The Biosphere - 2015-10-28 (page 1 of 2)

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1:33 AM

@TanMath nope. Not yet. Busy in the lab wrapping up my project and packing up to move overseas

@AliceD you moving? I thought you live in Australia..

6 hours later…

7:30 AM

Hello all! I have been a member of Biology SE for almost a year. I have been an avid supporter and love this site. I have contributed in many ways (or I think so! ;) ), and I want to contribute in another way this time. I do agree with @Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. that this chatroom is dead and I feel that many do agree. I have decided to take up the challenge to improve our chatroom and make it much more active. I hope that all of you will support me.

I hope you can all help by coming more often and start talking! We can make this chatroom a much more fun place! Let's talk all about Biology!

To help us, I would first like @FaheemMitha (if you are the right person to ask) to give me owner permissions to this room. I would like to perhaps create for events, like Biology chat sessions. Currently, our description also seems very boring. So there are a few things I want to change.

Finally, if any of you think I should make a meta post on this, please tell me... I will do so as soon as possible...

Anyway, for now I shall leave... TTYL!

8:15 AM

@TanMath I can't give anyone owner permission to the room. As far as I know.

2 hours later…

10:13 AM

@FaheemMitha Hmm, any reason you're not an RO anymore?

@TanMath You should ask Chris or MadSci. And becoming a room owner is going to get earned, not given. No seriously, I became an RO at the Table when 1) there was conflict, and 2) there weren't chem mods around, and 3) the previous owner was absent, and 4) I was the most active chat user, and 5) another mod (Madara) came to process the flag. He saw there's a need for an RO to be here, and . . .

10:38 AM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. @FaheemMitha still seems to the RO, but I didn't even know that the main room has an owner chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/1997/the-biosphere

@fileunderwater . . . yeah, I saw his name wasn't italicized in the transcript and I thought he resigned. His name is italicized in chat, so I don't need to check that link. :)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I might be a room owner. But that doesn't mean I can give other people room ownership.

@FaheemMitha Oh but it does.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Oh, does it? That's strange.

Unless you mean philosophically, which would be weird.

@FaheemMitha Go to room info->access->room owner.

10:43 AM

Anyway, I'm not going to do anything without permission of the mods. Talk to them.

@FaheemMitha Being an RO means this room is literally yours. You don't need mod permission to grant someone access. But anyway it's not me who wants to be an RO here.

I'm not even a chat reg.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Ok. Sorry, I didn't mean to address you specifically.

I think the system made me owner for no particular reason. I don't use it for anything, nor do I plan to. Except in the case of a hypothetical emergency when no mods are around, I suppose.

(You don't need permission because being an RO means basically nothing other than a few visible-to-all permissions and features. It's highly incomparable with being a chat mod. And of course, there's the possible implied dignity with being an RO of a prominent room, like a main room of a site)

@FaheemMitha Hmm, lemme see . . .

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Yes, I'm aware it doesn't mean much. If it did, I don't suppose I would have it. I'm not even really active on Biology SX.

@TanMath Stuff like that should be decided on meta, especially events which are also featured on the main site

10:55 AM

@TanMath If you want to make the site more active, by all means talk on chat. Post more questions/answers too.

2 hours later…

1:17 PM

You become a room owner when all the other room owners have logged out and you're the most active chat user, or something

I owned this room for a hot second ages ago I think

@Resonating You don't automagically become an RO. It has to be a manual appointment.

Who is the first room owner?

Hmm, I can't tell.

But it's the person who created this room.

I'm pretty sure I've seen someone automagically become an RO, so there either is or was a mechanism for automagically appointing someone. It's probably not activated for rooms like this where there's always at least one person in it, but for small dark sites it makes sense to just appoint the most active chatter

@Resonating I have never seen that anywhere. And since many features first get tested in the big city, I don't think such thing exists.

1:29 PM

It's entirely possible it was a dream

Even if it was tested in the big city, features that only activate in villages would be invisible.

Do you think we need a tag like 'speculation-encouraged'?

4 hours later…

5:49 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. so how will I earn it?

@TanMath I don't think there's a need for an extra room owner right now in Biosphere. You should ask the guys that frequent here, not me.

@Resonating No.

Meta tags are a no-no.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. why not? I have a lot planned in mind.. I don't want to always have to ask @FaheemMitha to change things..

