with that, in which he corrects the past mistake and explains how plants use water + light + carbon dioxide to create sugars, he could name the video TidBits 3 Photosynthesis 2.

holy sh*t an animal that is capable of photosynthesis!! O_O
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_hornet#Solar_energy_harvesting

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00114-010-0728-1
It sounds promising, but it is filled with maybes, and correlations, yeah i know that it is an initial study, and that eventually we may know more about it, but... well it would be great if they indeed are able to have something similar to photosynthesis.

hahahah funny joke...NOT...well atleast we are now both all the wiser.

all good ideas...in photosynthesis 3...he could say that a chloroplast was originally a BACTERIAL MICROBE...flippin' sweet dude!! probably my favorite organelle.

surprised you've seen Axecop...did you know the stories comes from a five year old (literally). I've seen 1 episode of Black Dynamite and it is indeed cooler but not as good as the Boondocks of course.

sick article dude!! downloaded. Well that article was mainly researching the ability of the wasp's pigments to absorb light- the article didn't explain anything about photons possibly catalyzing carbohydrate synthesis...Here's one with more relating to the metabolic activity (although, still speculation): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19535034

the ultimate question here is, can the tree-people photosynthesize?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidermodysplasia_verruciformis#Notable_cases

You really think that i don't know the chemical composition of water?

Na all that wont fit on a 1 min video.

Better than that shit-hole they had for a season finale, that was pure garbage, if we ignore that, then indeed the Boondocks is one of the best things to ever been put on a screen.

Interesting.

Ha. Ha. Ha. A joke about skin disease... you know that is really not funny.

Well this part of our conversation is pretty much done how is your reading of "Open the Social Sciences" going?

kek...I'm sure you knew, but perhaps there was some type of miscommunication or silly error...but did you know the chemical formula of sugar?? did you know that photosynthetic oxygen we breathe comes largely from water, not carbon dioxide?? (I didn't) I actually had another paragraph but decided to delete...sorry i guess you can see that I really like photosynthesis lol

that's true...he would probably have to start with evolution 1 first...in fact endosymbiosis (the process in which an organism becomes a functional part of another larger organism i.e. chloroplasts (formerly bacteria) in plants) hardly has anything to do with photosynthesis in and of itself. I didn't learn about evolution academically to high school though...I believe it was prohibited in pre-secondary education then

my bad...how insensitive of me...it's not funny (it's actually hilarious)

bad...I couldn't locate a free pdf!!

Yeah i did, and i also know that is plankton and not regular terrestrial plants the ones that generate most of the O that we breath, however i don't know the exact % back in the days of school it was 50% but then it changed to 60, then to 70, then 80 counting other algae. Anyway before you get excited just give me the actualized number without the text, i know the theme gets you going.

Yeah they didn't teach me anything of that neither, you learn that as your curiosity impulses you to keep clicking links on Encarta... back when the internet wasn't all that.

I consider myself a bastard, but maybe i am not as rotten as i believe if i can still put sympathy over comedy.

Shame, i have a PDF but it is in Spanish, oh well then you will have to read this article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_economic_thought#Neoclassical_economic_thought:_the_marginalist_school.2C_the_Cambridge_school.2C_and_the_Austrian_school in here you can see more clearly how the term Political Economy starts to slowly die in the 19th century that is when the social sciences start to shape.

Oh, nice :P It's not like that extraneous info is common knowledge outside of biologists...or were you studying life sciences or something?? iirc you were studying civil engineering at some point??

I could google for a statistic, but more interesting is the concept itself...I've heard marine environments produce more atmospheric oxygen than terrestrial, which makes sense considering the Earth has more ocean than land, and even within the land there are long stretches of desert where plant life is sparse (i.e. Antarctica and the Saharas). To the contrary, there is significantly more terrestrial plant biomass than marine...

it's all about the context dude...comedians say potentially offensive things, and thus logically cannot give offense, only people can take offense from what they say. I try to tell jokes where appropriate (the internet is fair game); I wouldn't crack that joke towards his face or family. I can be as sympathetic as anyone and too value that over comedy...but I truly believe that even in the direst situation one needs to find a silver lining in life, eventually have a moment of humor to uplift spirits and keep them going.

I can read Spanish, slowly.
Will keep the link in mind

Yeah civil engineering, to be fair i have no idea what is common info and what is not anymore, i assume that everyone has the same level of knowledge but if it happens that a thing in particular has to be explained then to cover all corners it should be explained like they are 5, but only after the explication is demanded, photosynthesis, where the oxygen we breath, and the molecular composition of water all that was teach in school, so i actually find it rare if people don't know those things.

