HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kja@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (krista.j.anderson)
Subject: Re: origin of gelatin
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 17:18:41 GMT

Just for the record, there's a third substance that is supposed to
gel more firmly than pectin and is also apparently vegetarian*,
namely agar-agar, made from seaweed, available in health food
stores, expensive.  (I've never tried it.)

*there might be plankton in the seaweed?
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: glenn_birrenkott@quickmail.clemson.edu
Subject: Re: Do birds pant?
Keywords: birds, hyperventilate
Organization: CU
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 20:35:24 GMT

In article <84185@netnews.upenn.edu> barkdoll@cattell.psych.upenn.edu (Edwin
Barkdoll) writes:
>In article <1992Jul20.214719.3625@u.washington.edu>
pkemp@byron.u.washington.edu (Paul Kemp) writes:
>>It's been quite hot and dry in Seattle this summer and I've noticed that many
>>birds are hopping around with their beaks open. I've seen it in crows,
sparrows
>>and finches but not in the ducks or geese.  I've never noticed birds doing
this
>>before and was wondering if they were temperature regulating?
>>pk
>
>	I and some others have been flight training a red tailed hawk,
>who after a hard workout will open mouth breath, i.e. pant.  Birds in
>general will pant when hot to thermoregulate and after exertion,
>perhaps also to thermoregulate.  I've also seen birds pant when overly
>stressed.  I don't know if the latter instance also is a result of
>high body temp.
>
>Edwin Barkdoll
>barkdoll@cattell.psych.upenn.edu
>eb3@world.std.com
>
Because the avian respiratory system differs so markedly from that of mammals
(air sacs, lack of diaphram, etc.) I'm not sure that we should say that birds
"pant".
Birds do increase respiration in an effort to thermoregulate.  This is usually
in the
form of a "gular flutter".  These shallow, brief inspiration/expirations
increase
 evaporative cooling with less change in blood gases and acid-base balance than
would occur with typical hyperventilation. Other physiological mechanisms such 
as spreading wings and feather erection are also important in Aves keeping
their cool.

--------------------------------
Glenn Birrenkott, 
Poultry Science Dept.
Clemson University
Clemson, SC  29634-0379
Xref: sparky sci.bio:2711 sci.med:14195 sci.cryonics:420
From: nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: Better Living through DNA Encryption
Keywords: Public Key Encryption, DNA Transcription
Date: 21 Jul 92 19:35:24 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)


       Similar ideas have been suggested at least twice in science fiction.
(Short story "Checksum", Analog, circa 1989, and a book which suggested
rad-hard humans.)  

       There are actually bacteria with quadruple-strand DNA that have
evolved to live in nuclear reactors.

					John Nagle
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: ajpierce@med.unc.edu (Andrew Pierce)
Subject: Re: Mutations: Mostly Harmful, or Not?
Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 04:13:04 GMT

In article <14lcnjINNghd@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> jdale@cats.ucsc.edu (Jonathan Dale) writes:
>On the other hand, many genes are repeated, some appearing huge numbers of
>times.  In terms of information, the copies are "junk".  They probably serve
>to ensure that one mutation will not be fatal; there are many places where
>redundancy is a defense against mutations in the DNA.  With the addition of
>a CRC, they would be unnecessary.  [Although they play a role in evolution;
>protecting the DNA could eliminate one source of variation in the gene pool.
>This is a dilemma.] 

   Most of the genes which are highly repeated such as those coding for
histones, rRNA's etc. seem to be repeated simply because it is not
possible to induce transcription sufficiently from a single copy of the
gene in DNA to supply the cell's full needs given that the cell has only a
finite time to replicate at which point its resources are reduced.  This
can aslo be seen (unfortunately) in the reponse of cancer cells to
chemotherapeutic agents; the cells can amplify the DNA which codes for
proteins which serve to make the cells resistant to the agent.  As an
example, CHOC400 cells have greatly amplified the DHFR gene region in
response to methotrexate treatment.

>Also, long regions at the ends and middle of each 
>chromosome have non-coding repeats.  These probably help provide structure,
>but again are redundant.  If you reduced the number of chromosomes by putting
>all the information from the non-sex chromosomes on just one chromosome,
>you would eliminate a lot of this. 

