Science and Exploration

[Little Fish]

Originally Posted by Corkey

The whole Monsanto GMO stuff is going to kill off the human race, along with the bees.

I don't think there's anything inherently bad with GMO, to be honest. I expect this will be a very unpopular opinion but, it's mine.

I think the implications for vegans is an interesting one though-

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Little Fish

I don't think there's anything inherently bad with GMO, to be honest. I expect this will be a very unpopular opinion but, it's mine.

I think the implications for vegans is an interesting one though-

Bee hive colony collapse is directly effected by Monsanto's GMO's. Now if one can do with out fruit, nuts, or any other plant pollenated by bees, go for it. Personally I don't like scurvy.

[Little Fish]

Originally Posted by Corkey

Bee hive colony collapse is directly effected by Monsanto's GMO's. Now if one can do with out fruit, nuts, or any other plant pollenated by bees, go for it. Personally I don't like scurvy.

Are you talking about Colony Collapse Disorder?

If so, here's some data from the EPA website:
Why it's happening
There have been many theories about the cause of CCD, but the researchers who are leading the effort to find out why are now focused on these factors:

increased losses due to the invasive varroa mite (a pest of honeybees);
new or emerging diseases such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus and the gut parasite Nosema;
pesticide poisoning through exposure to pesticides applied to crops or for in-hive insect or mite control;
bee management stress;
foraging habitat modification
inadequate forage/poor nutrition and
potential immune-suppressing stress on bees caused by one or a combination of factors identified above.

Additional factors may include poor nutrition, drought, and migratory stress brought about by the increased need to move bee colonies long distances to provide pollination services.


I think when making broad and sweeping declarative statements, it's most helpful to offer a scientific citation. The best information being the most accurate and thus by definition, evidence based.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Little Fish

Are you talking about Colony Collapse Disorder?

If so, here's some data from the EPA website:
Why it's happening
There have been many theories about the cause of CCD, but the researchers who are leading the effort to find out why are now focused on these factors:

increased losses due to the invasive varroa mite (a pest of honeybees);
new or emerging diseases such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus and the gut parasite Nosema;
pesticide poisoning through exposure to pesticides applied to crops or for in-hive insect or mite control;
bee management stress;
foraging habitat modification
inadequate forage/poor nutrition and
potential immune-suppressing stress on bees caused by one or a combination of factors identified above.

Additional factors may include poor nutrition, drought, and migratory stress brought about by the increased need to move bee colonies long distances to provide pollination services.


I think when making broad and sweeping declarative statements, it's most helpful to offer a scientific citation. The best information being the most accurate and thus by definition, evidence based.

I have other date that says it is GMO related. So who you going to base your "truth" on depends on what studies you read and believe. Best not attack others for their understanding of data.

Eta you come in here and state you are going to get flack, well you got it.

[Little Fish]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

The gene is in a fish that, if memory serves, lives under one of the ice packs either the Arctic or the Antarctic. It literally evolved a means of keeping its blood from freezing. Like you, I think that it is so amazing and I really wish there were some way to communicate so that the general public would understand that there's no 'essence of fish' that is taken out and put it into a strawberry. Rather, a specific gene that builds a very particular protein, is inserted in another organism which then can build that protein. It's the same protein. It does the same thing. A gene that codes 'for' something codes for that thing not all of the traits of the organism the sequence came from. All living things can transcribe the same DNA because the bases ACGT are the same in fish and in plants and in mammals. It is a sign of the unity of all life on this planet that the gene that says "build eyes here" is the same in the fruit fly, mice and humans.

The fact that the gene originally came from a fish wouldn't trigger a fish allergy because the DNA in the strawberry doesn't 'know' that it came from a fish. It knows that when it gets a signal to start making some protein X, it starts making that protein until some other signal tells it to stop.

Cheers
Aj

Yes. This exactly. Thanks for the reference!--pretty amazing stuff!
(I almost went into genetics *sigh*...)