@Chris what do you think?

@TanMath Hmm, what do you have in mind?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. First, I would like to change the description of our room.. I would also have Biology chat sessions.. For those chat sessions we should talk about anything, but preferably Biology topics...

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. For example, the h Bar has a physics chat session every 14 days...

@TanMath Chat events are not for what you think. If you don't get them populated at first, they most likely won't be attracting later. And, just propose a room description yourself, or being something on meta, if people do think it should be changed.

6:04 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. sure.. I will create meta posts about it. I will tell everybody in the chat.. If it works, then great!

@MadScientist events are featured on the main site? where?

@TanMath He meant featured meta posts.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. oh yeah.. I see...

Events get displayed in the sidebar, I think. Might only be for mod-created events, the last time I used this the whole thing worked differently

@MadScientist oh, ok...

@MadScientist shall I create a meta post about what I propose?

@TanMath yes

6:09 PM

@MadScientist but you do not think I should be an owner? BUt @FaheemMitha said that she will not use her owner permission?

We have enough mods, we don't really need any room owners

@MadScientist ok.. and mods can do room owner tasks?

yes

@MadScientist cool.. BTW, by mods, do you mean high-rep users as well? or just you and @Chris ?

Only the mods with the diamond (we appear with a blue name in chat)

6:15 PM

@MadScientist ok.. so that's just you and Chris? or are there others?

WYSIWYG

There are three for biology. I forget who the othe one is

@TanMath Not many people who know what they're talking about refer to 10k'ers as mods. They're people with access to very limited mod tools.

Oh how could I forget WYSIWYG. @FaheemMitha did you guys ever get coffee? There was talk of planning such an event.

@Resonating I gave him lunch. That was some time ago. He doesn't seem to have been around recently, though. On chat, at least.

6:20 PM

Ok, I am writing a meta post, and hopefully will post it soon...

for now, bye!

6:36 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. BTW, what is cv-please?

nvm, I figured it out

0

Q: Improving our chat

I have been an active member on Biology.SE and one thing I have noticed, along with others, if that our chatroom is "dead". Sometimes there are only like 2 or 3 messages per day! I want to improve this. Therefore, I am proposing a few changes: 1. Change our chatroom description Many chatrooms h...

discussion chat

2

@TanMath It means "please close".

6:59 PM

close-vote please

I infer

Hmm, I have two starred messages in the small portion of the board that's visible. Maybe I could get some outspoken outta this chat. ;)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. you seem to be "begging" for a badge! ;P

PLEASE STAR OMG OMG OMG

BTW I got an steward today.

So I'm too cool to beg for badges or badgers.

I'm not too cool to beg for badgers

(Free badgers plz)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. you are very hypocritical!

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. what badge is that!

7:09 PM

@TanMath 1000 reviews.

Please star the following message so other users can see it:

29 mins ago, by TanMath

0

Q: Improving our chat

I have been an active member on Biology.SE and one thing I have noticed, along with others, if that our chatroom is "dead". Sometimes there are only like 2 or 3 messages per day! I want to improve this. Therefore, I am proposing a few changes: 1. Change our chatroom description Many chatrooms h...

discussion chat

2

@Faheem pin please. ^

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. cool! i am not even close to that!

Since, um, you can't review?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. or you can star!

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I am talking about in Biology!

7:11 PM

Stars fade and vanish
pins remain for as long as you wish

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. in chem.SE, not yet... I also review in Physics.SE

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I understand, but for now, a star i fine... @FaheemMitha is not here right now...

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Done.

@FaheemMitha (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

@FaheemMitha oh, actually, you pinned the link of the chat message I wanted you to pin.. you see?

Oh well, it is fine!

@TanMath Shall I pin the original message by you then?

To avoid confusion, just star the message you want pinned.

7:16 PM

@FaheemMitha yes..

@FaheemMitha I cannot star my own messages...

@FaheemMitha thanks!

8:16 PM

Hello all!

I am back..

greetings!

Who is all?

Judging by activity, you and me.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. you, @Resonating @FaheemMitha @MadScientist @terdon .. and whoever else is here!

Way to go. Waking up the dead.

8:18 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. ?

Pinging someone when you're not sure they like to be pinged is . . . not kosher.

