Real life thread
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TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Gentlemen I come to you to remind you of a most important of events taking place December 4th. National Cookie day. 
remember on this most gooey and Crumbly of days of note. please take a moment and celibrate in the traditional manor. a tall glass of milk and your favorite cookie.
remember on this most gooey and Crumbly of days of note. please take a moment and celibrate in the traditional manor. a tall glass of milk and your favorite cookie.
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vesicles
Colonel
Just came out a seminar by Dr. Michael Brown, the winner of 1985's Nobel Prize in Physiology for his contribution in cholesterol biosynthesis, LDL and coronary diseases. It is very exciting indeed to actually hear the man talking about how they discovered the LDL receptors, among other things. I also study cholesterol, but from a completely different perspective. My research mainly focuses on how cholesterol actively influences cell signaling events. traditionally, people believe cholesterol is simply there in the cell plasma membrane to as a support, sort of a cement. However, latest data show that cholesterol active participates in many cell functions that initiate at the cell surface since many proteins seem to be highly sensitive to cholesterol movement within the plasma membrane. Many disease cell types contain different cholesterol distribution pattern within the plasma membrane when compared to normal cells. So it is possible that, when cholesterol molecules move around in the cell plasma membrane, cell signaling changes and then consequentially changes how cell functions. This is a new and highly controversial field. Very exciting indeed!
Now, NIH, give me that funding you promised! Obama, you said back in 2008 that you would double NIH funding in 10 years. Show me the money!!!
Now, NIH, give me that funding you promised! Obama, you said back in 2008 that you would double NIH funding in 10 years. Show me the money!!!
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Just came out a seminar by Dr. Michael Brown, the winner of 1985's Nobel Prize in Physiology for his contribution in cholesterol biosynthesis, LDL and coronary diseases. It is very exciting indeed to actually hear the man talking about how they discovered the LDL receptors, among other things. I also study cholesterol, but from a completely different perspective. My research mainly focuses on how cholesterol actively influences cell signaling events. traditionally, people believe cholesterol is simply there in the cell plasma membrane to as a support, sort of a cement. However, latest data show that cholesterol active participates in many cell functions that initiate at the cell surface since many proteins seem to be highly sensitive to cholesterol movement within the plasma membrane. Many disease cell types contain different cholesterol distribution pattern within the plasma membrane when compared to normal cells. So it is possible that, when cholesterol molecules move around in the cell plasma membrane, cell signaling changes and then consequentially changes how cell functions. This is a new and highly controversial field. Very exciting indeed!
Now, NIH, give me that funding you promised! Obama, you said back in 2008 that you would double NIH funding in 10 years. Show me the money!!!
Yes, and you can keep your health insurance and your Dr. too. BWAAH Hhhhaaaaahhhh Haaaaahhhhhhhh, Haaaahhhhh! Now, I was a Hospice Chaplin, Bereavement and Volunteer Coordinator, until the rewrite of Medicare Hospice guidelines by the BHO team, cutting Hospice service re-imbursments, I was fairly compensated but overworked and I loved every minute of it, NOW, I have no job, NO health insurance, and NO Dr, thanks Obama, but God does provide! Bless you Vesicles for your work, the finest people in the world are health care professionals and it breaks my heart to see the finest, most compassionate healthcare system on the planet suffer, sadly patients are beginning to suffer as well. A young lady who worked with my daughter has adopted several African children with her husband, she became il and needed a kidney transplant, all the surgeons and protocols were lined up and pre-approved they were waiting on a kidney, they just found one and guess what???? yeah Obama's affordable care act has denied her ANY benefits, NONE! he's a great guy, brat
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Careful brat you might need to check out Obamacare from a victims... err Patients POV if you laugh to hard.
The Affordable Care Act/Obamacare is an abomination and needs to be repealed or revamped. ..That's my political statement for the month.
My health care is provided by the & . Right now I have only co-pays for my medication.
