3 ms·

I remember sitting in an APS talk 7 or so years back where the room more or less laughed at a researcher presenting hypotheses on how deuterium detection might

I remember sitting in an APS talk 7 or so years back where the room more or less laughed at a researcher presenting hypotheses on how deuterium detection might be possible in fruitfly proteins. I hated that entire room and what it stood for. Philistines masquerading as professors. No scientific talk which was done systematically should be laughed at like that.

omgJustTest 6y ago
As an student, ta and undergraduate instructor the one thing that offended me outright was people being discouraged from engaging. 99% of instruction is communication, largely one direction and engagement is the only data to evaluate the effectiveness. To me it reinforces the one correct reason to become a professor: you want to raise the standard of professionals / colleagues in the field by mass education. Your goal is to increase quality across the board, and the only way to be successful is to be a good and engaging communicator. There are networked benefits from creating success for your students.
ncmncm 6y ago
Agreed, the suppression of research in this area, for decades, reveals a fundamental failure in how we as a society conduct science. E.g., now that it turns out that saturated fat is wholly harmless, the past five decades spent failing to investigate why meat consumption really causes circulatory disease is practically criminal. How many early deaths are traceable to this sustained failure? How many, to having continued permitting trans fats in stuff sold as if it were food? How many to oxidized unsaturated fats? People like to insist that science always gets it right in the end, but these corrections are always isolated flukes. The pattern suggests a clear majority never get corrected. mRNA vaccines are just such a fluke; their inventor spent her whole career being spit on. How many died, for lack of mRNA vaccines in past decades when the method could have accelerated vaccine development by years back then, instead of only now? A great fount of suppressed truths must lie dreaming in the work of women and minorities driven from their fields. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc87uvk8GBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc87uvk8GBc
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  So many downvotes, but there’s a bias that makes science (the community) more about the status quo than revolution.
- astrange 6y ago
  There's still some situations where saturated fats might be bad (iirc high fat+high carb at the same time is worse than just high carb) but there really seems to be no reason at all to believe that low-sodium foods are healthier. The problem with fries is everything except for the salt.
fabian2k 6y ago
I'd be very skeptical that there is an actual biological mechanism that detects deuterium intentionally, there simply isn't really any need to this given that D2O is very rare. I'm not saying they don't exist, but there is no compelling argument why they would evolve. I'm not saying this can't exist, but I'd need some pretty convincing evidence that there's an actual biological reason for such a mechanism. But of course detection would be possible, it has been known for many decades that different isotopes change reaction kinetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_isotope_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_isotope_effect). That is a measurable chemical effect, so of course a protein could make use of it. This is something I was taught in university, so this is not any kind of obscure knowledge, but mainstream chemistry.
- nobodyandproud 6y ago
  But nothing in the op’s post suggested intentional detection by the fruitfly. Just that the fruitfly (or some parts) could be used; I imagine the fruitfly is more of a canary than a detective.

omgJustTest 6y ago

As an student, ta and undergraduate instructor the one thing that offended me outright was people being discouraged from engaging. 99% of instruction is communication, largely one direction and engagement is the only data to evaluate the effectiveness. To me it reinforces the one correct reason to become a professor: you want to raise the standard of professionals / colleagues in the field by mass education. Your goal is to increase quality across the board, and the only way to be successful is to be a good and engaging communicator. There are networked benefits from creating success for your students.

ncmncm 6y ago

Agreed, the suppression of research in this area, for decades, reveals a fundamental failure in how we as a society conduct science. E.g., now that it turns out that saturated fat is wholly harmless, the past five decades spent failing to investigate why meat consumption really causes circulatory disease is practically criminal. How many early deaths are traceable to this sustained failure? How many, to having continued permitting trans fats in stuff sold as if it were food? How many to oxidized unsaturated fats? People like to insist that science always gets it right in the end, but these corrections are always isolated flukes. The pattern suggests a clear majority never get corrected. mRNA vaccines are just such a fluke; their inventor spent her whole career being spit on. How many died, for lack of mRNA vaccines in past decades when the method could have accelerated vaccine development by years back then, instead of only now? A great fount of suppressed truths must lie dreaming in the work of women and minorities driven from their fields. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc87uvk8GBc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc87uvk8GBc

nobodyandproud 6y ago
So many downvotes, but there’s a bias that makes science (the community) more about the status quo than revolution.
astrange 6y ago
There's still some situations where saturated fats might be bad (iirc high fat+high carb at the same time is worse than just high carb) but there really seems to be no reason at all to believe that low-sodium foods are healthier. The problem with fries is everything except for the salt.

fabian2k 6y ago

I'd be very skeptical that there is an actual biological mechanism that detects deuterium intentionally, there simply isn't really any need to this given that D2O is very rare. I'm not saying they don't exist, but there is no compelling argument why they would evolve. I'm not saying this can't exist, but I'd need some pretty convincing evidence that there's an actual biological reason for such a mechanism. But of course detection would be possible, it has been known for many decades that different isotopes change reaction kinetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_isotope_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_isotope_effect). That is a measurable chemical effect, so of course a protein could make use of it. This is something I was taught in university, so this is not any kind of obscure knowledge, but mainstream chemistry.

nobodyandproud 6y ago
But nothing in the op’s post suggested intentional detection by the fruitfly. Just that the fruitfly (or some parts) could be used; I imagine the fruitfly is more of a canary than a detective.