Cloning A Neanderthal

Cloning A Neanderthal

George Church from Harvard University sparked controversy when in a Der Spiegel interview when he suggested the possibility of bringing Neanderthals back from extinction. In fact, controversy is probably too subtle of a term. An academic brawl would more closely describe what happened when Church posed the idea that an “extremely adventurous female” might offer herself to be a surrogate mother for a cloned Neanderthal baby, thus bringing Neanderthals back into existence. This has raised a lot of questions about whether or not bringing an extinct organism back into existence is even scientifically possible.

Is Scientific Research Ready?

I don’t have my doctorate in genetics or anything but I’m pretty sure this sounds like an odd thing to suggest and I’m not sure that the genetic and medical research that has been done is ready to support such an endeavor. A large argument for the possibility of it happening is that the Neanderthal genome has already been sequenced. The Neanderthal genome indicates that approximately 1-4% of modern day Eurasians DNA is comprised of Neanderthal DNA. This would mean that anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals would have cross bred, at least on occasion.
Is it really possible to construct an organism from fossil DNA? Most genetic scientists would say not. DNA degradation and contamination are extremely important factors when looking at creating an organism, especially one that has been extinct for roughly 30,000 years.
I’m sure that most biology or genetic students will tell you that using fossil DNA to reconstruct a species is impossible at this point in time. Keep in mind that the Neanderthal genome was mapped using fossil DNA. DNA degrades overtime changing some DNA bases to others which could be fatal to any organism. Plus, DNA occurs on chromosomes which we currently don’t have the ability to construct from fossil DNA.

Carrying a Neanderthal

Let’s say that creating an organism from fossil DNA is indeed possible. Would a human female actually be able to give birth to a Neanderthal without serious life threatening complications? Fossil analysis indicates that there are some distinct morphological differences between Neanderthal and Anatomically Modern Human anatomy. There is no conclusive research to determine the gestational growth rate of Neanderthals. It seems as though the gracile human female form would have trouble just keeping up with the growth rate of a robust Neanderthal let alone actually giving birth to it. The overall makeup of a Neanderthal skull is much larger and robust than that of an Anatomically Modern Human bringing into question whether or not it’s even possible for an Anatomically Modern Human to give birth to a Neanderthal.
To many, this seems like an extremely outrageous claim but to be fair, Church did come back and say that when he made these comments he was merely speculating and wasn’t about to put out an add looking for such a person. Despite his intentions, are these the short of discussions that should be happening in the scientific community? There are obviously a lot more pressing medical and environmental needs that scientific advancement should be used to address which leaves many wondering about the ethical integrity of such an endeavor.

Author Bio: Jessica Reynolds loves all aspects of science, especially anthropology and archaeology. After obtaining a degree in anthropology she decided to give up her trowel in favor of pursing writing. She makes a living by writing, currently for scientific poster printer postersession.com, a division of MegaPrint.

Read More

Different Psychology Branches

Different Psychology Branches

Psychology is a field of study that deals with human mind. It is believed that the field of psychology involves reading minds. Better understandings of psychology have assisted the society function and grow smoothly. There are various branches of psychology. Here are short descriptions of ten major subdivisions of psychology.

Behavioral Psychology

It is the most popular term used for psychobiology, or biopsychology or behavioral neuroscience. Aside from the mental processes, this field of psychology studies the behavioral patterns of people. Basically, treatment in this branch is more physical, like chemical lesions and electrolytic lesions.

Abnormal Psychology

It deals with the behavioral abnormalities in a person, like mental retardation, psychoses and neuroses. Treatment in this branch often includes mesmerism and hypnosis. The abnormal psychology is also taught in Human Resource Management and Law.

Cognitive Psychology

It is one of the latest branches of psychology that deals with internal mental processes including language, problem solving, memory, and visual processing. It basically looks into concepts like decision-making, emotions, memory, aging, perception, etc.

Clinical Psychology

Clinical Psychology is the field of study that prevents, understands and relives psychological issues in a person. Treatments used in the sector include psychotherapy and psychological assessment. It also focuses on administration, program development, forensic testimony, consultation, teaching, and research. It is also known as counseling psychology.

Developmental Psychology

It is the study of change in human’s psyche with time. This field is also related to child care and development. This psychology branch helps to understand the causes and effects of changes in a person’s life.

Community Psychology

The field of study that deals with the dynamics in a community and psychology of individuals is known as community psychology or critical psychology. It teaches the concept of interdependence, succession, cycling, adaptation and diplomacy. It assists a community understand citizen participation, social justice, and empowerment.