Indeed but we all already know that, the problem is to present a number between 50 and 80% that is a little bit too libertine.

A lot of things we laugh about comedians is just a nervous response to cope with the reality that is being presented, in other words it is denial turn into a more pleasant feeling ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_humor ), this way of coping works with most of the theories of humor and it holds a special validity with comedy based on the ridicule of others, well the word "ridicule" may sound like a a heavy one but i can't think of another one at the moment, but laughing about it is fine, the problem is that most people get stuck in the denial and don't see beyond the thing that causes the effect in them. Is interesting that once you search about laughter an humor and why we have it, the thing is not really jolly at all.

Oh that is fantastic! here you go then http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/3119539eeeb87ad80c711ac3cd04c75b

it depends on the culture, sure... the molecular structure of carbohydrates are organic-biochemistry material, and not something that would typically be taught out of a science major as it really has no use to people outside of the field. The fact about atmospheric oxygen being primarily derived from water (not carbon dioxide) is a very fine point, which I don't even remember getting that in depth in molecular and plant bio classes at university. It just isn't salient information outside of those who are trying to manipulate photosynthesis.

I think you mean to say "liberal". Good luck charting out all of Earth's plants and testing the photosynthetic of every species!! Statistics are simply an liberal estimate based on understanding the concept...we just generally know that the aquatic species tend to produce more oxygen per volume.

Interesting...so would you propose that comedians are the most depressed group of people...make sense, since 99.9% of clowns are major alcoholics...

Thanks for the link...should make a good winter reading (and as a refresher on my Spanish)

Is basic plant biology, it is usually taught along with the experiment of the beam in the plastic cup filled with cotton and some water, with the roses and food colorants deluded in water... a year before that class of chemistry where those guys mixed sodium and water in a totally uncontrolled environment and thus no one learned anything about the reaction but instead screamed like monkeys at the fire... around that time it is mentioned, just some months before you graduate... i mean my biology teacher was trash, but she did mention that.

I will use 80% from now on and induce nihilistic feeling on people that care about trees!

Yeah comedians are the most depressed group of people, but they are not recognized as thus, which is unfair because each time one comes out and tells others that they actually have depression, everyone says "but he looked so happy and cheerful all the time", it is their damn job!

De modo que este invierno te calentaras leyendo literatura en espaƱol pasada por un latino? eso suena estereotipado XD.

is that the classic plant transpiration experiment...http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/55/407/2395.full
of course watered (now pun intended) down from the experiment in that journal though...i vaguely remember doing one of those experiments in high school, although there certainly was no computational biology involved, and it elucidated on the process rather than attempting to make a quantitative analysis.

But oxygen production is only part of it!! As a whole the ecology behind the trees and plants is more important...various organisms use it as means of nourishment and shelter...not to mention the aesthetic qualities

okay...I had to look up "modo", "calentaras" y "esterotipado" for translation. But the PDF thus far doesn't seem as difficult as expected. As long as I don't have to speak it I will be fine lol

Of course, but really growing a bean on a cotton ball is old stuff, kids nowadays are talking about motor proteins, now that blows my mind.
I myself can hardly explain the process beyond just an interchange of ATP (so if you are feeling like it please unroll yourself in the topic), and they also accept the fact of those things so easily, when i found about them i actually had an existential crisis, i was all:
"look at those walking... actually walking automatons, they look so alive, and yet they are just a few levels a way from basic chemical compounds"
I was on a philosophy class 2 semesters ago, so that means that 2 semesters ago i didn't knew about a thing that is being taught at school today...
However i am sure that everyone got at least at some point of their school life a class on photosynthesis at least the theme was touched for a week, literally half if not all biology class is just talk about animal and plant cells, they don't even mention viruses, proper human cells, the neuron is rushed, white and red blood cells are rushed, knowing that Fungi are different from plants and animals, that is rushed too, arguing about your teacher that denies the existence of exoskeletons.... man i told you my biology teacher was trash, but even she talked about photosynthesis.

Meh that is not what those tree huggers write on their posters, they are all oxygen this oxygen that.

The "calentaras" used here was the one for warming and not for horny, of course, don't want it to take a weird context XD. Yeah most words seem to be derivative from actual English as neologism that are adapted to Spanish, and the others have a common origin in Latin, so it should not be too troublesome.

I guess your teacher had a special place in his/her heart for photosynthesis...
Well chemistry builds upon physics, and biology builds upon chemistry. Biology is often more focused on and found interesting by students, because it's less "mathy" and easier observable in the natural world. You certainly don't need those things to understand biological concepts at the most general level...but perhaps since sciences are taught in a somewhat backwards fashion is a reason why you feel the subjects were rushed.

