HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hau4@ellis.uchicago.edu (sven  hauptfeld)
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: New words for gender neutral pronouns in English
Date: 19 Aug 92 00:32:50 GMT
Reply-To: hau4@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <1992Aug18.183143.12463@news.acns.nwu.edu> qcg@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Qing Guo) writes:
>
>My basic idea is to use 'e', which is the last letter of both 'he' and 'she',
>as gender neutral third person singular pronoun. Let:
>
>Old style: Someone left his or her wallet on my desk but I don't know who he or
>she is.
>New style: Someone left es wallet on my desk but I don't know who E is.
>

Nice try, but when you pronounce "who E is," it's still "he".

Sven
Newsgroups: sci.bio,bionet.molbio.evolution,talk.origins
From: scott@phylo.life.uiuc.edu (Scott Howard)
Subject: Re: Was There Once an RNA World of Life?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 16:09:22 GMT

danwell@IASTATE.EDU (Daniel A Ashlock) writes:

>   As I recall the bubble on the beach hypothisis suffers from an inconvienient
>observation, to wit that the beach was undergoing intense bombardment by
>planitesimals and hence was not a calm enough environment.  The deep sea vents
>have more shielding.  The guy in experimenting Sweeden with the idea that oil is
>of non-biological origin claims to have found life five kilometers down in the
>crust and is pushing a "life originated and still is mostly miles down" idea.

The researcher is a planetary geologist from Cornell, named Gold. The
original reason for investigating the deep sea vents for micro-organisms
came from his idea that nearly all methane is abiogenic. Much to his 
surprise, they found TONS of laughing happy methanogens (archae) living
in the heated sediments and the anoxic 300 C to 4 C water column gradient.
From: hatamian@gandalf.rutgers.edu (ShAhin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: MS-Biomed Seeking Employment
Date: 19 Aug 92 15:11:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: gandalf.Aug.19.11.11.53.1992.5685
Distribution: usa
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.



Hello,

A friend has asked me to post this for her. Please respond directly to her
or via email to me for a complete resume.
____________________________________________________________________________

Hi,

I am graduating in December '92 from NJIT with a MS in Biomedical Engineering.
I am currently employed by a well-known hospital products manufacturing
company as a Product Development Engineer. I am conducting my thesis research
concurrently at this company.
please feel free to contact me for a resume and/or to discuss my qualifications
further.

Thank you for your time.

Please call Elli at (201)644-9174

____________________________________________________________________________
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: reimarus@riemann.math.mun.ca (Mark Reimers)
Subject: yellow and brown melanin production
Summary: how does a cell determine whether to produce Y or B?
Keywords: melanin
Organization: CS Dept., Memorial University of Newfoundland
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 22:59:53 GMT

	Is it known how a mammalian melanocyte differentiates to
produce phaeomelanin (yellow) or eumelanin (brown)? Is this related
to known processes that might build up cysteine or other -SH containing
compounds?
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: pockling@fraser.sfu.ca (richard pocklington)
Subject: Re: sexual selection
Keywords: peacock tails
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 20:22:36 GMT

PLEASE stop quoting Dawkins, he didn't invent sexual selection!
It seems many people have read Dawkins' popular science stuff and
have not ventured any futher.  If anyone wants to find out just
what current theories ar floating around in sexual slection these days
they should chaeck out the chapter on SexualSelection and perhaps 
mating systems in Behavioural Ecology 1991 edition by JR Krebs and
NB Davies.  Although they won't tell you "what breasts are for" you
may gte an idea of what sexual selection is about.  It is not simple
and one paragraph verbal arguments, although sometimes interesting
do not adequately explain the theory.  You might also want to
go back to the age old authority Darwin, he wrote about sexual selection
as well, although I suggest more rescent authors. 