@Resonating "Apparently, this user prefers to keep an air of mystery about them." Can you enlighten me on your mystery! ;)

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I shouldn't do it?

Hmm.

@Resonating Go on then. :-)

The most important thing to know about me is that I don't want to fill out my user profile

8:19 PM

why not? I get people to come here!

That's important.

@Resonating And that you're mysterious.

@TanMath Not an excuse. If they don't want to be pinged, you'll end up making them leave.

@FaheemMitha you too!

@TanMath Definitely not mysterious.

8:19 PM

Although terdon and MadSci are not those people.

@FaheemMitha A corollary of the first thing

I'm mysterious in a sense.

@FaheemMitha your profile says - "Apparently, this user prefers to keep an air of mystery about them."

@Resonating The kid wants to stir up some action. Tell a biological anecdote.

@TanMath In my case, it's highly misleading. I'm just lazy.

I could complain about NCBI

they cause me many problems these days

8:21 PM

@Resonating Yes, biological databases are annoying.

@Resonating Neurological Crumbling Bastards Institution?

NCBI is more annoying than most. Their RefSeq project is a dumb idea.

Kidding BTW

I.... actually don't know what ncbi stands for. Hmm.

Does anyone know what happened to @WYSIWYG?

8:22 PM

@FaheemMitha He wasn't gotten when he was seen?

National Center for Biological something?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. What?

Biological information?

@FaheemMitha National Center for Biotechnology Information

@TanMath Ah.

@FaheemMitha WYSIWYG = What You See Is What You Get . . .

8:23 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. lol

:) :) :)

@Resonating but PubMed is amazing!

Pubmed is okay

Define "amazing".

recently they took all the sequences that are perfectly identical and present in a handful of species and removed their sequence entries in Nucleotide

@Resonating I was thinking more how you discovered a new fossil, or how you figured out a cure to the common cold. But sure, venting about NCBI is also Ok.

so when you check the GI for their sequence entries, you get redirected to the RefSeq page, which is linked back to the organisms it's present in. However, if you just have the GI for the original sequence entry, there's no way to reconstruct that information and it's stupid and I'm angry

8:26 PM

@Resonating no.. I love PubMed.. terdon agrees...

Actually, I heard that cortisone is supposed to cure the common cold.

Also they have no documentation, nothing works like it says it does, and all the behavior is insane

@Resonating Have you tried writing them emails about it?

Q: How does DNA decay? (What happens chemically to it?)

They already write too many emails to me

8:27 PM

Sometimes people listen. Granted, it's not common.

@Resonating They do? About what?

Uh, when you submit a genome to their database, you get an email letting you know it worked correctly, then anotehr email when it passes preliminary verification, then another email when it finishes

if they ahve questions they send you an email with them, then you reply and you get an email from ncbi saying 'got your email' and an email from the employee's vacation auto-responder then an actual reply saying they sovled your problem.

That's too much but prolly necessary.

Then another email from the genome system saying that whatever action was promised to be performed was actually peformed

All of this is repeated per-genome, and I ahve to upload dozens

You should filter them and move them to junk.

@Resonating so you do genome stuff

8:30 PM

85% of these problems would be obviated if they'd let me delete a submission and start over.

@TanMath Kind of, yeah.

@Resonating I meant emails from actual living human beings.

They're all from the same address

At least the only thing chemists do and hate the process at the same time is converging.

They can't improve their format if nobody tells them about it. Think of it as a bug report. But to biologists.

Maybe I will complain!

I'm inspired!

8:32 PM

@Resonating That's the spirit!

The exclamation marks quite demonstrate it, yeah.

@Resonating I hope that's not meant sarcastically.

!

No? I am not goign to do it today. But I will do it.

Why do you not like PubMed?

8:32 PM

And it will be Constructive

Ok. But just be polite. Flies, honey, vinegar etc. etc.

I don't not like pubmed. It's just a database. I don't have strong feelings about it.

@Resonating but it a a grt source of papers...

Well, lie and tell them how great their service is.

To start with.

@TanMath . . . behind a paywall.

8:34 PM

Then politely suggest some improvements.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. ? not all of them!

Yeah, the ancient ones are free.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. really? many of them are free...

You haven't seen many then.

@FaheemMitha lie? really? "Your service is so amazing! (except it isn't!)"

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I have used PubMed for a few years now..