Motor proteins...ATP hydrolysis...false exoskeletons...you're getting vague on me here

Well I'll start with saying that ATP is the "energy currency molecule" that is necessary for all life and proteins are the ubiquitous capitalist bankers behind the scene...they simply will not work without ATP...proteins also produce ATP. Life obtains sugar (or in the case of autotrophs life creates it), sugar is used to produce ATP...ATP is used to build sugars from smaller molecules (anabolism).

I find all proteins fascinating, but I see how motor proteins could instigate such an existential crisis. It all boils down to the physics behind it...chemical energy is simply mechanical energy. Energy is released by the hydrolysis of ATP...simply the breaking of chemical bonds forming smaller compounds (catabolism) releases energy/heat which allows movement. In the case of motor proteins, myosin for example, the broken down ATP (now ADP) loses shape and falls out of the myosin protein, the "head" of the myosin then bonds with the underlying contractile protein, where the head of the motor protein folds forward sliding contractile proteins, ultimately contracting the respective muscle tissue which is precisely how we move...Plants have motor proteins too, including myosin...but of course they do not have muscle tissue or even neurons. At this level, motor proteins are moreso used for the microscopic movement of organelles and to facilitate other cellular dynamics...which begs the question, how do plants perceive things?? Is intelligence and creative sentience truly the basis of hormones, and the inescapable chemical nature behind it all??

Well, I'm not sure what exactly that ramble elucidates for you XD as to what you wanted to know exactly regarding the interplay of ATP that is the fuel behind bioenergetics...

if you're interested in neurons and how it relates to behavioral biology I recommend you check out Dr. Robert Sapolsky's Stanford lectures on YouTubes...

Cells are the basic unit of biology if there was one!! Hence why they are discussed so much...that's just eukaryotes though...surprised they didn't touch on bacteria in your curriculum...viruses are interesting, but are not considered as living ;) so arguably don't have a place in a general high school "study of life" course...would make an interesting seminar for students to argue about the definition of an organism, though. Human and neuronal cells are too specific (best reserved for an anatomy class), red blood cells don't have nucleic acids so who gives a sh*t, fungi is like breadfruit...it isn't a bread, nor is it a fruit (I'm just referring to the taste!!). Okay you've got me with the exoskeleton skepticism...there has to be more context behind your teacher's claim

She was trash, if my memory fails me we only got that info because it was mentioned on the text book, i really refuse to give her any praise at anything, so i will say that was standard part of the educational curriculum. No my man they were rushed i found after graduation that the kidneys are closer to your ribs than to your testicles, now everything else she did was like that, it is a miracle we got photosynthesis right. Exoskeletons is a thing that my teacher refused to admit it exist.

Yeah it is that ATP hydrolysis process the one that is giving me difficulty to understand, but not to know how we or cells and their organelles move, but how the protein themselves move, because as it understand it the movement generated should be random.

Why would intelligence or even sentience be needed for a hormonal process?
I am fine with intelligence and consciousness being a byproduct of chemical process, and thus just not existing as we think that we know them.

It was a good rambling.

Will do.

Why would that surprise you? i already told you i had a bad teacher!
What is life anyway? viruses reproduce just like any other self replicating carbon based thing out there...
It would be nice to mention neurons so your students wont graduate thinking that the brain is a muscle...
Because they are the primary cells in our bloodstream transporting oxygen and keeping you alive? would be nice to mention their function instead of just mentioning the existent of red and white, with the second being the police and then calling it a day, of course this means i graduated thinking that the blood only has those 2 kinds of cells.
Fungi is like an anime who cant move, it looks like a plant but it is not, so back to animal cells... memorize the names of these organelles.
There is none, the skeletons go under the skin and muscles, and that's it, any other thing different is not part of an skeleton let a lone an exoskeleton, in other words shells don't exist and are not skeletons, only endoskeletons exist but there is no need of that word, because it means the same as skeleton, and turtles are mythological beings then.

There has to be more to your teacher's claim...denying the existence of exoskeletons is one rung higher than proclaiming the Earth is flat on the scale of egregious stupidity...just take any insect, and watch it molt! perhaps he/she was arguing the definition of a skeleton- exoskeletons are typically not mineralized but are comprised of chitin, they are not broken down and reabsorbed by the circulatory system iirc, and they generally do not provide structural and motile support in the same way "true" endoskeletons due...if so, I could understand your teacher's idea, all the same that line of thinking is too pedantic to be discussed in a high school setting. I see you explained all this at the end of your comment, but I was responding accordingly as I read, so...