Richard Pocklington    pockling@sfu.ca

				THERE ARE NO RULES IN UTOPIA
From: toby@milton.u.washington.edu (Toby Bradshaw)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Evolution
Keywords: Sexual Selection
Date: 18 Aug 92 00:51:40 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Aug17.230830.23118@voder.nsc.com> pad@galaxy.nsc.com (Paul Denny x8349) writes:
>I read Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker several years ago
>and it argued that the reason for the evolution of such things as 
>Peacock tails (that do not seem to very suited to survival) was due to
>a genetic preference by females for the trait. This leads to an increased
>likelyhood of reproduction for males with longer tails with offspring that
>have longer and longer tails (males) and more and more preference for long
>tails (female).
>
>In isolation this argument seems to work but it seems to me (not a biologist)
>that it excludes the possibility of females with a preference for tails that
>are good for surviving with - these females would mate with "sensible" males
>and their offspring would do better than the females with a "silly" preference
>and hence win the battle to survive.
>
>Where am I going wrong?

If the long tail *is* a positive indicator of male health, for example,
females preferring long-tailed males are making a good decision if the
health character is under genetic control.  Suppose males with longer
and longer tails [or gaudier and gaudier plumage, or bigger and bigger
antlers, or faster and faster cars :) ] survive in spite of their
"handicap"; perhaps they "deserve" to reproduce more than their
more circumspect competitors.  Of course, in the afterglow they
may wish to molt into eclipse plumage, shed their ponderous headgear,
and buy a Yugo.

If the majority of females in the population prefer large ornaments,
the sons of small-ornament-preferring females will be unlikely
to have high fitness, especially in a lek or harem breeding system.

There are studies showing that some bird plumage characteristics
vary with parasite load, and that females of some species
prefer not only large male decorations, but also those that are
symmetrical.  Symmetry is supposed to be evidence of "normal development".

>Thanks - Paul    

You're welcome.

Toby Bradshaw
Biochem and Forest Resources
University of Washington
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C)
Subject: Re: COMPUTERS AND SEX DIFFERENCES
Organization: Weber State University  (Ogden, UT)
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 21:11:33 GMT

In article <1992Aug11.183137.544@ccsvax.sfasu.edu> z_maraiajj@ccsvax.sfasu.edu writes:
>A FEW MONTHS AGO, I HEARD THAT SOME SCIENCETISTS WERE WORKING ON A COMPUTER TO
>TRY TO FIGURE OUT HOW PEOPLE COULD FIGURE OUT HOW PEOPLE COULD TELL WHETHER A
>PERSON WAS A BOY OR A GIRL BY LOOKING AT THEIR FACE.  HAS ANYONE HEARD ANYTHING
>ABOUT THIS? 

I wonder, if there is such a beast, what it would say about a picture of
Boy George, Tula, or Dustin Hoffman as "Tootsie"?  I mean if the programmer
can't tell, it's likely the programmer isn't going to make the machine tell
either.  8-), for the humor impaired.

					Terry Lambert
					terry_lambert@gateway.novell.com
					terry@icarus.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                       terry@icarus.weber.edu
 "I have an 8 user poetic license" - me
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mjb@acsu.buffalo.edu (Matthew J. Bernhardt)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Taking the feminism debate elsewhere.
Date: 14 Aug 92 21:05:06 GMT
Organization: UB


	It appears that the thread on biological sex differences departed 
from a substantive discussion of science several posts ago.  If the offending 
parties would kindly move this debate to the appropriate alt. or talk. group,
or if they would return to material relating to science, I for one (and I 
speculate that many other readers also feel this way) would be relieved.

-- 
Matt Bernhardt
University of Buffalo             THIS SPACE FOR RENT.
mjb@acsu.buffalo.edu
Xref: sparky sci.bio:2935 bionet.molbio.evolution:302 talk.origins:9576
From: pepke@ds1.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.skeptic,soc.men,soc.women
Subject: Re: Biological Sex Differences? ("Women only" excusable ?)
Date: 21 Aug 92 20:48:44 GMT
Reply-To: pepke@ds1.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke)
Followup-To: soc.men,soc.women
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <92233.141512RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET> RIPBC@CUNYVM.BITNET writes:
>    There seem to be three points of view about mental differences between
>    men and women.
>
>    1.  There aren't any.
>    2.  Men are smarter than women.
>    3.  Women are smarter than men.

You missed one:

     4.  What's the point?  If it doesn't affect the way I treat a given
         individual man or woman, why should I care?

Followups directed away from sci.bio and sci.skeptic.