   Remembering that the cell needs to divide, if all the DNA was in one
chromosome, just how big would the cells have to be in order to
successfully pull apart replicated copies of this chromosome without some
additional sort of ravelling mechanism?  A better idea perhaps would be to
take a lesson from bacteria and make the chromosomes circular thus
dispensing with the ends (there are already lots of topological problems
even with linear chromosomes).

     -Andy
ajpierce@med.unc.edu
From: hjcho@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Hae Jean Cho)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Provocative DATA about sexes, brains, animals, intelligence
Keywords: SUMMARY OF RESULTS + HELP NEEDED!!
Date: 24 Jul 92 19:19:03 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU

In article <1992Jul20.073549.24935@cco.caltech.edu- bes@cco.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi) writes:

	1.  Is there any correlation between brain size and intelligence?

	None proved yet.

>-In fact, I believe there's considerable evidence to the contrary.  I
>-recall reading somewhere the largest brain on record belonged to an idiot.
>-The brain of Albert Einstein is reported to be relatively small.


I recently read that 19th century scientists originally claimed that
brain size (mass?) was directly related to intelligence, until it was
realized that then human beings would have to admit that blue whales
were the most intelligent beings on earth.  So then the criterion
became brain mass per total body mass, but then they would have had to
conclude that women are, in general, more intelligent than men.  So
the argument was largely abandoned....

I do not recall the name of the original source.  I read this in
Gloria Steinem's book on self-esteem.

J. Cho
From: scottk@nuclease.berkeley.edu (Number Ten Ox)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Venter Deal: Comments?
Date: 24 Jul 1992 07:49:47 GMT
Organization: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, U.C. Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: nuclease.berkeley.edu

In article <14mpl1INNpf6@agate.berkeley.edu>, 
dsilver@garnet.berkeley.edu (Daniel H. Silver) writes:
|> A friend of mine wrote me the following:
|> 
|> "I would be interested in seeing if anyone on the net has a 
|> comment about Craig Venter's deal. 
|> He is the scientist at the National Institutes of Health 
|> who discovered a way to produce thousands of DNA lookalike 
|> fragments, purged of all the noncoding, presumably nonsense 
|> segments.  They're call cDNA, for complementary DNA, and 
|> he may have found a way to shortcut the massive Human Genome 
|> Project. 

I haven't heard of this. Can you provide a little more detail*?
cDNA cloning has been around for a looooong time (Sambrook, et
al. (molecular cloning manual) say the first cDNA clones were 
obtained in the mid '70's) so just making cDNA is not novel, 
or patentable. What's the new twist?


*or a reference.

-- 
       ____         Scott Keeney, DNA repair-queer         ____
       \  /           scottk@mendel.berkeley.edu           \  /
        \/        Biochemistry and Molecular Biology        \/ 
                            U.C. Berkeley
From: hjcho@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Hae Jean Cho)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Provocative DATA about sexes, brains, animals, intelligence
Keywords: SUMMARY OF RESULTS + HELP NEEDED!!
Date: 24 Jul 92 19:23:13 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU

In article <1992Jul20.073549.24935@cco.caltech.edu- bes@cco.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>>1.  Is there any correlation between brain size and intelligence?
>
>None proved yet.

I recently read that 19th century scientists originally claimed that
brain size (mass?) was directly related to intelligence, until it was
realized that then human beings would have to admit that blue whales
were the most intelligent beings on earth.  So then the criterion
became brain mass per total body mass, but then they would have had to
conclude that women are, in general, more intelligent than men.  So
the argument was largely abandoned....

I do not recall the name of the original source.  I read this in
Gloria Steinem's book on self-esteem.

J. Cho
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,soc.women
From: hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath)
Subject: Re: Provocative DATA about sexes, brains, animals, intelligence
Keywords: SUMMARY OF RESULTS + HELP NEEDED!!
Organization: The Cat Factory
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 20:08:09 GMT

In article <1992Jul20.073549.24935@cco.caltech.edu> bes@cco.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi) writes:

}>1.  Is there any correlation between brain size and intelligence?
}
}None proved yet.

In fact, I believe there's considerable evidence to the contrary.  I
recall reading somewhere the largest brain on record belonged to an idiot.
The brain of Albert Einstein is reported to be relatively small.