But is it random though?? Again...all boils down to chemistry which boils down to physics...Proteins will move according to polarity and osmosis/diffusion...but I won't even attempt to fully understand what's going on at a physical level...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion#Random_walk_.28random_motion.29

I never said intelligence would be needed for a hormonal process (all though it would be fricken sweet if we had the mental capacity to control atoms like Luke Skywalker!!) but conjectured the reverse, chemicals govern our actions and thoughts...in other words we have no free will...of course that's vary broadly speaking...we have a nervous system and the accompanying motor proteins that lets us make a choice...or again is it the result of a highly complex series of chemical reactions that makes this choice...and what we think

just imagine though...the potential ethical dilemmas, even physical struggles, to a (very) certain degree, we may face if plants had a nervous system!!

Animal species make sentient, intelligent, calculated decisions in order to increase their survival...but even more basic life forms like plants and bacteria are able to perceive at the most basic level what they need to do in order to survive. Some bacteria are able to facilitate switching between anaerobic and aerobic respiration depending on the oxygen conditions, some plants are able to produce exotoxins during a predatory threat...maybe survival and evolution isn't so much about intelligence, but just by chance having the specific chemical composition at the right place in this astoundingly profound realm

I'll cut it out I'm a biologist not a philosopher XD but truly all is the same, just expressed differently

True to all the below in your comment, I was just devil advocating

Your teacher doesn't surprise me per se- but I would be surprised if there was no mention of prokaryotes vs. eukaryotes within the cellular topic of your school's science curriculum

Virus are an abiotic factor that are likely to be fragments of once living organisms. They are DNA (or RNA) encapsulated in protein. They are not cells, nor do they have organelles, which is generally accepted to be the prerequisite for a biotic entity. You wouldn't consider those biomolecules (protein and nucleic acids) to be life in and of themselves would you? They don't reproduce in the traditional sense...think of placing the wrong coin in a copy machine, and it ends up making the wrong copies. A virus enters a cell, where the cell nucleus incorrectly receives the viral DNA or RNA and proceeds to replicate the copies and assemble the viral proteins. The ultimate question for evolutionary biologists: how do the virus reassemble?? this is the key to understanding abiogenesis...find the answer and you get a Nobel Peace prize

Another analogy: Cyberdevil codes a program. I somehow tweak the code within the program, so it produces something different, and proliferates the hack (i.e. if another person uses Cyberdevil's program, they also receive the digital virus). I wrote the hack, but no one would consider the code alteration as another, standalone program.

Well, a bit of gray area regarding what makes up a muscle...there's voluntary muscle used for external mechanical movement...but many of our organs such as the heart and GI tract are lined with involuntary muscles to move substances throughout (and out of) the body efficiently. The brain doesn't move anything though, so I would be interested to understand how that misconception came about...are you hypothesizing the lack of neuronal discussion lead students to propose that thoughts and nerve impulses were moved mechanically??

But there are only two types of blood cells...red and white, with various subtypes of the latter. Okay, you've showed me you know enough about them for a high school class, you get an A XD

Is it just me or did Tom finally lift the strict character amount restriction in these comment forms...thank you based Fulp

... She was a catholic so, religious stupidity wasn't that far away from her.

Man i am so glad i was wrong, now it all makes sense, so it is not really random, it just looks to be random! (if looked in isolation).

But we have no free will...

Let it be, we already eat animals and use their carcass to make diverse materials, plants with a nervous system wont become less food or less wood than they are already, i see no dilemma there for the practical man, it would be nice to have plants that show animal like intelligence, but morally troubling? for vegans, but they already have a fucked up logic anyways, that will only help to wake up to how the world works.

I still don't see why it would be problematic if the second option happens to be the accurate one.

Pseudo-problems all of them, the only people still struggling trying to make man an special entity are religious fanatics and egomaniacs, all that is like trying to find the soul.

If they were mentioned the name may have appeared on a part of the text book, but i recall nothing of them being explicitly talked in class.

Likely but what if they are not? what if they are their own thing, DUN DUN DUN!
Or what if life is just another illusion made by us to separate ourselves from the rest of the universe, and in the end there is no difference between dead and alive, just a mere word used to categorize, to which we desperately cling to amid our desperation trying to find a meaning to existence!? no dun dun dun here, because i find such reasons lame, there is no meaning in a world of chaos.
Organelles are overrated some of them don't even share the same DNA of the cells in which they can be found.
Meh they still copy themselves, works for me.
Faulty copies? sounds like evolution to me! XD.
But that is all part of the magic of viruses their high capacity to mutate.
A peace prize because they end the controversy? funny.

