Editorial notes: This is the first of 51 Evernote entries titled according to the date on which they were written, making this a personal, chronological journal of observations, lessons learned and conclusions, together with an element of diary writing. Synopsis: Today I discover a foreign news service, muse about its benefits, get side-tracked onto developing an open mind. And then finally added...
Believing that the world is OK
There’s this belief that the world is OK. How to address this? How about step 1: What is the nature of the constituents of the matter of concern? Or as Socrates might be modernized, “What is the meaning of each thing?”. Truly ask this, because barely any do. Plato would have us believe that Socrates was the wisest just for knowing that he knew nothing. The implication is that...
Locke’s theory of knowledge
Editorial notes: Shai documents his interpretation of Locke’s Theory of Knowledge[I] which, he explains, “is famous for being based on the principle that the mind is a blank slate” and that the mind is “gaining everything it knows by experience”. The need to acquire experience in order to gain knowledge is a principle by which Shai chose to live his life. Knowing now that this was his guiding...
Science Review: Bioproxies
Source: [TREND_G] The desired outcome after having ‘known‘ this concept is a novel perception. The seed for this perception is the concept of bioproxies, that I can define as ‘xyz’, and in the literature includes the following distinctions ‘a,b,c’. Example: Madagascar which was settled in the mid-first millennium: The local language is Malagasy which is...
Gariwerd
Editorial notes: This Essay was found as a ‘draft’ entry in Everything2 and is published here with minor changes. BTW, if you are already here, check out the links in the second line of the title, below. Just hovering over them will give you some insight into Shai’s unique way of thinking and expressing himself. Discovering Geology at the Gariwerd Mountains; or...
Priorities
Editorial notes: This is one of a number of entries found in Shai’s Evernote archives where he discusses his own methodology for researching and acquiring knowledge, and his preferred methods for storing his notes, taken during that process. Shai devises a system of four tiers of acquiring knowledge. He refers to them as Tier1 to Tier 4. The notes arising from this process of knowledge...
The prion protein as a receptor for amyloid-beta
I’m currently – 03/05/13 – in the process of updating this. I’ve added the section “Update (May 2013)”, which is still a work in process (i.e. otherwise I would delete this note here). The title of this node comes from a Nature communication in which recent research linking the prion protein (PrP) and the amyloid-beta (Abeta) protein was discussed. This is a...
Science Review: De-extinction
Concept: De-extinction Source: A Policy Forum piece in Science (April 5, 2013), titled: “What If Extinction Is Not Forever?“ Technology: Three approaches. Back-breeding is possible where genetic variants homologous to extinct species exist in surviving species. Cloning, as by using somatic cell nuclear transfer from an extinct subspecies (i.e. with other extant subspecies). Genetic...
Science Review: Molecular biology facts
Background: GPCRs known to signal from surface and to be internalized. Fact: Prove that GPCRs signal from endosomes. Interest: Adds complexity to particulars (ie. location) of GPCR signalling. Source: Research Highlights in Nat Rev MCB (May 2013) on Nature article (2013). Fact: RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription kinetics are modulated by signalling pathways that affect the rate of...
Science Review: Parallel evolutionary dynamics of adaptive diversification
There is a Research Highlights piece (in Nat Rev Gen [Nature Review Genetics]) on a paper entitled Parallel evolutionary dynamics of adaptive diversification in Escherichia coli (in PLoS Biol), which studies the principle of sympatric diversification, which is the “organismal diversification or speciation that occurs without […] geographical separation of [the] diverging...