[Little Fish]

Originally Posted by Corkey

I have other date that says it is GMO related. So who you going to base your "truth" on depends on what studies you read and believe. Best not attack others for their understanding of data.

Eta you come in here and state you are going to get flack, well you got it.

Corkey,

You misunderstand me if you think I'm attacking you (or anyone else for that matter) --as I stated above, it's my opinion regarding GMO in general. I offer the comment about scientific citation because that is the academic convention when discussing data and scientific studies. Since I am a trained scientist by profession, I can assure you I do not use words like "truth" to discuss science. Data is either accurate or precise, neither or both.

If you'd like to share your sources regarding the Monsanto GMO studies and bee colonies, I'd very much like to read them. Thank you.

[Corkey]

http://www.naturalnews.com/035610_ho...orn_syrup.html

http://www.energygrid.com/ecology/20...ycollapse.html

http://solutionsforyourlife.ufl.edu/..._disorder.html

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Corkey

Bee hive colony collapse is directly effected by Monsanto's GMO's. Now if one can do with out fruit, nuts, or any other plant pollenated by bees, go for it. Personally I don't like scurvy.

Part of the problem with talking about genetic engineering is that there's the science and then there's the business. I, and I think the other few voices here who are actually in favor of genetic engineering, are talking about the *science*. If Monsanto went out of business this very afternoon, it would not change one whit the promise of genetic engineering nor would it change the science behind it. I am not going to defend Monsanto. I am going to defend genetic engineering because the science behind it is extraordinarily sound.

As I said the other day, genetic engineering is the same thing we've been doing since we got the clever idea of trying to domesticate some plants and animals. The primary differences, the only real significant differences, are that we can do very targeted manipulations instead of, quite frankly, kind of stumbling about in the dark *and* we can cross the species barrier. That's it. Other than that, genetic engineering is the same process as breeders use except the traditional way is slow and only slightly better than random natural selection. For example, a while ago a Russian scientist did a truly elegant experiment to test the hypothesis that the domestic dog was closely related to the grey wolf and that humans selected for friendliness towards humans.

To test this, he took foxes (which are still canines) and only allowed those animals that were most friendly to humans to breed. Within startlingly few generations (less than 20) the foxes had floppy ears, more puppy-like behavior, and instead of the more uniform coats of the fox you got the more color-varied coat we see with domesticated dogs. All of these follow-on effects weren't being selected for, those genes just came along for the ride. So in the ways that selection has been done for the last 15000 years or so, lots of genes have come along for the ride.

People think that because one is 'natural' and the other is 'science' that one is better or different than the other but they are really not. Yes, we're taking genes from fish and putting them in strawberries or tomatoes but we're not taking the fish genome, we're taking a specific gene and moving it across the species barrier and that's all. The reason--the ONLY reason--that nature didn't hit upon the solution of anti-freeze for either strawberries or tomatoes is that both species (the wild variant obviously) came up with a solution for dealing with cold, namely seeds. They didn't *need* anti-freeze in the wild because they did not evolve in locations that were cold long enough for resistance to cold to be selected for and seeds did the job. Again, that's the ONLY reason why those species didn't hit on the trick the fish did--they never had the correct problem for which anti-freeze is the solution. Nature is not guided and it has no foresight. It can't see down the road and it can't back up and take a better path when some species hits upon something clever. At no time did nature think "anti-freeze in strawberries would be good, wait on second thought no". There's nothing to do that thinking. Also nature is not exactly concerned with maximizing species. It is simply concerned with genes being passed down generation to generation. Nature doesn't act for the good of the species, it doesn't even act for the good of the individual, nature acts for the good of the genes.

If we want to talk about Monsanto and its business practices that's one subject and I'll likely agree with a lot that is said. But we're talking about genetic engineering specifically, not what Monsanto is doing with it and the idea that there is good, solid, scientific support for an anti-GMO stance simply isn't true.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health...people_.2.html

Cheers
Aj

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Part of the problem with talking about genetic engineering is that there's the science and then there's the business. I, and I think the other few voices here who are actually in favor of genetic engineering, are talking about the *science*. If Monsanto went out of business this very afternoon, it would not change one whit the promise of genetic engineering nor would it change the science behind it. I am not going to defend Monsanto. I am going to defend genetic engineering because the science behind it is extraordinarily sound.