Evolutionary Psychology

The evolutionary psychology studies the most primitive psychological stimuli in people. This field deals with the adaptive skills of human beings. For example, scientists believe that linguistic skills are picked naturally by humans, but this doesn’t hold true with the case of reading and writing.

Educational Psychology

This sub-division of psychology is utilized in educational institutions. It deals with sex education in children, adolescence, peer pressure, gifted students, learning disorders, etc. Educational psychology is also known as school psychology. In most of the cases, educational psychologists work as school counselors.

Personality Psychology

The field of personality psychology governs the personality tests and legitimate IQ tests. This branch of psychology allows an individual to see his own picture. It also deals with different personality disorders including narcissistic personality disorder. It helps people to understand themselves better.

Legal Psychology

Basically legal psychology is same as clinical and cognitive psychology. However, it is the job of a legal psychologist to help in crime investigation procedures. Legal psychologists provide extra push to the investigation by judging the statements and testimonies of the victims or the witnesses. Moreover, their job also includes understanding a victim or witness’ perception form legal perspectives.

About Author: 

Scott Garcia is a career counselor and a blogger. Lean his thoughts on bachelor’s program in psychology.

Read More

How to Use Technology to Make You More Productive

Productivity Progress

How to Use Technology to Make You More Productive

We use technology in our personal and work lives every single day in many ways.  What many of us often don’t do is to take a step back and appreciate just how much of an impact various technology products and initiatives have on our lives.

One of the biggest plus points of technology is the manner in which it allows us to always be doing something, whether that be playing a game, connecting with friends, or catching up with news stories from around the world.

We focused on how you can utilize technology as a powerful force for increasing your level of personal productivity.

The Device

Note that we focused on the element of always doing something. With that in mind, your consideration for a device should stretch no further than a light laptop or notebook, or ideally a tablet device.

The latter is likely to be your best option, as it will typically have more battery life and easy to use wherever you are, saving you the nuisance of having to open your laptop on the train, for example, and take up twice as much room as you would with a tablet.

Think about the small things that might make life easier on the move, too, such as a touch pen for navigating a device, or earphones for when you need to watch or listen to something.

What Not to Forget

We all know someone who has invested in a brilliant product, then forgotten to sign up to some kind of internet service plan. Your best option is often to look at your home service, and see if your provider offers some kind of ‘use our hotspots anywhere’ benefits. If they don’t, then you’ll have to invest in a standalone plan for when you’re on the move.

Remember that if you travel and stay in various locations that 99% of hotels will have Wi-Fi that is free to use, so your actual billed usage may not be so high.

What to Do

Once you have got your device and connection sorted, what you do is pretty much your choice. However, we are talking productivity, remember, so you should take the time to learn or discover something new, rather than waste hours playing Angry Birds or Temple Run, however fun or tempting that may well be.

· If you are using technology for work, catch up with e-mails, check in with clients, or read that important report that your boss sent you weeks ago. Download some great apps so that you can always be connected with your own business, whether that be to update social feeds or look at your latest financial data.

· Students can also benefit massively, and this is where the learning side of productivity comes in. It may be reading something from an educational body, or an influential blog or commentary related to their studies.

The trend throughout all of this is that we now have the power to make the most of every minute of every day. Wasted time should become a thing of the past for everyone, with us learning more and being more productive than ever before thanks to technology.

This article is written by Jaguar PC, the original leaders in VPS hosting, providing the best web hosting services since 1998.

Read More

Dissertation Writing Tips

Dissertation Writing Tips

For many, writing a dissertation can seem like a daunting task. In order to achieve the goal of a well written dissertation, it's necessary to break the task down into smaller chunks. These tips give ideas that should help to make the dissertation writing process go that much more smoothly:

Tips on Planning the Dissertation

Many students are tempted to start writing as soon as possible. However, planning is time well spent. A dissertation that has been well planned out beforehand will be better organised and the arguments will be better structured.
Two ideas that can be particularly useful for sorting information according to topic are both mind maps and the use of index cards. Mind maps allow students to get a good overview of where the dissertation will be going once the writing stage begins. Index cards can be used to prepare necessary quotes and references for each section.

Pre-Research Planning Tips

A useful tip is to start planning the dissertation prior to, or very early on in the research stage. If the subject is one that the student is not overly familiar with, then a good tip is to read a basic book on the subject, to get an overview. The purpose of pre-research planning is to have an idea of what topics will be covered and what research and information will be needed.

