Actually, I retract my earlier statement. I had read something about Tinker earlier today on another site, but crossreferencing, it appears to have been wrong.

This product is a 'me too' since there's already tools to help you fine tune various Big Player models.

That's not what this is. This is a tool for creating foundation models.

Would you prefer the word "proprietary"? Because AFAIK that's all he means by that.

My sympathies for your lose.

[Eye twitch] [Eye twitch]

"Jane Goodall, Famed Primatologist "

Also, famed primate.

The evidence is more the other way around: this is evidence that life could get established there, not evidence that life made these things.

Past studies:

* Volatile, low-mass (100 u) nitrogen- and oxygen-bearing organic species.

* Single-ringed aromatic compounds.

* Complex, high-mass (exceeding 20 u) macromolecular fragments of insoluble organic material, featuring multiple aryl groups connected to hydrocarbon chains, along with nitrogen- and oxygen-bearing groups.

* Aryl (aromatic) and oxygen-bearing compounds in older E-ring grains.

Current study:

* Confirmed aryl and O-bearing compounds in fresh grains (ruling out that they formed due to space weathering)

* Aliphatic O-bearing compounds with carbonyl groups attached to a C2 organic, with acetaldehyde or acetic acid being likely candidates (aldehydes are interesting because they're intermediates precursors in the formation of amino acids)

* Aliphatic and cyclic esters and/or alkenes (on Earth, these are involved in the formation of fats and oils)

* Two classes of ether and/or ethyl compounds (on Earth, these are regularly found in living organisms)

* Tentative N- and O-bearing moieties. Potential candidates for these molecules include derivatives of pyrimidine, pyridine, and nitriles like acetonitrile (such molecules are involved in the reactions that form amino acids).

TL/DR: there may well be not just the atomic building blocks of life in there (CHONPS), but the molecular building blocks as well.

I would say that I've never seen another modern nation shoot itself in the foot so badly, but...

well...

yeah, anyway...

My refrigerator has a CRISPR drawer. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all of these glow-in-the-dark carrots.

EVERY point you mentioned has a genetic component.

Menopause has a genetic component? Exactly how much are you planning to reengineer the human race?

The few times its not (environmental causes I suppose) is incredibly rare.

... says PDXNerd, responding to a post where the vast majority of cases listed are predominantly environmental.

If you want to be pedantic, you can probably "find" genetic susceptibilities to literally anything, even dying of a car accident. But you're not going to blame a person dying in a car accident on their genes. It's not even close to the proximate cause.

You literally said "genetic component" or "genetic factor" on every point

I "literally" did not.

PLEASE we do NOT need more old people having babies

Why? No, seriously, why? Because anyone over 50 grosses you out? If you're so obsessed with genes, you should be thrilled with the concept of older people having babies - the older the better! It means they've survived later into life. You should want 90-year-old grannies having as many children as they can.

The low birth rate in western countries

I can't tell if you want to fix it or not.

there's plenty of children that need fostering and adopting.

You could not possibly be more ignorant on the topic. This isn't the 1850s, with orphanages full of orphans just down the street, waiting for someone to show up and sign some papers. There's too much competition for too few children, and it's a bureaucratic nightmare. The average adoption costs $20-50k and international adoptions (most adoptions these days) take on average 2-4 years, but complications can drag them out to far longer - and all the while, the child is growing up without you. It's a massive emotional burden on any prospective parent. Actually talk to any adoptive family before spouting such nonsense.

Fun fact: the genus name for meadowsweet / mead wort (a plant of waterlogged soils that grows a lot near me), used to be "Spirea". It's a traditional flavoring herb and strewing herb, but also common in herbal medicine. Its traditional medicinal uses were confirmed in the late 1830s when salicylic acid was extracted from it. So in the late 1800s when Bayer started making "acetyl spirea" extract, they named it "aspirin".