As I said the other day, genetic engineering is the same thing we've been doing since we got the clever idea of trying to domesticate some plants and animals. The primary differences, the only real significant differences, are that we can do very targeted manipulations instead of, quite frankly, kind of stumbling about in the dark *and* we can cross the species barrier. That's it. Other than that, genetic engineering is the same process as breeders use except the traditional way is slow and only slightly better than random natural selection. For example, a while ago a Russian scientist did a truly elegant experiment to test the hypothesis that the domestic dog was closely related to the grey wolf and that humans selected for friendliness towards humans.

To test this, he took foxes (which are still canines) and only allowed those animals that were most friendly to humans to breed. Within startlingly few generations (less than 20) the foxes had floppy ears, more puppy-like behavior, and instead of the more uniform coats of the fox you got the more color-varied coat we see with domesticated dogs. All of these follow-on effects weren't being selected for, those genes just came along for the ride. So in the ways that selection has been done for the last 15000 years or so, lots of genes have come along for the ride.

People think that because one is 'natural' and the other is 'science' that one is better or different than the other but they are really not. Yes, we're taking genes from fish and putting them in strawberries or tomatoes but we're not taking the fish genome, we're taking a specific gene and moving it across the species barrier and that's all. The reason--the ONLY reason--that nature didn't hit upon the solution of anti-freeze for either strawberries or tomatoes is that both species (the wild variant obviously) came up with a solution for dealing with cold, namely seeds. They didn't *need* anti-freeze in the wild because they did not evolve in locations that were cold long enough for resistance to cold to be selected for and seeds did the job. Again, that's the ONLY reason why those species didn't hit on the trick the fish did--they never had the correct problem for which anti-freeze is the solution. Nature is not guided and it has no foresight. It can't see down the road and it can't back up and take a better path when some species hits upon something clever. At no time did nature think "anti-freeze in strawberries would be good, wait on second thought no". There's nothing to do that thinking. Also nature is not exactly concerned with maximizing species. It is simply concerned with genes being passed down generation to generation. Nature doesn't act for the good of the species, it doesn't even act for the good of the individual, nature acts for the good of the genes.

If we want to talk about Monsanto and its business practices that's one subject and I'll likely agree with a lot that is said. But we're talking about genetic engineering specifically, not what Monsanto is doing with it and the idea that there is good, solid, scientific support for an anti-GMO stance simply isn't true.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health...people_.2.html

Cheers
Aj

I'm not against genetic engineering at all, I am against Monsanto and their practice of using poisons to do the modifications to food and to nature. That is the problem I have with GMO's.

[Little Fish]

Thanks for those links Corkey, I look forward to reading them!

And thank you dreadgeek for your post too, it's important to always tease apart cause and effect, as well as in what context it exists too. I agree with your analogy, today's genetic engineering is merely a refinement of yesterday's advanced animal husbandry. (my apologies to you greadgeek, I'm quite oversimplifying your eloquence)

If anything, I think genetic engineering provides an avenue of precision as a technique unequaled previously in history--my hope is that it will unlock many of our most challenging problems in health / science and in the end, improve our quality of life in the most sacred and profound ways.

[Gráinne]

I was just reading a sample lesson plan in my science educator's magazine using a sandwich (or a picture of one!) to teach the principles of stratigraphy (determining the relative ages of rock layers, fossils and volcanic events using layering and superimposing). It included an opening activity, enquiry, practice, and closing. Figures, I would associate good teaching with food .

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Little Fish

Thanks for those links Corkey, I look forward to reading them!

And thank you dreadgeek for your post too, it's important to always tease apart cause and effect, as well as in what context it exists too. I agree with your analogy, today's genetic engineering is merely a refinement of yesterday's advanced animal husbandry. (my apologies to you greadgeek, I'm quite oversimplifying your eloquence)

If anything, I think genetic engineering provides an avenue of precision as a technique unequaled previously in history--my hope is that it will unlock many of our most challenging problems in health / science and in the end, improve our quality of life in the most sacred and profound ways.