The code alteration itself is not a stand alone program, true, it couldn't be even called a proper program (or maybe it could, depends on how complex the code is), it could be just another command among a series of commands.
However that code alteration has generated a different program from the original one, and that new program is an stand alone program. This new program modifies other programs (or files, transforming them into programs), and by doing this changes their code, making them new programs themselves, these new programs will now repeat the process, and so and so. And these new programs are now viruses, they replicate a piece of information.

Seems to me that this definition of life is just a bunch of organelles clamped together and with the ability to replicate, if something has both then it is alive. Then what is the big deal with artificial life? or with life in general, it has nothing special to it, it is just a copy machine with discrimination added to it.

Yeah, thoughts and nerve impulses were moved mechanically, because that is all there is, oh and these process are done by some unknown animal cells, which are not red or white cells, but which organelles were memorized by these students.

Subtypes? bull shit! that was never mentioned in class!

Well with the art portal falling apart, at least the comments can run free.

I think nietzlawe has mistaken the great fallacy war for the great phallus-y war...

LoL! I wouldn't generalize religious people (Catholic or not) as stupid though. Just a different way of finding their own answers and comfort in life...

I definitely sensationalized the plants with nervous system scenario, but all the same, once life has the ability to feel, even though it's part of the circle life in most animal species, there's always the ethical question (from a vocal minority) if the higher beings of life have any right to kill for sustenance.

Immaterial point viruses arose from- they are still not life. They could have broke off from bacteria or came before- as it's hypothesized that DNA/RNA came before life itself; biomolecules can assemble from primordial chemicals (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21528795.500-dna-could-have-existed-long-before-life-itself.html#.VI_Rusny2RM).

Tangential, philosophical definitions of life- there is a logical scientific criterion for life, which viruses do not fit
I was just playing the devil's advocate at first though

Cells only have 1 or 2 types of DNA, found in the nucleus in eukaryotes and just in the cytoplasm in prokaryotes, and different mitochondria DNA (chloroplasts in plants and algae). The other organelles do not contain DNA (if they did just imagine all that ATP O_O)

You would get a peace prize because you found a major piece in the origin of life (the only context I will concede viruses can be grouped as "life")

RE: your expounded analogy of digital viruses...quite right. The same way the Sun, radioactive material, and carcinogenic chemicals can induce mutations, creating a "new" mutant person. Having the property to induce mutations in life doesn't mean the causative agent is life itself, or else everything could be affirmed as alive.

life is a bunch of organelles clamped together, the ability to reproduce and grow, and the ability to metabolize, and the ability to respond. There are seven eclectic standards, but I think that shall suffice...I would add the ability to maintain an equilibrium with the environment...all organisms care about survival, and are sensible about their surroundings. Viruses are the opposite...they continually multiply, not knowing when to stop...reminds me of a scene in the first Matrix film...listen to how Agent Smith applies the term "organism" inaccurately, although it was probably just a "for a lack of a better word" situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Na9-jV_OJI

Well there's a ton of different types of cells in the mammalian body!! Neuron cells, fiber cells (atleast 3-4 different types), bone forming cells, bone breaking cells, stem cells (various types), macrophage cells, other types of WBCs, red blood cells, epithelial cells (many), cartilage cells (multiple), specific organ cells, fat cells, 3 types of muscle cells, specific organ cells, etc.

Phallus-y the genital that is a phallus and a pussy combined into one! of course a horrid, brutal, and enormous war was waged around such an abomination.

Pretty sure she negated evolution, and still tried to teach us biology class...

Come on man, we have to come to terms that our livelihood is sustained on the suffering of other species, maybe one day when our tech is more advanced, we will be able to directly transform energy into all kinds of matter, but until then, we will have to kill to get sustenance, being it for food or for basic materials, if they can feel well that's a pity but we really don't have much alternatives for all that plant life offers, not only as food, but also the resources that wood offers are so many, we are really dependent of them, and really even if they did not feel at all, the notion of taking their lives just to build some commodities is just despicable in itself, our incapability to understand how plants perceive the world, is probably just an excuse for us to justify how badly we treat plant life .