The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@polymath.tti.com)
Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp                   Turn the rascals out!
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (310) 450-9111, x2483     No incumbents in '92!
Santa Monica, CA  90405 {rutgers|pyramid|philabs|psivax}!ttidca!hollombe
Xref: sparky sci.bio:2731 sci.med:14336 soc.women:13996
From: stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Glenn Stone)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,soc.women
Subject: Re: Provocative DATA about sexes, brains, animals, intelligence
Keywords: SUMMARY OF RESULTS + HELP NEEDED!!
Date: 23 Jul 92 14:02:12 GMT
Reply-To: stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Glenn Stone)
Organization: Columbia University

In article <spears.45@bobcat.lmc.edu> spears@bobcat.lmc.edu (Gene Spears) writes:
>In article <1992Jul23.010013.6334@news.columbia.edu> stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Glenn Stone) writes:
>
>...deletions....
>
>>The high-IQ male brains tend to be especially large in levels of the
>>cortex involved in language, association, and visual-spatial tasks;
>>among the females, these areas didn't vary as much with IQ.  Some
>>levels of the high-IQ brains were actually smaller than the low-IQ's.
>
>>So the "question #1" seems to be looking for a simple black & white
>>answer, but it's actually a gray matter.  We are barely beginning the
>                             -----------
>>process of answering it. 
>
>
>
>Pun intended?????

;-)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Glenn Davis Stone                                BITNET: stone@cunixf
  Columbia University            INTERNET: stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,soc.women
From: terry@npd.Novell.COM (Terry Lambert)
Subject: Re: Provocative DATA about sexes, brains, animals, intelligence
Keywords: SUMMARY OF RESULTS + HELP NEEDED!!
Organization: Novell NPD -- Sandy, UT
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 00:47:30 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.200809.12088@ttinews.tti.com> hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>In article <1992Jul20.073549.24935@cco.caltech.edu> bes@cco.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>
>}>1.  Is there any correlation between brain size and intelligence?
>}
>}None proved yet.
>
>In fact, I believe there's considerable evidence to the contrary.  I
>recall reading somewhere the largest brain on record belonged to an idiot.
>The brain of Albert Einstein is reported to be relatively small.

	I have considered this question lately, following my finding out
that one loses brain mass [in the form of fats] as one loses weight
elsewhere (correct this if it's wrong, as the theory depends on it).

	Is it possible that the overall neuron count is about the same
between large and small brains, but that the connection path is much
shorter when the volume is smaller?  This would sync with one of the
fundamental premesis in designing a fast computer, which is reducing
the circuit path.

	If the neurons remain the same size under fat loss, than this
couln't apply... but if they "inflate" and "deflate", then this would
seem to fit.

	What do you think?

					Terry Lambert
					terry_lambert@gateway.novell.com
					terry@icarus.weber.edu
---
Disclaimer:  Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of
my present or previous employers.
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: paulk@garfield.cs.mun.ca (Paul E. King)
Subject: Re: Mutations: Mostly Harmful, or Not?
Organization: CS Dept., Memorial University of Newfoundland
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 01:08:58 GMT

murph_kp@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Kenneth Paul Murphy) writes:

>In article <1992Jul22.152155.3619@HQ.Ileaf.COM> bcking@HQ.Ileaf.COM (Christine King) writes:
>>On another thread ("Better Living through DNA Encryption"), Jonathan Dale
>>(jdale@cats.ucsc.edu) writes:
>>
>>  ...You could probably simplify it a lot (at least the engineering
>>  parts) by ripping out all the useless garbage in our DNA, which is
>>  over 95% (?) useless....
>>
>>I keep reading and hearing statements like this.  Then there's the one
>>that goes, "Most mutations are fatal."
>I've often heard this too and I don't see how one determines the useless-
>ness of the 95%.  It seems unlikely to me that an organism would waste so
>much energy synthesizing something that's useless.  Maybe we just haven't
>figured out what it's for yet.  This is certainly true of many proteins.