8:39 PM

It would be nice if there were free software type biological databases.

That is how you make people do things.

@TanMath Yes, something like that. Pretend you're Barack Obama or someone.

You tell them their service is good to demonstrate that you're invested and a possible future user. Then tell them how to make the change to make you, a future user, happy.

/me hands TanMath a copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

Quick summary: be a hypocritical manipulative creep.

@FaheemMitha How to Windows friends?

8:40 PM

It's how you get ahead in the world.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Huh?

@FaheemMitha that's how you get friends?! That doesn't sound nice!

@TanMath No, it doesn't. That's the point.

@FaheemMitha I . . . just love puns. Don't mind me.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I didn't get it, though.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. lol ...

@FaheemMitha how to win those friends!

8:42 PM

@TanMath Ah, Ok.

It's not how to get friends, or make friends. It's how to win friends

@FaheemMitha "Windows" occasionally gets abbreviated as "Win".

The OS, I mean.

Unfortunately, being honest and straightforward doesn't work well in the real world. Ask any politician.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. you have a Windows?

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Yes, I see.

@Resonating How are things in Urbana? Getting cold?

8:43 PM

@TanMath I'm not a house.

Yes. It's rainy so much now. :(

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. the OS! duh?

I know.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I guess you are a Mac guy!

@Resonating Bummer.

8:45 PM

@Resonating what do you do? you live in Illinois?

@TanMath Hmm, no.

genome stuff, yes

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. so do you use Windows OS?

@Resonating you a researcher?

@Resonating So nobody knows why iodine is used?

@TanMath Yes. No. I mean yes. I mean no.

8:47 PM

@FaheemMitha Nope. It does something, and it's done something for many millenia. But apparently Science doesn't know yet.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. be straightforward... You are not going to win me as a friend if you are not straightforward!

I'm procrastinating on this coconut oil question because it's remarkably irritating to find nutrition facts on a bunch of nuts people don't eat

@Resonating Hmm. How far back does it go? Primates? Mammals?

I don't want to win friends.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. good...

@FaheemMitha which question is this?

8:49 PM

@FaheemMitha Worms. basal chordates at least

I may Mac friends though.

@Resonating and which question is this?

@Resonating Wow. So, millions of years.

@Resonating really? worms use iodine?

@FaheemMitha hundreds of millions, yeah. Which you could guess because both I and my pet axolotls can suffer from iodine deficiency, and it's been a long time since we had a common ancestor

10

Q: Why is iodine used for metabolic hormones?

Iodine and related biological iodine-carrying hormones are phylogenetically very old, at least according to Wikipedia. Humans use iodine as a metabolic indicator, as do axolotls and apparently most multicellular life. So why? Growth hormones, sex hormones, et cetera don't require strange heavy e...

evolution metabolism

8:51 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. But what's the difference? You either Windows friends, or you dont! "Mac"ing friends is the same!

I sort of got the impression from somewhere that iodine functions as some kind of catalyst. Is that incorrect?

@FaheemMitha If you can find that somewhere I'd love to read it

I've never heard that

@Resonating I'm probably mistaken.

What exactly is the mechanism of, say, T-4 working?

@FaheemMitha a quick google search doesn't turn up anything that's not chemical engineering

8:55 PM

@Resonating I could write up an answer, if you want.. I have just the article!

@Resonating Yes.

@TanMath On why exactly T4 contains iodine and HGH doesn't?

@Resonating no, to your iodine question...

@TanMath Why is it so?

@Resonating I will get to learn now about iodine hormones (truth is, I have no idea what T4 and HGH is!)

8:57 PM

@TanMath That basically is my iodine question. I don't care about how T1-t-4 actually work. Why do they contain iodine at all? It's not required. HGH contains no iodine.

There's already a great overview of T1-T4 and their structures, but it doesn't actually answer my question at all

@Resonating Thinking chemically, maybe it's somehow related to iodine having a small charge density in comparison to species like K+, Ca 2+ etc.

@Resonating Is the role iodine plays well understood? Biochemically speaking, that is.

@Resonating Well, there is an article about the evolutionary roots of iodine in biochemistry.. I will use that to answer... But give me some time.. I will try to answer in a few days...

Days! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

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Transcript for

Oct '1528

The Biosphere

General discussion for biology.stackexchange.com

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