You have been playing the devils advocate for the most part of this conversation, actually it would be nice to know before hand when is that you areplaying devils advocate and when not, so i can know your actual position in the theme, like for example:

Out of the 2 propositions regarding the origins of viruses that you gave me, in which one do you believe in more? Virus are an abiotic factor that are likely to be fragments of once living organisms, or came before life itself? i am more inclined towards the second one, since i don't consider the distinction between living and nonliving as that much of an essential problem, and the second one helps more towards my purposes, of course if the first one ends being true i would have to adapt my whole system, but overall i like more Powner's idea of a mixed world with both RNA and DNA.

Well but still the fact remains, and there are organelles with diferent DNA to the one present in the rest of the cell...

Shouldn't it be a Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine? and not one for peace? really one is for the life sciences, and the other is for people that helped in promoting peace on different contexts... maybe even depending on how it is discovered they may get a Nobel price on Chemistry.

But that is kinda my point, there's no mayor difference between life and not-life, just a technicism.

Well if he had used bacteria would that have been better?
Hmm lets see Virus can:
- Reproduce (checked).
- Grow (checked).
- Respond (maybe not as dynamic as other things, but they have a degree of interaction with their surroundings, so checked)
- I guess they can not metabolize for themselves... but is that really all that important? they get their stuff from other cells, in a really assholish way it is efficient...
- As for maintaining an equilibrium with the environment, not all virus go and completely annihilate their host, so there's is that.

You are making that shit up, are you saying that my biology teacher from high school lied to me, and was an actual sub-par educator!? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW7Op86ox9g

In other words...just seems like a vagina with an abnormally large clitoris...ambiguous genitalia is not as rare as one would think

Hmm, kinda strange. Evolution and creationism can go hand-in-hand to a certain degree, I've met a lot of religious people that were biologists, not sure if they just put on a scientific facade and ignore their religious ideals while inside the laboratory and classroom, or found some personal reasoning that allows the two co-exist. There's been a long, still somewhat ongoing debate whether evolution and/or creationism should be taught in the high school classroom.

I was only playing the devil's advocate in that ending paragraph a few comments below!! Of course, I feel that all the content you addressed should be taught in classroom, if time permits.

My stance on the origin of viruses?? Both hypotheses are plausible!! all though there is genetic evidence that suggests they broke off from bacteria, most likely through extra-chromosomal DNA synthesis (plasmids). You could argue that the genetic evidence could suggest the contrary- that bacteria DNA developed from the viral DNA, but this viral DNA (for the sake of discussion) that the bacterial DNA arose from came from bacterial species later in the bacterial lineage, if that makes sense. Would make a good phylogenetic study for a research paper... Somehow the genetic information wasn't transferred correctly to a new bacterium, and the plasmid managed to "bud out" from the bacterial cell, taking something of the bacterial cell wall proteins with it. This is actually how some viruses spread, particularly enveloped viruses. In other instance the extra-chromosomal DNA attracted intracellular proteins, and got too large from the cell, causing it to burst.

Nonetheless, I believe viruses have arisen at multiple points in time, whether they came before bacteria, or not. Either way, viruses need a host to flourish, but that's not to say the viruses didn't just 'exist' amongst the other abiotic factors of Earth billions of years ago, waiting to be taken up by the first form of life. And let us no forgot the oft-neglected archaea kingdom, which can also be infected by viruses, and may even predate bacteria...not to mention even the potential earlier, more primitive forms of life (now extinict) where there is no current technology to obtain fossils or evidence of their existence...

wow, such microbial evolution talk lol!! I'm more interested in evolution as it pertains to animals

Why would have to adapt your system of thinking, I do not see how the origin of viruses makes them any more or less alive...the facts of viruses are here to study, it really just boils down to your definition on what life is.

You're right about the Nobel prizes...I though Nobel peace prizes were given to all fields, seems they have specific prizes though.

There's no major difference between chemistry and physics, but sometimes a distinction needs to be made, and categorization helps us further understand the universe. But with that said I'm always open to taking things out of categories and putting them into new ones, and open lines of thinking. As long as they are logically sound.

Viruses cannot reproduce...i refuted your definition below with the hacked program analogy...

Viruses do not grow...unlike bacteria and cells that grow and develop to a certain point and then reproduce via binary fission...viruses just assemble and are "there"...although they do have a high propensity to mutate than all organisms...here I'll concede: growth, mutation- what's the difference?? the purpose behind it all is to adapt to the surroundings and survive.

Viruses do not really respond...cells that take up viruses respond accordingly to the viruses like any other abiotic factor. The difference is other abiotic factors do not have the necessary genetic data to tell cells to produce certain components.

Yeah...viruses don't need to metabolize because they're not alive (talk about owned :P)

Viruses would if they could!! The immune system tends to keep them in check. Some viruses just have a very long incubation stage before symptoms present themselves, so they while they may not annihilate the host, they will if they reach a different organism (i.e. bats infecting primates with ebola).