The VOC thing is technically true, but not in practice. It's based on NASA studies in enclosed chambers, but the effect is small enough that it's not meaningful compared to a house's natural ventilation. And plants can also release their own VOCs (though again, very small quantities unless you've turned your home into a forest)

That said, houseplants do two things that help improve air quality:

Humidity: most homes with climate control are too dry (both heating and air conditioning can lower relative humidity). Dry air leads to nasal /throat irritation, nosebleeds, skin and eye irritation, chapped lips, increased susceptibility to pathogens (dried out mucous membranes), longer pathogen lifespans, worsening allergy and asthma symptoms, increased static electricity, wood cracking, and other issues. Plants are natural humidifiers; the loss of large amounts of moisture to the air is an essential part of how they work, and all of the water that you pour in their pots ends up in your air.

Dust removal: not through any sort of fancy process, but simply because plants present very large leaf surface areas that attract and retain dust. When the leaves are shed or water falls on them (or they're wiped down), dust is lost from the system.

A number of studies also strongly suggest that having plants around is just simply good for your psychological well-being, especially in the winter.

Yeah, I'd advise "natural" people some day to pick a dozen or so spices they like, look up what chemicals comprise the essential oil that give them their aroma and flavour, and then look up each of those chemicals. It's a laundry list of toxins, allergens, carcinogens, mutagens, etc etc.

Thankfully, it's the dose that makes the poison, and most people don't use enough spices to cause a large risk. But "natural" does not mean "safe".

As a side note, I hate the category "ultraprocessed food". If a food contains, for example, whey and has at least five ingredients, that's a NOVA category-4 ultraprocessed food. A large chunk of baby food is "ultraprocessed", and all infant formulas. Specific means of processing are dangerous, and we need to be calling out those specific means, not lumping all forms of processing together. For example, smoked meats adds carcinogens, cured meats adds nitrates / nitrites (carcinogenic), hydrogenation adds trans fats (though the situation is much better than it used to be), etc.

Any food grouping that clusters together bread, ice cream, artificially sweetened yogurt, and vodka in the same category is a nonsensical food category. One of the main goals of food science over the past century has been to break down categories. E.g. moving on from:

"Fat is bad!"
"Well, *saturated* fat is bad, non-saturated fat is good!"
"Well, *saturated fat* is bad, polyunsaturated fat isn't great, mono-unsaturated fat is good!"
"Well, re polyunsaturated, the omega-3s are good but too much omega-6s are bad - and also, trans fat is really bad!"
"Well, *this particular* fatty acid..."

The whole concept of ultraprocessed foods is a huge step in the wrong direction.

"unless we can also correct flaws in the DNA that does not allow them to have children"

Why on Earth did you just assume that they can't have children because of "flaws in the DNA"?

First off is a source of complete infertility which *every* woman encounters unless she dies young: age (menopause). As for non-age related causes:

Of partial infertility, the most common cause (~80-85% of cases) is PCOS. Literally 5-10% of women in the US of reproductive age have this. There is a genetic component, but environmental factors are probably the biggest contributor (it's on a hormonal axis that includes diabetes, and is related to excess weight, stress, etc, but also has some mild intersex characteristics, such as high testosterone levels, high AMH, etc; there's an interplay between hormones that's out of balance)

Other causes: uterine fibroids and polyps, endometriosis, etc.

Of full infertility: bilateral tube blockage is a relatively common one, such as from pelvic inflammatory disease (often caused by STDs), previous surgeries, past ectopic pregnancy, etc.

Primary ovarian insufficiency: either hitting menopause young, or never having normal ovarian function. Some causes are genetic, others are not - for example, cancer treatment.

Absence of a uterus: sometimes genetic, by far more common is due to hysterectomy (for a range of reasons). Though of course this would preclude pregnancy from this technique as well.

Genetic conditions that lead to streak gonads (undifferentiated between testes / ovaries) or the absence of ovaries, though these are rare.

So yes, genetic factors *can* be a cause of infertility, but far more common is non-genetic factors.

The 757 got a new lease on life when it was certified for ETOPS. But they're old and, by modern standards, inefficient.

I'm sure the Boeing folks have considered a 757neo (sorry for the Airbus terminology there) or a 757Max, but they appear to have opted for a clean-sheet 797 instead.

...laura