DNA has four nucleotides. These are linked in sequence in no particular pattern.
The ribosomes decode this DNA into RNA by reading these nucleotides in groups of
three. Let's call the nucleotides C, G, A, and T to make this a little clearer.
The three nucleotides may appear in almost any combination, eg: ATT, CAT, AAA,
GGT, and so on. Only certain combinations will code for one of 20 amino acids
which make up all of our proteins. Other combinations simply instruct the
ribosome to start and stop transcribing. The rest has no known purpose, except
to protect the "good" DNA from chance mutation, and are called "missense", or
"nonsense" sequences.

paulk :-)
From: mchadwick@galaxy.gov.bc.ca
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Provocative DATA about sexes, brains, animals, intelligence
Date: 27 Jul 92 17:13:02 -0700
Followup-To: sci.bio
Organization: BC Systems Corporation











In article <24873@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM>, wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Bruce Watson) writes:
> In article <1992Jul22.200809.12088@ttinews.tti.com- hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
> -In article <1992Jul20.073549.24935@cco.caltech.edu- bes@cco.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
> -
> -}-1.  Is there any correlation between brain size and intelligence?
> -}
> -}None proved yet.
> -
> -In fact, I believe there's considerable evidence to the contrary.  I
> -recall reading somewhere the largest brain on record belonged to an idiot.
> -The brain of Albert Einstein is reported to be relatively small.
> -
> -The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@polymath.tti.com)
> -Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp                   Turn the rascals out!
> -3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (310) 450-9111, x2483     No incumbents in '92!
> -Santa Monica, CA  90405 {rutgers|pyramid|philabs|psivax}!ttidca!hollombe
> 
> Daniel Webster's head (and therefore brain) was very small. He was the US
> senator, not Noah the dictionary guy.
> 
> -- 
>  __________________________________________________________________________   
> |wats@scicom.AlphaCDC.com|    "Another Case of too many scientists and     |
> |Bruce Watson            |     not enough hunchbacks." -- Gary Larson      |
Xref: sparky sci.bio:2718 sci.med:14281 soc.women:13941
From: simonofb@wmavm7.VNET.IBM.COM
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 16:31:49 EDT
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,soc.women
Subject: Re: Provocative DATA about sexes, brains, animals, intelligence
Reply-To: simonofb@wmavm7.VNET.IBM.COM
Organization: IBM
News-Software: UReply 3.0
            <1992Jul22.200809.12088@ttinews.tti.com>

In <1992Jul22.200809.12088@ttinews.tti.com> The Polymath writes:
>In article <1992Jul20.073549.24935@cco.caltech.edu> bes@cco.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>
>}>1.  Is there any correlation between brain size and intelligence?
>}
>}None proved yet.
>
>In fact, I believe there's considerable evidence to the contrary.  I
>recall reading somewhere the largest brain on record belonged to an idiot.
>The brain of Albert Einstein is reported to be relatively small.

To be more specific, I believe that Einstein's brain was not the
largest, but had the most surface area.  I thought that was a more
important indicator than size alone.

Robert Simonoff
simonofb@wmavm7.vnet.ibm.com
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: branham@binah.cc.brandeis.edu (Tom Branham, Biophysics Grad. Brandeis)
Subject: Re: Heavy Water
Reply-To: branham@binah.cc.brandeis.edu
Organization: Brandeis University
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 02:24:50 GMT

The isotope effect can be a quite drastic effect upon the activity of
enzymes, depending very strongly upon the mechanism involved (orders
of magnitude, not just a factor of two).  I would recommend looking
in Jencks' Enzymes and Catalysis in the section upone the isotope effect,
(afraid I do not have it here but in the lab, so could not tell you 
exactly where) which is available in a Dover Press edition. (and
probably your friendly campus science library  :)

                          ..........Tom Branham
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med,soc.women
From: stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Glenn Stone)
Subject: Re: Provocative DATA about sexes, brains, animals, intelligence
Keywords: SUMMARY OF RESULTS + HELP NEEDED!!
Reply-To: stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Glenn Stone)
Organization: Columbia University
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 01:00:13 GMT

hollombe@polymath.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>
>}>1.  Is there any correlation between brain size and intelligence?
>}
>}None proved yet.
>
>In fact, I believe there's considerable evidence to the contrary.  I
>recall reading somewhere the largest brain on record belonged to an idiot.
>The brain of Albert Einstein is reported to be relatively small.

That wouldn't mean anything.  In any complex relationship, like there
is bound to be between brains and "intelligence", there will be lots
of outliers.

The question as framed is too coarse to be answerable.  Leaving aside
the well-known problems with measuring "intelligence", there are
problems with measuring brain size.  There is volume vs. surface area.
There is the matter of brains shrinking with age, which makes
postmortem data hard to use.

There was a recent study of IQ and brain size on a fairly small sample
of white college students, using MRI.  The correlation coefficient of
IQ on overall brain size was .51, which means brain size predicts 26%
of the variance in IQ.  That is not a very strong correlation at all,
but "brain size" and IQ are pretty coarse variables to be comparing.

