Eve's Science Club

Communications Center Out Of Pod Experience
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Talk to any biologist.. And they will tell you ‘that, yes, biology is a ■■■■ show’. Look at our own biology. The number of things that can and often do go wrong is astronomical. From the point of conception onward.

Evolution is not always that clean march to a better and efficient forms. Sometimes it a species takes a wrong turn and end up being in a dead end evolutionary speaking. The panda for instance is in an evolution dead end scenario. The panda can actually eat more than the bamboo, but won’t. Also the male panda has a hard time with mating. Conception is hard because the males can not penetrate far enough to assure that conception can occur.

Meanwhile the horseshoe crab has not changed in millions of years or the coelacanth both are considered living fossils. But if you really want to see how much of a ■■■■ show biology can truly be.

"On biological sex: Open Ocean Exploration @RebeccaRHelm

Rebecca is a biologist and an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Asheville USA.

She writes,

“Friendly neighborhood biologist here. Lots of folks make biological sex seem really simple. Well, since it’s so simple, let’s find the biological roots, shall we? Let’s talk about sex.

If you know a bit about biology you will probably say that biological sex is caused by chromosomes, XX and you’re female, XY and you’re male. This is “chromosomal sex” but is it “biological sex”? Well…

Turns out there is only ONE GENE on the Y chromosome that really matters to sex. It’s called the SRY gene. During human embryonic development the SRY protein turns on male-associated genes. Having an SRY gene makes you “genetically male”. But is this “biological sex”?

Sometimes that SRY gene pops off the Y chromosome and over to an X chromosome. Surprise! So now you’ve got an X with an SRY and a Y without an SRY. What does this mean?

A Y with no SRY means physically you’re female, chromosomally you’re male (XY) and genetically you’re female (no SRY). An X with an SRY means you’re physically male, chromosomally female (XX) and genetically male (SRY). But biological sex is simple! There must be another answer…

Sex-related genes ultimately turn on hormones in specifics areas on the body, and reception of those hormones by cells throughout the body. Is this the root of “biological sex”??

“Hormonal male” means you produce ‘normal’ levels of male-associated hormones. Except some percentage of females will have higher levels of ‘male’ hormones than some percentage of males. Ditto ditto ‘female’ hormones. And…

…if you’re developing, your body may not produce enough hormones for your genetic sex. Leading you to be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally non-binary, and physically non-binary. Well, except cells have something to say about this…

Maybe cells are the answer to “biological sex”?? Right?? Cells have receptors that “hear” the signal from sex hormones. But sometimes those receptors don’t work. Like a mobile phone that’s on “do not disturb’. Call and cell, they will not answer.

What does this all mean?

It means you may be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally male/female/non-binary, with cells that may or may not hear the male/female/non-binary call, and all this leading to a body that can be male/non-binary/female.

Try out some combinations for yourself. Notice how confusing it gets? Can you point to what the absolute cause of biological sex is? Is it fair to judge people by it?

Of course you could try appealing to the numbers. “Most people are either male or female” you say. Except that as a biologist professor I will tell you…

The reason I don’t have my students look at their own chromosome in class is because people could learn that their chromosomal sex doesn’t match their physical sex, and learning that in the middle of a 10-point assignment is JUST NOT THE TIME.

Biological sex is complicated.

Note: Biological classifications exist. XX, XY, XXY XXYY and all manner of variation which is why sex isn’t classified as binary. You can’t have a binary classification system with more than two configurations even if two of those configurations are more common than others.

Biology is a shitshow."

Also the piece leaves out such conditions as Klinefelter syndrome and Swyer syndrome. It also leaves out the fact that such things represent a small percentage of people. Which is reflective in the general population. With biology never presume that because something works a certain way. That it must always work that way. it just simply does not. Everytime.

And in biology this is not even the craziest thing either.

Note: I took out the political and not needed speech from this quote.

When I make statement that biology is a shitshow or that quantum mechanics makes no sense at all, yet works. It is founded on what scientists of that field say. It is not me offering a personal opinion, but an opinion shared by many in that field will say among themselves.

As a lay person and amatuer citizen scientist it is always good to stay grounded. That even those that are far more qualified to study and observe something in a particular field. That they themselves express sentiments that as a lay person can appreciate. That they are as human as we all are and have that same wonder how things work. When inexplicably there are times when something just does not seem to make sense. Expressing the sentiment without indulging in the comedy of a philosophical point of view.

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Not a lot of companies are doing this yet;

They don’t seem to have much competition out there. If I were still into investing into the financial future, this seems to be a uncertain endeavor. It could fizzle or boom, but it seems more likely to be those pioneers on the cusp of the next gold rush.

Where are the other companies planning to send human miners up in full ships with large cargo holds? This reminds me of an old TV show back in the 70’s where Andy Griffith is a man who builds a rocket in his scrapyard to salvage the items on the moon. It would be nice to see this kind of pioneer spirit alive today.

Have fun!

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The problem with space mining is that it can’t compete with not needing those metals in the first place*, and the way in which everybody is a winner until you factor in the gravity well and the ungodly energy tax it places on whatever moves up or down of it.

Oh, plus the little tiny detail that we’re running out of cheap chemical energy and an assortment of not-ungodly-difficult to-obtain raw materials.

*company A manufactures product X with space sourced metal for 40x the cost of a similar product made by company B without that expensive metal. Company A goes bust.

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That is until we have more of a presence in space. At some point there is going to be a call for those resources. The cost up front is already huge. But this is the exploration side of the equation. Think Europe first running into then exploring the American continents and to a lesser extent the African and Asian continents.

It literally drained the coffers of more than one country. Before a resource could be identified and sent back. Even then the cost for such things were exorbitant. Would remain so for decades.

Now space has challenges of it own. The first we sit at the bottom of a gravity well. The second we sit at the bottom of a gravity well. Most people presume and many science fiction writers presume that sending something down a gravity well would be cheaper.. It actually is cheaper to get something rom the bottom this gravity well.

It has to be a controlled fall. otherwise you create a crater in Paris or Chicago. Cause all that mass is going to have kinetic energy. And it has to go somewhere..

Which bring us to the third hurtle. How to safely move cargo up and down. A lot of good proposals have been made. But all have one component. No country or company wants to be the one to drain the coffers. Just to be the first to show viability. Think spanish who needed all that gold t pay off the expense of first exploring and then the military adventures.

Which in time was superseded by the Dutch East India Trading company. That really built the entire infrastructure and trade routes off the Spanish effort. No one wants to be Spain and everyone wants to be The Dutch trading company.

Is it viable to get to those resources? Yes. But who wants to be first and go broke? Even Musk is leery about investing into a round trip to Mars. He understands very well. That is not really the trip out that costs the most. But the return trip home.

The three things that is preventing a rush to space.

Here is the kicker though. Someone at some point is going to ignore history and do it anyways. To quote Mark Twain
“I believe our Heavenly Father invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey. I believe that whenever a human being, of even the highest intelligence and culture, delivers an opinion upon a matter apart from his particular and especial line of interest, training and experience, it will always be an opinion of so foolish and so valueless a sort that it can be depended upon to suggest our Heavenly Father that the human being is another disappointment and that he is no considerable improvement upon the monkey.”

― Mark Twain, The Autobiography of Mark Twain

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