gravelc

11 ms·

61.
by gravelc 6y ago
I just bought the base model Air. No issues with the RAM thus far, but know that the disc space is going to be an annoying limitation. Will swap it for the 512GB model in the next week or so. Absolutely stunning computer though - first ti
62.
by gravelc 6y ago
We've not proven very good at ending ourselves as a species in the past. Quite the opposite. Not sure where the pessimism is coming from.
63.
by gravelc 6y ago
I'm sure we'll survive somehow without it. Murdoch's empire is fading fast in Australia. The Australian, Foxtel, the print papers are all on their last legs. Their streaming offering Binge is laughably bad - it's only
64.
by gravelc 7y ago
The reason why CS analogies don't work very well is that molecular biology is very context driven, and we often don't know what the context is. For example, in eukaryotes, the same piece of DNA can can produce different amounts of
65.
by gravelc 7y ago
This argument is pointless as the assay relies on a dual-labelled probe. Look up how that works [1]. Anyway, an end-point PCR is not quantitative. You could do semi-quantitative on a gel, but it's a rubbish technique that was rightfu
66.
by gravelc 7y ago
Looking at the assay - it uses a dual labelled probe. That gives the specificity in addition to the PCR primers. Primers themselves presumably aren't selective enough.
67.
by gravelc 7y ago
pPCR is quantitative - measures fluorescence. End point PCR just measures whether you have the sequence there or not. It's slower, more work, and prone to false positives (see edit above).
68.
by gravelc 7y ago
I'd advise against this unless you really know what you're doing. Equipment is just one thing. You need a very well controlled environment that absolutely prevents cross-contamination and environmental contamination. My lab is a
69.
by gravelc 7y ago
You need a quantitative real-time PCR machine, not just a PCR machine. Not cheap. EDIT: You can't just put this on a gel. Something that comes up at 35 cycles (likely negative - needs re-running) looks exactly the same as something t
70.
by gravelc 7y ago
Agree it's trivially easy to do, but as anyone you does a lot of qPCR knows, they're rife with false positives. Any environmental contamination will show up as a positive, particularly using the non-quantatative end-point method m
71.
by gravelc 7y ago
Have to agree with this. Normally it would not be a good decision to use this or even advertise how to make it. These are however not normal times; more like we are at war and using combat medicine if the health system gets over run. This
72.
by gravelc 7y ago
Too little, too late. Most of Australia's external cases seem to be coming from the US (e.g. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson), which indicates tens of thousands of undiagnosed incidences there (even accounting for selection bias). Urgent so
73.
by gravelc 7y ago
Even if testing completely stopped, presumably an over-strained health system would be obvious and almost impossible to hide. I can see why people are extremely resistant to believing anything the Chinese government says, but there seem to
74.
by gravelc 7y ago
Sensible precautions. Multiple cases of people arriving from the USA to Australia with COVID19 suggest the virus is much more widespread than admitted by the government[1]. Large gatherings of any sort should be curtailed to prevent a sim
75.
by gravelc 7y ago
Unbelievable these events are going ahead. A number of travelers returning to Australia from the USA have contracted COVID19, indicating the disease is more widespread than admitted by the government. The Formula 1 Grand Prix is going ahea
76.
SARS-CoV-2 Cell Entry Is Blocked by a Clinically Proven Protease Inhibitor(cell.com)
4 points by gravelc 7y ago|1 comments
77.
by gravelc 7y ago
Was discussing this with colleagues recently. The last big global event was the GFC, and before that WW2. Suspect the impact of COVID-19 will be closer to WW2 than the GFC, but truly hope I'm wrong. We are living through an interesti
78.
by gravelc 7y ago
Slowing the spread via containment so the health system can be shored up seems sensible to me. Possibly those weeks could make a difference; I'd imagine vaccine development is highly parallelised relative to a normal year, and there ma
79.
by gravelc 7y ago
Given the incubation time, the virus has been spreading in the community for at least 1-2 weeks. Not a US citizen and don’t really understand how things work there, but you’d think it’s time for a response at scale to have any chance of con
80.
A Car ‘Splatometer’ Study Finds Insect Die-Off(wired.com)
3 points by gravelc 7y ago|0 comments
81.
Quantum experiment in China breaks through distance barrier in optic fibres(abc.net.au)
2 points by gravelc 7y ago|0 comments
82.
by gravelc 7y ago
Definitely not a great approach. It's worth pointing toward the actual algorithms commonly used for local and global alignments (global is the one to use in the coronavirus genome case). Local alignments: Smith-Waterman [1]. Global ali
83.
by gravelc 7y ago
Stopping say thrips or aphids eating a horticultural crop somehow removes a species, which then usually has a chain effect? Can you show me some scientific literature where this is typically the case? Personally I don't research these
84.
by gravelc 7y ago
I'm part of a group that is developing RNAi-based pesticides [1]. One of the biggest advantages of such a technology (even relative to organic pesticides like Bt toxin) is the ability to target pests in a highly specific manner and av
85.
by gravelc 7y ago
See another doctor. Have a biopsy. Don’t stuff around with genetic tests, as they’re not going to give you the information you want in this situation (whether you have a cancer rather than whether you’re likely to develop one). I had the sa
86.
by gravelc 7y ago
This is laughable. Table 1 shows four alignments. The first two are only six contiguous residues, so can easily happen by chance. Three has multiple mistmatches as well as the gap (red). Four has an even larger gap to get the alignment.
87.
by gravelc 7y ago
I didn't state otherwise.
88.
by gravelc 7y ago
> I find it far easier to believe that the consistent global drop in insect populations has far more to do with deforestation and chemical disbursement rather than fractions of degrees of warming that we've seen so far. You might fi
89.
by gravelc 7y ago
This is coming to QLD too (along with $1000 fines), and I totally support it. Whenever I'm cycling in traffic, I see plenty of people on their phones. The worst is people swerving into bike lanes without looking - peripheral vision s
90.
by gravelc 7y ago
Never heard of an oyster flown in from the Northern hemisphere. Pacific oysters (from Japan) are cultivated in Coffin Bay and Tasmania. Native oysters predominate in most of NSW, where Pacific oysters are classed as a noxious species. I

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