(For that matter, least squares linear regression is one of various
ways of characterizing a bivariate relationship, and it happens to be
quite sensitive to outliers.)

The high-IQ male brains tend to be especially large in levels of the
cortex involved in language, association, and visual-spatial tasks;
among the females, these areas didn't vary as much with IQ.  Some
levels of the high-IQ brains were actually smaller than the low-IQ's.

So the "question #1" seems to be looking for a simple black & white
answer, but it's actually a gray matter.  We are barely beginning the
process of answering it. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Glenn Davis Stone                                BITNET: stone@cunixf
  Columbia University            INTERNET: stone@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: annick@cortex.physiol.su.oz.au (Annick Ansselin)
Subject: Re: Intestinal Flora
Organization: Department of Physiology, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 00:27:34 GMT

In <1992Jul27.030608.2757@sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au> rim@csadfa.cs.adfa.oz.au (Bob McKay) writes:


>There's been a lot of hype recently about the importance of Lactobacillus
>acidophilus as a constituent of the intestinal flora. I'm a little sceptical,
>since I gather that lactose is essential for the survival of this species, yet
>the vast majority of people from non-European cultures do not drink milk, and

Are you referring to cow's milk or all types of milk? Surely new-borns are
breastfed for at least a few months? and what about milk from goats, sheep
and camel?

>lack the gene for lactase (which is likely of recent origin even in European 
>populations).

Have you got the data to back this statement? I find it difficult to
believe that a whole population lacks the lactase gene when the newborns are
dependent on maternal milk until they are weaned.
From: sut@dsbc.icl.co.uk (Secure Unix Team KID01)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Artificial life
Date: 23 Jul 92 16:05:52 GMT
Organization: ICL Bracknell, UK

As part of my final year Computer Science degree at Coventry Uni, I will be
undertaking a project on "Artificial Life". I have a vague idea what it's all
about, but would appreciate some concrete ideas, references etc...
What I'm planning at the minute is an evolution simulator.
Apologies for the vagueness, but I'm feeling a bit detached at the minute...

-- 
 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 | Martyn Amos -- Secure UNIX Team, ICL Kidsgrove, Staffs., ST7 1TL    O/  |
 | mra@skoda.zen.icl.co.uk -- Tel. (0782) 771000 Ext. 3152            /|   |
 | >>>>>>>>>>>>>> T E R M I N A L L Y   G R O O V Y <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<   / >  |
 |            Disclaimer: My mental state is not ICL's fault.              |
From: DAN@UMDD.BITNET (Dan Jacobs)
Newsgroups: sci.bio.technology
Subject: (none)
Date: 23 Jul 92 12:45:44 GMT
Reply-To: Biotechnology Discussion List <BIOTECH%UMDD.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

I don't know whether FrameMaker has all the features you listed, but it DOES
 include hypertext authoring of some sort and it's recently been released for
 DOS/Windows.

I don't work for Frame, but I use their product and I'm pretty happy with it; if
 you need information about how to get ahold of them, let me know and I'll turn
 you on to my salesdroid.

---------

A fanatic is someone who does what he knows that God would do if God knew the
facts of the case.

Some mailers apparently munge my address; you might have to use
bsmart@bsmart.tti.com -- or if that fails, fall back to
72027.3210@compuserve.com.  Ain't UNIX grand?
From: MRAJAB@HPB.HWC.CA (Mustapha Rajab)
Newsgroups: sci.bio.technology
Subject: Rapid Identification Kits
Date: 24 Jul 92 13:06:54 GMT
Reply-To: Biotechnology Discussion List <BIOTECH%UMDD.BITNET@cmsa.Berkeley.EDU>
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
        I'm presently working on a project to establish a database of
rapid id kits.  Please note that this is not an evaluation of accuracy.  That
will be the next step in this project.  There are several questions of concern
that our section has.  Our job is to assess health concerns that may arise
from biotechnology products.  Should these "kits" be used as part of the
protocols or procedures that labs use in identifying microbes?  Obviously
they are being used in many labs.  But, when it comes to new biotech
products and genetically modified organisms (gmo's), are these "kits"
reliable enough?  Is 95% reliability good enough when we are talking about
POSSIBLE health hazards to either humans or the environment?

Mustapha R. Rajab