Happy Cadaver Posted October 20, 2001 (edited) Why are u such a knob thorsten? Man seed is love of gods desire to the heaven of creation, or so they sure, not for sure but for real. Edited April 19, 2007 by darcy Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Torsten Posted October 21, 2001 Claviceps paspali grows liberally on paspalum grass, which is a major forage grass. Claviceps paspali is a close relative of Claviceps purpurea the famouns rye ergot fundus. Ergot alkaloids cause loss of appetite and other problems in cows. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
minotaur Posted October 21, 2001 Some ergot alkaloids are uterine stimulants too. I think they can induce labour - intentionally or otherwise in cattle as well as people. There are a few possible reasons the DPI might be interested in these compounds. I thinks it's a relatively low salary for someone with those technical skills. Scientists have really bad wages and conditions; considering the amount of work and study that they have to do. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest reville Posted October 22, 2001 low? geez id give my left testicle for a wage like that. sorry . several years as a bottom feeder bobbing to keep above the POV line on austudy has made me a little desperate... I reckon i could do that.Well with some on the job training anyway. It pisses me off that a degree in itself isnt worth shit. Youd think after 3-4 years at uni you dhave the skills necessary but you dont - to bea ble to demontrate those sorts of skills youd need to have gone through honours then some industry experience by whicjh time incl study youve been at it for about 6 years and still the wages are shit. I sawa graph once that showed that graduates over time recoup the costs in terms of lost earnings and study costs quickly and over time out performe a staedy worker but i think thats got to be bullshit at these rates. Over in WA if you can cook you can work on the mines and make more than 40000/year starting age fifteen as an apprentice finished by 19 (that is if you want to be a chef and not just a cook) so compared to a uni grad wholl be 24/25 by the time they fisish all the prereqs thats 240 000 extra earnings plus you're still paid more and dont have a 25000 HECS bill [This message has been edited by reville (edited 22 October 2001).] Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rkundalini Posted October 25, 2001 Scientists have really bad wages and conditions I often get that comment when people find out how poor I am but really I wouldn't feel right about taking (much) more money. Science gets a certain amount of funding, which it should spend with as much thrift as possible for the furtherance of knowledge. If we get paid twice as much, there will be half as many of us. Paying more money might attract some bright people who otherwise would have become suits, but they will be people who are in it for the money instead of for the purpose of furthering knowledge... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Torsten Posted October 25, 2001 Originally posted by rkundalini: Science gets a certain amount of funding, which it should spend with as much thrift as possible for the furtherance of knowledge. If we get paid twice as much, there will be half as many of us. I don't think the problem is at a much higher level. There would only be half as many if the budget was the same. if however we were a society where knowledge is a priority we would have no problem paying excellent wages at the expense of maybe footy, defence and Packer functions. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rkundalini Posted October 26, 2001 Heheh I knew after I posted that, that things are a bit different in the world of biology. Where I come from (astronomy) it is virtually impossible for research to be driven by economic goals, at least until advertisers start moving stars around to make giant logos in the sky... from an outsider's perspective it seems that in many of the biological sciences, the fundamental motivation of most research projects is no longer pure scientific curiosity but rather it is focussed towards some kind of exploitation of what is discovered. IMO this is a dangerous position to be in... I agree though that the public doesn't value the development of human thought and knowledge very much... they haven't figured out that culture and world view are fed by them and always have been. The same of course goes for art and spirituality and virtually every pursuit outside the daily routine programmed into the drone population. However the solution to this is much more far reaching than simply getting more funding for science/art and higher wages for scientists/artists. As long as the basis of our society is the competition for money, this will attract the wrong kind of person. If society was to morph into one that values every person equally, this desire to grab money from one another would be gone, and naturally science and art would get their just funding along with everything else we currently neglect (environment, etc). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Torsten Posted October 26, 2001 One of the most inspiring statement about science I have ever heard was from Sasha at the amsterdam conference. If 'A' is your starting materials, 'B' the method/research and 'C' the result, then 20 or 30 years ago a group of scientists were given 'A', tried all sorts of different 'B' and then listed all the 'C'. This produced many unique and unexpected discoveries, many of them profitable. In contrast to this, nowadays science is driven by 'C' and the scientists have to work out 'A' & 'B'. This does not produce many unexpected results. It also produces less seemingly useless data that other scientists sometimes draw a lot of inspiration from. We are well aware that the process of random experiments is productive and is usually responsible for propelling us forward in leaps rather than babysteps, after all that is what 'thinktanks' are really all about. Science greatest downfall is the involvement of industry and business. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rkundalini Posted October 27, 2001 Very true and in fact we do suffer from this even in non-profit sciences like astronomy, because funding and telescope time allocation committees really want proposals to say "we are going to prove or disprove C". If you say "these objects are really weird and we want to use this sensitive new instrument to find lots of strange, previously undreamt of phenomena and then work out what's causing them" this will never get time since it is too wishy washy. Regardless, interesting discoveries very often turn out to be serendipitous, ie unexpected discoveries that turn up when you're supposedly trying to show something else. So the whole act of writing proposals becomes an art form, a complicated blend of various flavours of bullshit to convince them to let you look at what you want to look at. It is very wierd in general the small set of things one is allowed to claim are of intrinsic worth. A new discovery is not great because of its novelty value, it is great because it will help us to solve blah blah that will help us to know more about blah blah-2 etc. But why do we want to know about blah blah? Oh because blah-blah-3 depends on it... it is a never-ending chain that is fabricated because pure abstract knowledge is somehow not enough justification for doing something. The most crass form of this is common on TV news. It is to say that we need to save a forest because it makes carbon dioxide for us to breath, or because it filters the water, or because it preserves biodiversity, or whatever... you're not allowed say that forests have intrinsic preservation value... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
