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Genetics of ABO Blood Types (Feb. 23, 2007)
Human ABO Gene (Feb. 22, 2007)
Professor Carl Cori and Doctor Gerty Cori. During the past decade the scientific world has followed your work on glycogen and glucose metabolism with an interest that has gradually increased to admiration. Since the discovery of glycogen by Claude Bernard ninety years ago, we have been almost totally ignorant of how this important constituent of the body is formed and broken down. Your magnificent work has now elucidated in great detail the extremely complicated enzymatic mechanism involved in the reversible reactions between glucose and glycogen. Your synthesis of glycogen in the test tube is beyond doubt one of the most brilliant achievements in modern biochemistry. Your discovery of the hormonal regulation of the hexokinase reaction would seem to lead to a new conception of how hormones and enzymes cooperate.Cori and Cori are one of the few husband and wife teams to receive the Nobel Prize. They worked at Washington University in St. Louis, MO (USA).
In the name of the Caroline Institute I extend to you hearty congratulations on your outstanding contribution to biochemistry and physiology.
Before Nernst began his actual thermochemical work in 1906, the position was as follows. Through the law of the conservation of energy, the first fundamental law of the theory of heat, it was possible on the one hand to calculate the change in the evolution of heat with the temperature. This is due to the fact that this change is equal to the difference between the specific heats of the original and the newly-formed substances, that is to say, the amount of heat required to raise their temperature from 0° to 1° C. According to van't Hoff, one could on the other hand calculate the change in chemical equilibrium, and consequently the relationship with temperature, if one knew the point of equilibrium at one given temperature as well as the heat of reaction.Today, Nernst is known for his other contributions to thermodynamics. In biochemistry he is responsible for the Nernst equation that relates standard reduction potentials and Gibbs free energy.
The big problem, however, that of calculating the chemical affinity or the chemical equilibrium from thermochemical data, was still unsolved.
With the aid of his co-workers Nernst was able through extremely valuable experimental research to obtain a most remarkable result concerning the change in specific heats at low temperatures.
That is to say, it was shown that at relatively low temperatures specific heats begin to drop rapidly, and if extreme experimental measures such as freezing with liquid hydrogen are used to achieve temperatures approaching absolute zero, i.e. in the region of -273° C, they fall almost to zero.
This means that at these low temperatures the difference between the specific heats of various substances comes even closer to zero, and thus that the heat of reaction for solid and liquid substances practically becomes independent of temperature at very low temperatures.
Then there's the problem on the other side -- among the atheists such as Richard Dawkins who have been labelled "fanatics." Now, it is absolutely true that Dawkins' tone is often as charming as fingernails dragged slowly down a chalkboard. But just what is the core of Dawkins' radical message?[Hat Tip: PZ Myers]
Well, it goes something like this: If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim; if you have no evidence, I will not accept that what you say is true and I will think you a foolish and gullible person for believing it so.
That's it. That's the whole, crazy, fanatical package.
When the Pope says that a few words and some hand-waving causes a cracker to transform into the flesh of a 2,000-year-old man, Dawkins and his fellow travellers say, well, prove it. It should be simple. Swab the Host and do a DNA analysis. If you don't, we will give your claim no more respect than we give to those who say they see the future in crystal balls or bend spoons with their minds or become werewolves at each full moon.
And for this, it is Dawkins, not the Pope, who is labelled the unreasonable fanatic on par with faith-saturated madmen who sacrifice children to an invisible spirit.
This is completely contrary to how we live the rest of our lives. We demand proof of even trivial claims ("John was the main creative force behind Sergeant Pepper") and we dismiss those who make such claims without proof. We are still more demanding when claims are made on matters that are at least temporarily important ("Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction" being a notorious example).
So isn't it odd that when claims are made about matters as important as the nature of existence and our place in it we suddenly drop all expectation of proof and we respect those who make and believe claims without the slightest evidence? Why is it perfectly reasonable to roll my eyes when someone makes the bald assertion that Ringo was the greatest Beatle but it is "fundamentalist" and "fanatical" to say that, absent evidence, it is absurd to believe Muhammad was not lying or hallucinating when he claimed to have long chats with God?
WASHINGTON - An odd-looking Canadian quarter with a bright red flower was the culprit behind a false espionage warning from the Defense Department about mysterious coins with radio frequency transmitters, The Associated Press has learned.I can see why the contractors were confused. American coins and paper money are so boring they probably thought every country had boring money.
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The harmless "poppy quarter" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors traveling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.