Agent Smith couldn't interchange organism with bacteria, as bacteria is too specific. But now that I think of it, the machines are technically considered life forms within the Matrix anyway...The whole premise of the movie is truly profound and transcends the human concept of biology...The Wachowski "Brothers" (one's actually a MtF now lol) probably had that in mind when they made the scene...they truly are geniuses

I was thinking more of... a penis with a vagina on top of its urethra opening, or a hyena's pseudo penis that one is also horrible.

They can go hand in hand, but that is not the case for her.

From bacteria to virus to bacteria again? so in essence viruses are incomplete bacteria, don't really like it, but if that were to be the truth i can do nothing about it; i prefer the other one after the nonetheless, what it will be will be.

Doge, the Indian dog doctor evolutionary microbiologist!

I would have to adapt the system so the propositions would gain force by eliminating loose ends, like when i want to use them as illustrations for a point, like for example saying that virus were always alive, and not just has-beens from their bacteria predecessors.

Yeah.

True a discovery on biochemistry could fall in any of the 3 categories of Physiology or Medicine, Chemistry, or Physics.

They are multiplying, the analogy with computer viruses doesn't really works as an accurate comparison because the way a computer virus and a virus spread are different even if similar, in the case of the computer virus a corrupted program can be recovered from its infection, for the virus is just part of its code, thus the program is not destroyed and liberates a bunch of free agents inside the computer, of course that depends of the computer virus, some completely override and change the code in a program, some then can even start making copies of themselves, some then can even make copies of themselves that have changes which help them hide from antimalware programs, however that is not the case for even half of them, in that sense they are really not stand alone at all (or can be...), for me viruses can be stand alone beings, they just use infection to reproduce.

Well assembling, and growing what is the difference? while i am at it, their mutation is part of their reproductive cycle... since as i understand it, these changes occur from one generation to another, and not in the same virus, and this allows their survival (survival? is almost as if they were alive...).
Interesting that you put mutation here, are you telling me that the mutated virus is the same as the one pre-mutation? is this why you put this comparison here in growth and not in reproduction? according to this are the offsprings of this virus the virus itself and not different ones?

"The difference is other abiotic factors do not have the necessary genetic data to tell cells to produce certain components." sounds like a response to me... a response so hardcore that it can change the way other things response!

They get their needs from the host cells, nothing lost here.

Now you are just condemning a whole species just from the response of some viruses with some parts of their environment, completely not fair, this is a clear example of a rhetorical fallacy of division, good thing it was just on the bonus part.

I am not saying to interchange organism with bacteria, but virus with bacteria, in the sense that they both can destroy their environment, all this in order to save his misuse of organism, unless you don't consider bacteria to be an organism... in which case my bad.
The Wachowski "siblings" then XD; yeah not only are the machines considered alive, but also the software that exhibits AI, which is partially what impulses my denial of our definition of life.

If we can't consider viruses alive, then intelligent software and non-biological yet living machines would have it harder, however i think that at some point it will be possible to make a machine that can fit with the criteria even if it would be better if it doesn't, so that super machine:

- Reproduces itself (asexually seems like the simple way to go, maybe imitating mitosis).
- Grow (actually this factor is overrated, why would it need to grow? let it be born fully matured, if it needs to adapt it will mutate!).
- Responds (this is probably the easy part, the touring test will be broken, actually it doesn't even needs to break no touring test! it got even easier).
- And metabolizes (since it doesn't has organic limitations it could metabolize even more things than what organic life can do), and of course lets add the bonus and it conserves its environment.

Making a revision, of the super machine:

- This machine wont really need to grow, growing seems like a thing that living things share but not a necessity to be alive, it could mutate tho.

- It's reproduction at one point would probably not be needed, as it mutates, making copies of itself will probably be a medium that is inefficient to ensure survival, enhancing itself instead of making a next generation would allow it to address immediate problems, it will save resources and time, if it needs of a group to achieve a goal it can create drone parts that are controlled by a centralized unit and yet are not connected physically to the main body, if the main body is heavily damaged one of the other parts takes command of the rest; but lets say that it's still there just to prove a point that it can do it (of course it can create altered offspring).

- It will respond to stimuli as needed, primarily as a way to acquire energy, and to avoid damage; if there is no need then it doesn't (i am thinking of an advanced state of organized energy, similar to the ones present in "The last Question" of Isaac Asimov, at that point it doesn't seems like it has responses with our world) a case in which doesn't needs to response could be that its energetic necessities have been fulfilled, of course most of its body would decay really really slowly so only computing (analysis of data) processes would consume energy, but... is a thinking thing an alive thing? at this point it seems like AI with a body that can/could do lost of things, if i pass my mental processes into a robot, would my robotic aware self be dead? anyway...

