Recent content by kldickson

If someone would disseminate this image around the internets in places I haven't already disseminated it, I would much appreciate it. Which brings me to the subject of this post: why, instead of having a reasoned discussion, are people acting like gorillas on speed when talking about healthcare?

Realistically, if you want to kill yourself, that's your prerogative. I just don't want to have my respiratory system assailed by carcinogenic fumes. Find somewhere to smoke where it won't blow into someone else's face. We shouldn't have to breathe your cancer stick crap.

Come back to this question when you're in college, Martini. High school has not given you and will not give you the tools and information necessary to discuss this.

Martini started the thread, madness. I was responding to her. Synesthesia is an altogether different story; that has a biological underpinning. We think that it stems from two sensory regions being more closely wired than usual; 'reality' is not such a good way to express this as in it...

Looking at your post history, I see you are not quite conversant in basic philosophy, and I can't say whether or not you're conversant in any of the basic sciences. What level of education are you at?

Have you read scientific studies of schizophrenia?

My specific area of study is in neuroscience. The question of reality, I find, is often best addressed when undertaken by scientific inquiry - objective, empirical proof replicated in a series of experiments by informed professionals. Hallucinations caused by a mental illness are just as fake...

Philosophy shouldn't even touch drug-based experiences. These only take place because of pharmacological interference with normal brain function. What you perceive during a hallucination is not, in fact, real; the hallucination does occur in that you are experiencing a hallucination, but for...

Construct chemical equations and react all the chemicals with H2O to see what they produce. Just because a chemical is a Bronsted-Lowry base does not necessarily mean it produces a basic solution. For example, NaCl does not produce a basic solution, but Cl- is a Bronsted-Lowry base.

This is messed up. Metals don't affect electrical signals this way. Calcium, sodium, and potassium exist as ions in your neurons and between your synapses. Your chemistry professor needs to read a biology textbook.

The problem with dimethylmercury is that it complexes to cysteine and that it is eliminated from the body slowly. Find information on Minamata disease if you want to know what happens to the body. Specifically, it's a neurotoxin.

Those of you who do computational neuroscience - I have a friend who might be interested in some of it. Can you maybe post a short reading list? (My experience is on the non-computational side of things. Plus I'm still an undergrad.) Artificial neural networks are really only useful as...

What are you plugging in for equations B and C?

Beer-Lambert's law, if I remember correctly, is A=\epsilonlc, where A is absorbance, \epsilon is absorption cross-section, l is path length, and c is concentration.

Analytical thinking abilities are also used to make sense of the world. The world is a rather stupid place, and analytical thinking makes a person more aware of it.