Research Tips

Once students are clear about what topics will be covered in the dissertation, the research stage will be more organised. Relevant information and quotes can be placed directly into the section for that topic thus saving much time later on.
An important tip for saving time and for avoiding falling into plagiarism by mistake, is to take care to reference while taking notes. Whether it's a quote or ideas formatted into the student's own words, the sources need to be acknowledged. Better to do that from the beginning than to have to be searching for the references later on. Likewise many tutors will tip their students to do their bibliography as they go along.

Post-Research Planning Tips

Before beginning to write it's a good idea to consolidate the planning and ensure that there is enough material for each argument that will be made. When this is done then the dissertation writing is actually relatively easy, as time isn't wasted trying to work out what to say.

Dissertation Writing Stage Tips

The dissertation needs to have an introduction, different chapters or sections according to topic and a conclusion. The basic premise is to say what will be said, then say it, then summarise what's been said. An important tip is to make the introduction interesting, as tutors probably have a pile of dissertations to read and at the very least it will make their job less tedious. It will also give them a favourable first impression of your work. Start writing whatever chapter is most inspiring. Introductions are often best written after the main body of the dissertation has been written. Back up arguments, cite sources and try to follow a logical structure. Leave plenty of time for proofreading and revision so that by the time the dissertation is completed, it's the best that it could be. Good luck!

This article was written on behalf of ukdissertations.com; Struggling with any aspect of your dissertation? Get help by our expect dissertation writers.

Read More

Five Tips for Making The Most of Your Studies

How to make the most of your student life, for your success as well as enjoyment.

Work toward a goal

Nothing focuses you like a goal, an object in mind. Many studies show that students see university or college as a means to an end, as opposed to an end in itself, and in one particular study, less than a quarter of students responded that they were attending university 'for the experience'. From a similar study, it was reported that almost half the students surveyed planned to enter permanent full-time employment and over one-third planned to look for work.

Around 5 percent, a significant minority, said they had no idea what their plans would be after university. History is littered with examples of successful people who went through many years of obscurity and hard work before achieving the success they have today, and there's whole industry which has grown up around training people to focus on goals in order to achieve success; however, your university or college gives you a comparatively short period of a few years to define, maintain and hone your focus. Figure out what you want to do, and drive toward it.

     ___________
    //   |||   \\         
 __//____|||____\\____   
| _|      |       _  ||
|/ \______|______/ \_|| Adam will drive this car.
_\_/_____________\_/_______

Study as a group

You're not the only one taking your course, so why not benefit from the wit, wisdom and different perspectives of your course mates ? Get together and compare notes. Set each other quizzes and competitions. You may well find that your university or student union promotes interaction between students via the various social media sites, such as Facebook. You may also find that other students on your course are from foreign countries, and would welcome your interaction to make them feel at home. You could also find some benefit from the outlook and knowledge that they bring to the table, which is likely to be from a radically different culture to your own.

Plan ahead for exams

Work back from the exam dates, map out your revision in advance with a timetable and stick to the timetable. Don't allow yourself to be dragged off-track. Keep a calendar in a prominent place, in clear sight from your desk or place of study, with your timetable upon it.

On the exam day itself, make sure you're there in plenty of time. If you arrive late, or rush up with barely a minute to spare, it's almost guaranteed to put you off your stride. Make sure you take everything you need with you, leave in plenty of time, make sure you know exactly where you're going, and double-check the date and time.

Spread yourself out

"A little but often" is an oft-repeated phrase, one which will help you in your studies, in tandem with the timetable described above. Don't try to 'cram' all your revision into the last few days before the exam. Keep it in bite-sized chunks, spread out over a manageable, and hopefully stress-free, extended period.

Organize

Nothing will frustrate you more than looking for lecture notes or textbooks that you know you have somewhere, but just can't lay your hands on. Have a system for filing, and organize your textbooks. Once you've made a system, remember to stick to it. Keep your focus.

Lastly, remember to enjoy yourself. There's an old saying "All work and no joy, makes Jack a dull boy". If you've implemented all the strategies outlined above, have all your work in hand, and have no surprises waiting for you around the corner, you should still have time in your day for a walk in the park, coffee with friends, some sports, or whichever other leisure pursuit takes your fancy.

Simon Lunn works as a freelance writer for UK Essays. Founded in 2003, it has supported students with Masters Dissertation help for many years.

Read More