-EMP
From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: sexual selection
Keywords: peacock tails
Date: 20 Aug 92 00:28:13 GMT
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit

In article <1992Aug19.015201.27032@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
|In article <pockling.714170952@sfu.ca> pockling@fraser.sfu.ca (richard pocklington) writes:
|>One of the wierdest sexual selection hypotheses is that the male traits
|>somehow reveal information about parasites, ...
|
|	The way that features such as brightly colored feathers would
|do that is by advertising that their owner is in good health; a sick
|bird would probably not be able to produce lots of shiny and bright
|feathers.

Quite right.   This is certainly true for peacocks.  Those enormous, clumsy,
bright tail feathers are susceptible to various sorts of damage.  I have
noticed that I can generally tell the overall health of a peacock by
looking at its tail.  If *I* (a mere human) can tell that easily, how
much better could a conspecific peahen estimate!
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com
From: pad@galaxy.nsc.com (Paul Denny x8349)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Evolution
Keywords: Sexual Selection
Date: 17 Aug 92 23:08:30 GMT
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara

I read Richard Dawkins' book The Blind Watchmaker several years ago
and it argued that the reason for the evolution of such things as 
Peacock tails (that do not seem to very suited to survival) was due to
a genetic preference by females for the trait. This leads to an increased
likelyhood of reproduction for males with longer tails with offspring that
have longer and longer tails (males) and more and more preference for long
tails (female).

In isolation this argument seems to work but it seems to me (not a biologist)
that it excludes the possibility of females with a preference for tails that
are good for surviving with - these females would mate with "sensible" males
and their offspring would do better than the females with a "silly" preference
and hence win the battle to survive.

Where am I going wrong?

Thanks - Paul
From: josh@cqs.washington.edu (Josh Hayes)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Evolution
Keywords: Sexual Selection
Date: 18 Aug 92 21:22:52 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Washington

I'll stick a few words in here then leave again (boy, does anybody
else think the signal/noise ratio in this group has approached zero
lately?).

There certainly are species in which males compete for females and
yet males are pretty darn drab. Females do not necessarily have to
prefer gaudy males. It so happens, however, that if such a trait
arises, and it is heritable, then a) males who are gaudy have a better
shot when mating season rolls around, and b) offspring produced in
such a mating event will carry the appopriate traits, namely, males
will tend to be gaudy, and females will tend to prefer gaudy males.

There are a lot of arguments over the fine points of the mechanisms
involved, and they generally have clever names attached to them, like
the "sexy son hypothesis" and the (profanity coming:) "sneaky fucker
hypothesis". You might, if you're adventurous, check out the last, oh,
five or ten years of, say, "The American Naturalist" for some recent
articles on the subject. You could then search back through their
bibliographies for the more seminal (no pun intended...eeeewwww) works.
A quick way to do this is to search for papers on which Mark Kirkpatrick
is/was an author. I know him from my grad school daze and this is his
bailiwick.

Hope this helps.

Josh Hayes, seemingly-eternal post-doc

--
Josh Hayes, Quantitative Sciences HR-20 U of Washington
josh@mowgli.cqs.washington.edu             206 685-2793
Exclaimer: Hey!           Plan: Birth School Work Death
From: jrc@concurrent.co.uk (John Connett)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Name that fungal spore!
Keywords: allergy, asthma, mycology, fungi, spore, thunderstorm
Date: 20 Aug 92 09:05:13 GMT
Organization: Concurrent Computer Corp (ESDG)
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

The time:	July and August especially the evening and night;
The place:	Southern England;
The weather:	Thunderstorm after a hot dry spell;

If any of you mycologists out there can identify these conditions as a
trigger for rampant reproductive behaviour by your favourite family of
fungi I would be very interested to hear from you.

There would seem to be advantages for the fungi to release spores when
the massive air movements associated with the storm would give wide
distribution and the damp conditions provide a good growing environment.