- The ability to metabolize would be optional, if we think futuristically enough, it can gather resources and generate energy by other means more efficient than metabolism, like for example has an inner chamber that gives it matter by collecting quarks attracted there by the force of perpetually colliding gravitons, it also uses free protons as a source of raw energy, and it can mix the 2 systems to potentiate one another, that would serve as its source for matter when it needs to reproduce, make repairs, mutate, and since it already has access to energy in a pure form it wont really need of a process of chemical respiration that allows it to operate.

It seems that this super machine is not alive because it doesn't even fills half of what the definition of life requires, even if it could, however it is more efficient than life at its own defining categories, so lets say that those characteristics that it once had, are now lost because they don't serve any purpose anymore, it seems that the machine would stop to be alive, since it can't be considered alive if it just mutates itself, "breaths", and has some responses (and is at equilibrium with the environment because bonuses are nice!).

Comparing this super machine with the virus, the virus can not metabolize, or care for their environment (this one doesn't matters at all, it is just a bonus, anyway...), i know what you said, it doesn't reproduces either, nor does it grows (yet it mutates), and it doesn't has responses (despite their awesome bio-hacks!), but consider the following:

Which ones of these are really not there, and are also primordial for a thing to be alive? (i fear you will say all of them...)

Reproduction? viruses can multiply themselves, and these copies can differ from the original, it works! it leaves offspring(s).
Growth, they assemble... that can be seen as form of growth...
Response, they can hack cells! make them explode, bring them back to life, even brainwash them!
As for metabolism, it can get it's needed resources by invading others, pillaging is its own form of metabolism... it is just that its acting cycle of life is limited to just virus sex... but ain't that the answer of the biology questions to the reason of life? getting laid?
I... i don't really care for the bonus.

Fine, they are not.

Thought on scientists and religion:
My hypothesis is that religion is primarily a tool to escape death.
(black and white argument?)
I hypothesize a scientist could take a lot of liberties stripping away at their religion if
"living forever" is the only thing they want out of it.
(Authority argument? I am no scientist.)

Religion is primarily a tool to explain the phenomena that occurs in our world and for which we have no real way to explain at the moment (and even after) by using empirical evidence, derived from this we also get a tool that gives us a safety net to ease worries, a way to be at peace with nature, among this phenomena death is almost always addressed, and with it also the origin of life.

Then it's secondary use is that of being a tool of power, to exert control upon others.

In either case you don't really need to live forever in order to stripe away religious concepts.

For example in Buddhism you actually die, and you are just reborn, but your new self doesn't remembers its past life, thus the previous you effectively died.
And in most South American native religions you go back to the earth and become nourishment, but you actually die.
The idea of eternal soul and a metaphysical plane, is mostly a Judeo-Christian concept, which as Nietzsche showed us, is driven by a disdain and disgust towards life, and a fetishism with death, specially for the christian/catholic, for him this world in which we live is one of sin, filled with suffering, and salvation comes only after you die, then you can (if saved) live for eternity in bliss; what Nietzsche tells us is that this disgusting idea totally disregards all the other nice things that life has to offer us.

Interestingly enough Protestantism, and Calvinism actually admit to a form of compensation while alive, these "gifts" from god, that are experienced while alive, are bestow only upon the honest-to-god hard-workers, and are among other things the principal ideology that allowed capitalism to flourish in america, or so Max Weber tells us on his book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism", this book a gem of Sociology, explains how capitalism uses religion as a mean to impulse an economic ideal, in this sense religion is both a means of control, and a way to explain phenomena (good people are rewarded with good things, because they are good, hilarious really), to this day most Americans firmly believe in this.

I never liked the idea of "deserving" things. Hilarious in a dark kind of way. I had an ex who was abused and she had that mindset of deserving things. She also thought I deserved good things because I was good.

Calvinism and capitalism. Never knew that. Makes a lot of sense though.

No one is entitled to anything, however if we want to maintain an idea of justice we have to carry the imaginary of something akin to retribution under the concept of fairness, in essence it is all just a lie implemented to keep order.

Yeah he also has other books that explain why Capitalism was unable to surface under other religious ideologies like "The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism" and "The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism", however as we now know both China and India became capitalist states with time, even if China proclaims itself as a socialist state it has a global market based on a capitalist monopoly.