Back to the weather...As of 0815 in Cedar Rapids IA USA it is 12F (-11C)..our high temp today will be about 21F(-6C)...yesterday our high was 51F (10C). That's a thirty degree swing.
My health care is provided by the & . Right now I have only co-pays for my medication.
Back to the weather...As of 0815 in Cedar Rapids IA USA it is 12F (-11C)..our high temp today will be about 21F(-6C)...yesterday our high was 51F (10C). That's a thirty degree swing.
Well, I have a freind who had good insurance, that was covering his cancer treatments and he had thus far made good progress and survived. He was paying $450.00 per month for he and his wife and had a $3,000 deductable. He was informed that his insurance was cancelled because of the new regulations, and he had to go to the exchanges. When he finally got through...after weeks and weeks of trying...his "new" policy was going to cost him $1,400 per month, with a $10,000 deductible, and he had to change doctors. Away from a Dr. he had who knew his condition and had worked with him through his cancer to date. This is intolerable.
He does not like it, but he has decided to get no insurance, pay the annual fine they are institutiong, and then go to the emergency room for indijuant care because they have to take him. A sad day for him and his wife and family...and IMHO for America.
It's a sick travesty. I am on a group health care plan, that has worked wonders for us as many of you know through my own cancer experiences these last four years. My wife and I are very concerned because next year when the group health coverage plans kick into this monstrocity, we fear the same thing will happen to us.
I pray to God in Heaven that sanity can return and that the representatives, no matter which party, will stop this travesty that is ruinuing the heatlh care and lives of millions, and will grow to ruin the health care of tens of millions in the future.
And that's, sadly, Real Life here in the good ole USA these days. I
n the mean time, I am gateful I can still work and provide for my wife and myself and help our kids and grandkids, and that I can still worship God according to the disctates of my heart and conscience and at least publically be grateful for the many other blessings I have.
Here, we had 9F this morning, going up to 20F today. Snow tomorrow, and then either just below 0F or right at 0F Saturday morning. Winter's here alright. We will not see 50F until next April probably.
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vesicles
Colonel
Thanks, brat, for the kind words! I wish you were the POTUS. We could actually keep some good people in science. If this disaster keeps up, we are going to lose many many talented people in science. In fact, many of my colleagues are planning to leave research. Not because they are not good scientists, but they can't get funding to keep their labs. These people publish regularly in top-impact journals like Science or Nature and have many exciting projects waiting for funding. However, the funding percentage have gone down to a ridiculous level that almost no one is able to get any funding. When I was in grad school in mid 2000's, the funding percentage at NIH was about 30%, meaning that 30% of the grant applicants would get funding. That went down to ~20% when I was finishing my postdoctoral fellowship. Now? ~5%! This means that you could be a top 10 percentile scientist in the nation, which puts you in the same league with Nobel Laureates and Academy members, you are still not good enough to get funding. This estimation is actually the most optimistic one because I am assuming the funding evaluation is completely merit-based. We all know that is not happening. The big shots and those senior scientists who have been in the business long enough and have enough connections will get the money no matter what kind of crap they are doing nowadays. And that leaves even a smaller pie to us, the young investigators who can only depend on our work and nothing else to speak for us.
Earlier this year, I got the review for one of my major NIH grants back. The reviewers had nothing but good words to say about my proposal and gave me close to perfect score. I was so excited and went to the NIH website to check my funding bracket. that was when I found out that my score was outside of the funding bracket. That was a huge let-down. Then I called my program coordinator at NIH and asked him what I could do. Since the reviewers had no negative thing to say about my proposal, how can I revise my proposal? He said he could suggest nothing, except putting more preliminary data in. I did that and sent it back for a re-evaluation. Guess what? I got a lower score than the first time (I didn't change a word in the main text). Why? the reviewers thought I got so much data already, thus no need to give me any money!
This is the kind of BS we have to deal with on the daily basis. How can this NOT be demoralizing???
vesicles
Colonel
At yesterday's seminar by the Nobel Laurate, he told a few funny stories about what they did "back in the days".