Why the interest?  I'm an asthmatic and my condition is well controlled
by modern treatments *except* when the above combination occurs.  I was
caught out in the open in similar weather conditions in early June this
year with no obvious effects.  When I lived in Central Scotland for four
years the problem didn't occur.  In the past this combination has
resulted in a moderate asthma attack with nothing worse than perhaps the
loss of a night's sleep.  On the night of 20/21 July this year a
spectacular thunderstorm hit Southern England.  I had a severe asthma
attack which lead to my first emergency hospital admission, respiratory
arrest and some time on life support equipment!  Events like this tend
to raise my level of curiosity somewhat ...

I would also be grateful for directions to any more specialised
newgroups or mailing lists which might be more appropriate for this
question.

Thanks in anticipation
--
John Connett
    DOMAIN: jrc@concurrent.co.uk	UUCP: ...!uunet!uknet!concurrent!jrc
Royal Mail: Concurrent Computer Corp., 227 Bath Road, Slough SL1 4AX, England
Newsgroups: sci.bio,bionet.molbio.evolution,talk.origins
From: des@helix.nih.gov (David E. Scheim)
Subject: Re: Was There Once an RNA World of Life?
Organization: National Institutes of Health, Bethesda
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 12:44:17 GMT

I've heard some theories that RNA/DNA type molecules were the first forms
of life.  It seems more intuitive to me, however, that life began as
bubbles on the beach, evolving into primitive cells with membranes whose
division into new cells was initially propelled by simple osmotic forces.
One could speculate that genetic material evolved later, allowing for more
complex characteristics to develop and be stably maintained in the cell
line.

The seminal work of C. Don Cone during the 1960s and 1970s in fact has
demonstrated how considerations of membrane voltage and ionic composition
are critical to understanding mitosis, and that in fact you can make adult
neural cells divide by manipulating the ionic environment to induce cell
depolarization (and also block cell division using a similar technique).

It seems to me that biology has become overly infatuated by the recent
discovery of genetics, trying to explain everything from the origin of life
to cancer in these terms.  I would appreciate any comments as to what
current knowledge indicates as to whether the "bubble on the beach"
hypothesis for the origin of life may have been possible.  --David Scheim.
Xref: sparky sci.bio:2970 bionet.molbio.evolution:318 talk.origins:9713
From: cohen@cumuli.vmsmail.ethz.ch (Mark Cohen)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,bionet.molbio.evolution,talk.origins
Subject: Re: Was There Once an RNA World of Life?
Date: 19 Aug 92 08:22:10 GMT
Organization: Dept. Chemistry, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)
Originator: mark@agnew

In article <1992Aug18.124417.7726@alw.nih.gov> des@helix.nih.gov 
David E. Scheim writes:

> I've heard some theories that RNA/DNA type molecules were the first forms
> of life.  It seems more intuitive to me, however, that life began as
> bubbles on the beach, evolving into primitive cells with membranes whose
> division into new cells was initially propelled by simple osmotic forces.

Recently Luisi has published work showing that  micelles can catalyse their
own formation, which might support a bubbles on the beach approach to life.

It seems to me that there are 3 suggestions for the beginning of self
replication RNA type molecules, clays, micelles. How would we be able to
tell the difference between one or other being the first replicating system.
Which would be credited with being first if RNA type molecules had been
replicating on clay surfaces and then invaded micelles that were replicating
happily on their own. The resulting synthesis would be very cell like, with a
membrane and an RNA type genetic component. The only difference being that the
components could probably still replicate independently at first. 

Mark Cohen
cohen@cumuli.vmsmai..ethz.ch
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: jessie@iastate.edu (Brent Danielson)
Subject: Re: Taking the feminism debate elsewhere.
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 21:53:10 GMT

In article <BszrwJ.ECF@acsu.buffalo.edu> mjb@acsu.buffalo.edu (Matthew J. Bernhardt) writes:
>
>	It appears that the thread on biological sex differences departed 
>from a substantive discussion of science several posts ago.  If the offending 
>parties would kindly move this debate to the appropriate alt. or talk. group,
>or if they would return to material relating to science, I for one (and I 
>speculate that many other readers also feel this way) would be relieved.
>
>-- 
>Matt Bernhardt
>University of Buffalo             THIS SPACE FOR RENT.
>mjb@acsu.buffalo.edu


I second the motion!!!

