Ask a physicist anything. (7)

[Chalnoth]

So when I strike three tunes, one tuned 220, second 260, third 300 it will create comined sound at 240 and 280? Will that 240 and 280 combine themself to 260 again?

Well, what it does in that case is you have a primary tone at 260Hz, with 40Hz throbbing (though not as strong of throbbing as in the two-frequency case).

 

[Naraoia]

That and more often than not their eggs are in everything you eat.

A fair price for all they've done for genetics and developmental biology

 

[GrowingSmaller]

How does finding a genetic relationship to disease help with developing a medical treatment for it? Can you give easy to understand examples?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Also (I think I asked before but cannot find the post after a long search) has CERN come up with very much new data yet. IIRC a lot of the first runs were test runs ad it is not working at full capacity yet, right?

 

[Chalnoth]

How does finding a genetic relationship to disease help with developing a medical treatment for it? Can you give easy to understand examples?

There are two basic ways that I, who am not a molecular biologist, could think to make use of this idea.

The first way is in making vaccines: our body responds to various proteins on the viruses in order to develop an immune response to them. So if we can understand what proteins our body responds to, and learn which genes code for which proteins, then we can both build vaccines out of the proteins, and use genetic tests to determine how often we need to put new vaccines out there.

The second way is just generally understanding better how viruses work. Genetic analyses are obviously only part of the puzzle there, but an important part. The more we understand how viruses work, and how they respond to our attempts to treat them, the better we can get at treating them.

 

[Chalnoth]

Also (I think I asked before but cannot find the post after a long search) has CERN come up with very much new data yet. IIRC a lot of the first runs were test runs ad it is not working at full capacity yet, right?

Right. There were some engineering difficulties that have prevented it from running at full capacity. I believe it is shut down now, and they're working on upgrading the machine so that it will be able to run at its design capacity in a year or two.

The primary finding so far appears to be that it may have seen some hints at the Higgs, but they don't yet have enough data to be sure. The hint isn't significant enough for a positive detection, but they see the same hint in both of their main detectors, so it is at least highly suggestive.

 

[Naraoia]

How does finding a genetic relationship to disease help with developing a medical treatment for it? Can you give easy to understand examples?

Hehe, Chalnoth understood your question one way, and I understood it in a completely different way. Here is my quick and woefully vague answer for the question as I understood it. I'm a biologist, but I'm not particularly interested in medicine, hence the lack of specific examples

Ideally, you want to treat diseases right at the cause. If you know that a gene or group of genes goes wrong in a given disease, you've got the foundation for that. I'm not sure I can think of any successful (as in widely used in clinical practice) examples off hand, but a variety of approaches are possible (and indeed actively researched). For instance:

(1) gene therapy: delivering the correct version of a disease gene (e.g. the chloride transporter mutated in cystic fibrosis) into the body so your cells can use it to make a functioning gene product.

(2) antisense therapy (which I found while looking through the gene therapy article ): if the problem is a gene that does the wrong job, as opposed to not doing its job at all, you can try to turn it off. This exploits a natural mechanism of gene regulation, in which small RNAs (such as these) bind to messenger RNA and prevent it from being translated into protein. If you know which gene you want switched off, you can synthesise a specific stretch of nucleic acid that'll target it.

(3) drug design: if you know that a disease is caused by a malfunctioning protein, you can look for molecules that will specifically stop it from messing up. That's a lot easier than just trying random drugs until you get it right.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

(3) drug design: if you know that a disease is caused by a malfunctioning protein, you can look for molecules that will specifically stop it from messing up. That's a lot easier than just trying random drugs until you get it right.

Thanks this ^^ is specifically what I am interested in. Are there any easy to inderstand examples?

 

[mzungu]

Thanks this ^^ is specifically what I am interested in. Are there any easy to inderstand examples?

Here is one: Lung disease study explores defective protein mechanisms - Baylor College of Medicine

 

[Zippy the Wonderslug]

As a physicist, do you personally believe that there is such a thing as creating something?

What is your opinion on the word create?

Thanks ahead.

 

[Nabobalis]

As a physicist, do you personally believe that there is such a thing as creating something?

What is your opinion on the word create?

Thanks ahead.

Well what you do mean by create in the first place?

 

[Zippy the Wonderslug]

Just the interpretation of this word, that's all.

 

[Nabobalis]

Just the interpretation of this word, that's all.

Well personally, we can create many things - generally from parts that previously existed. e.g. particle collisions in CERN, you take two bunches of protons and smash them together - resulting in many many new particles being created.

Nature seems to be able to create things from nothing.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

Thanks this ^^ is specifically what I am interested in. Are there any easy to inderstand examples?

Have a look at "chaperone therapy".

 

[Chalnoth]

As a physicist, do you personally believe that there is such a thing as creating something?

What is your opinion on the word create?

Thanks ahead.

Just depends upon what you mean by the word. If you mean "out of nothing" then no, absolutely not. But certainly humans, for example, create a great many things, provided you don't claim that they are produced out of nothing.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

How many MJ does it take to put 1KG in Low Earth Orbit?

 

[Chalnoth]

How many MJ does it take to put 1KG in Low Earth Orbit?

That depends upon how the object is launched. I calculate a bare minimum of 32MJ is required for a minimal LEO orbit, but that's assuming perfect efficiency in the launch, which can never happen. In fact, our current method of using rockets will easily require a hundred times that amount.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

That depends upon how the object is launched. I calculate a bare minimum of 32MJ is required for a minimal LEO orbit, but that's assuming perfect efficiency in the launch, which can never happen. In fact, our current method of using rockets will easily require a hundred times that amount.

No that's perfectly what I wanted thanks.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Thanks all for answering the gene question!

 

[Non sequitur]

3. Neutrinos do have mass (albeit a small one). And even if they didn't, they would only travel at the speed of light, not past it.

What are your thoughts on the superluminal velocities of muon neutrinos reported by OPERA?