1) he said "well, when we were still allowed to do this... We gathered a whole bunch of medical school students and graduate students and fed them half dozen eggs, half pound of bacon and a big tall glass of milk shake (also containing two raw eggs). Then we drew blood every hour to monitor their cholesterol level in their blood. To our surprise, their plasma cholesterol level did not go up at all. That is why nowadays you can go and get your blood cholesterol level checked without fasting because our body maintains cholesterol level in blood very well. Well, we can no longer do this kind of experiments, obviously..."
2) At the end of the talk, he said this: "in one of the clinical trials that we did in the 80's, we collected hundreds of people with blood cholesterol level as high as 300 and conducted experiments. Of course, we put half of them on placebo... If we do this today, we would be arrested and executed... Can you imagine giving people with dangerously high blood cholesterol levels only placebo and no actual treatment and 'lie' to them about it?"
1) he said "well, when we were still allowed to do this... We gathered a whole bunch of medical school students and graduate students and fed them half dozen eggs, half pound of bacon and a big tall glass of milk shake (also containing two raw eggs). Then we drew blood every hour to monitor their cholesterol level in their blood. To our surprise, their plasma cholesterol level did not go up at all. That is why nowadays you can go and get your blood cholesterol level checked without fasting because our body maintains cholesterol level in blood very well. Well, we can no longer do this kind of experiments, obviously..."
2) At the end of the talk, he said this: "in one of the clinical trials that we did in the 80's, we collected hundreds of people with blood cholesterol level as high as 300 and conducted experiments. Of course, we put half of them on placebo... If we do this today, we would be arrested and executed... Can you imagine giving people with dangerously high blood cholesterol levels only placebo and no actual treatment and 'lie' to them about it?"
Thanks, brat, for the kind words! I wish you were the POTUS. We could actually keep some good people in science. If this disaster keeps up, we are going to lose many many talented people in science. In fact, many of my colleagues are planning to leave research. Not because they are not good scientists, but they can't get funding to keep their labs. These people publish regularly in top-impact journals like Science or Nature and have many exciting projects waiting for funding. However, the funding percentage have gone down to a ridiculous level that almost no one is able to get any funding. When I was in grad school in mid 2000's, the funding percentage at NIH was about 30%, meaning that 30% of the grant applicants would get funding. That went down to ~20% when I was finishing my postdoctoral fellowship. Now? ~5%! This means that you could be a top 10 percentile scientist in the nation, which puts you in the same league with Nobel Laureates and Academy members, you are still not good enough to get funding. This estimation is actually the most optimistic one because I am assuming the funding evaluation is completely merit-based. We all know that is not happening. The big shots and those senior scientists who have been in the business long enough and have enough connections will get the money no matter what kind of crap they are doing nowadays. And that leaves even a smaller pie to us, the young investigators who can only depend on our work and nothing else to speak for us.
Earlier this year, I got the review for one of my major NIH grants back. The reviewers had nothing but good words to say about my proposal and gave me close to perfect score. I was so excited and went to the NIH website to check my funding bracket. that was when I found out that my score was outside of the funding bracket. That was a huge let-down. Then I called my program coordinator at NIH and asked him what I could do. Since the reviewers had no negative thing to say about my proposal, how can I revise my proposal? He said he could suggest nothing, except putting more preliminary data in. I did that and sent it back for a re-evaluation. Guess what? I got a lower score than the first time (I didn't change a word in the main text). Why? the reviewers thought I got so much data already, thus no need to give me any money!
Thank you my Brother, I doubt I have ever had such a kind compliment, from such a kind intelligent young man, I am truly humbled and encouraged, and to you I wish you all the success in the world as you pursue your gracious work. One thing is becoming clear, we are going to have to help one another, and to depend on our Gracious Lord Jesus. Keep the Faith, not only in the Lord, but in your fellow man, there yet remain many fine and worthy men, many here on the Sino Defense Forum, and many of our moderators and fellows, you Gentlemen are a credit to any Nation, and I am proud to call you my friends. Bax