Brent J. Danielson
jessie@iastate.edu
From: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu (Chris Colby)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: sexual selection
Keywords: peacock tails
Date: 22 Aug 92 14:57:01 GMT
Organization: animal -- coelomate -- deuterostome

In article <10437@bonzo.ed.ac.uk> kate@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Kate Jeffery) writes:

>Well, so, why don't *all* male birds have long brightly coloured
>ornamental bits to their anatomy if it's such a good indicator of
>health & hence desirability? It seems a little unlikely to me. Why not
>find an indicator of health that doesn't compromise the survival of
>its owner?!

For one reason, evolution works by modifying the existing develop-
mental plan of organisms. It can only "tinker" with the genetic
variation (and hence the resulting ontogeny) available. Often,
demonstrably sub-optimal solutions are produced by evolution. If
big feathers work as a good gene indicator in some species, then
they may not evolve another better system. In fact, the transition
between the two may not be able to take place because the inter-
mediates would be maladaptive. In addition, in order for an 
adaptation to evolve -- genetic variation must arise (or already
be present) that can bring the population to the new adaptation.
Selection can only act on genetic variation that is present, and
variation along all imagined axis is not possible.

[about sexual selection]
>It strikes me as being a
>little analogous to why all clocks run clockwise(!) or nearly all of
>the world's population drive on the right, or magnetic materials line
>up one way and not the other and so on - the balance is tipped just a
>little one way and not the other right from the beginning.

Then you understand a very important part of evolution -- contingency.

>Kate Jeffery

[Since I haven't posted to sci.bio in awhile, I should mention that
if anyone is interested in reading a short (15 pages) introduction
to evolutionary biology they should email me at the below address.
I wrote the file for the creation/evolution newsgroup (talk.origins).]

Chris Colby 	---	 email: colby@bu-bio.bu.edu	---
"'My boy,' he said, 'you are descended from a long line of determined,
resourceful, microscopic tadpoles--champions every one.'"
 	--Kurt Vonnegut from "Galapagos"

Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: winalski@adserv.enet.dec.com (Paul S. Winalski)
Subject: Re: ********  MICROWAVE HAZARDS *******
Reply-To: winalski@adserv.enet.dec.com (Paul S. Winalski)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Nashua NH
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 17:46:09 GMT


In article <9208181953.AA21492@kiwi.tropix.uucp>,
bng@tropel.gca.com (Baldwin Ng) writes:
|>
|>I am sure that many of you have heard the fact that radar guns
|>used by highway police are now suspected to cause cancer to
|>police who are frequently exposed to MICROWAVES.
|>
|>My question is: ARE MICROWAVE OVENS (when used very frequently)
|>                ALSO CAPABLE OF CAUSING CANCER??
|>

Woah!  What do you mean "also capable of causing"?  The reports on highway
police point to a *possible correlation*.  A correlation does not necessarily
imply causality.  For example, 100% of all people who die were also born.
Does that mean that detachment of the umbilical cord is the cause of death?

|>I suspect that microwave ovens have some kind of a shield to
|>cutoff most of the radiation, but a small portion is still
|>leaked through and radiates to the user, right??

Microwave ovens are surrounded by a Faraday cage that is as close as you can
get to 100% leak-proof.  Assuming that the oven isn't damaged, there is no
danger.  You get far more microwave exposure from the sun.  This is not at all
similar to the situation encountered by highway police, where they are in
close proximity to unshielded devices emitting focused, concentrated bursts
of directed microwave energy.

--PSW
From: bng@tropel.gca.com (Baldwin Ng)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: ********  MICROWAVE HAZARDS *******
Date: 18 Aug 92 19:53:37 GMT

Hello Everyone,

I am sure that many of you have heard the fact that radar guns
used by highway police are now suspected to cause cancer to
police who are frequently exposed to MICROWAVES.

My question is: ARE MICROWAVE OVENS (when used very frequently)
                ALSO CAPABLE OF CAUSING CANCER??

I suspect that microwave ovens have some kind of a shield to
cutoff most of the radiation, but a small portion is still
leaked through and radiates to the user, right??

Thanks,
Baldwin

PS: Please reply to ng@moe.optics.rochester.edu
Xref: sparky sci.bio:2988 sci.skeptic:14732 soc.men:15272 soc.women:15550