This is last is why I try to explain the science. There's a lot at stake. I'm going to give just one example: Huntington's chorea. There is a gene on chromosome 4 that consists of a single 'word' CAG (you can, in some ways, think of a genome) that repeats over again. On average people have between 6 and 15 repeats. Any number of repeats up to 35 and you're fine. The trouble starts at 39 or higher. Here's Matt Ridley talking about how not only do we know what gene causes it we can predict, based upon the number of repeats at what age you can expect to start showing symptoms.

If you have thirty-nine, you have a 90 percent probability of dementia by the age of seventy-five and will on average get the first symptoms at sixty-six; if forty, on average, you will succumb at fifty-nine; if forty-one, at fifty-four; if forty-two, at 37; and so on until those who have fifty repetitions of the 'word' will lose their minds at roughly twenty-seven years of age. The scale is this: if your chromosomes were long enough to stretch around the equator; the difference between health and insanity would be less than one extra inch.

(Matt Ridley -- Genome: Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters)

Now, we don't know what the gene is actually there for but one day we will and when we do we will be able to manipulate the genome so that we can simply edit out all repeats above 35. We could test for it pretty much as soon as the woman realizes she is pregnant. When we can, we should.

That's the promise. It would be beyond sin if we turned our back on this technology.

Cheers
Aj

[Toughy]

Literal Genesis Trial: Creationist Gimmicks Versus the Optimism of Education

The Guardian, for reasons I cannot begin to imagine, published an article summarizing the so-called Literal Genesis Trial being promoted by Joseph Mastropaolo. As reported, "A California creationist is offering a $10,000 challenge to anyone who can prove in front of a judge that science contradicts the literal interpretation of the book of Genesis."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michae...BNotifications

(this is just for Aj.....cuz it makes her as nuts as it makes me. My dad had a master's in natural sciences....he is probably rolling in his casket)

[Hollylane]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Thanks for the response. Can I ask you a couple of follow-up questions?

1) Since you agree that a protein is just a protein, why does it matter where it came from? I mean I could understand if the protein were, say, one that causes persons with an allergy to peanuts to have a reaction but provided its *not* one that causes an allergic reaction why does it matter?

2) What do you mean by maybe the pathways don't exist in nature for a multitude of reasons?

This is the deeper question, to me, and the reason I'm a little confused about it is this; it seems to me that the explanation I gave, just to take one for instance, why strawberries never developed anti-freeze on their own is sufficient to explain why that genetic pathway had to wait until we came along to show up in that species. For example, it would be extremely useful if humans could see down into the infrared and up into the ultraviolet. We *know* it's possible because there are other animals that can see into either one but our genome was simply never faced with the correct set of problems that would push us toward being able to do so. It's not that there's some grand design nor is it that there's something *wrong* with being able to see a little farther along the EMF spectrum than we already do, rather it's that not only Homo sapiens but primates as a whole were never in any environment where the selection pressure pushed *any* of us toward being able to see into the IR or the UV parts.

That explanation is sufficient to explain why we can't see UV or IR and there doesn't need to be any other reason. Likewise, the fact that strawberries--because they are flowering plants--never had the problem of "what do you do when your entire life-cycle is spent underneath an ice pack" is sufficient to explain why they never developed anti-freeze. Since strawberries are native to latitudes where winter is, more or less, what those of us living in the temperate zones are used to the long-standing plant solution toward the cold (e.g. produce seeds which can spend the winter underground) and that has been sufficient to preserve strawberry genes down the ages. No other explanation is really required. Why go to the trouble of evolving anti-freeze when the cold that could kill you is only 90 days long and you can just keep your genes in a seed for that period of time? No reason. Just like primates came up with a pretty decent solution for not being able to see well in the darkness--don't be active at night. Hominids came up with an even more elegant solution--fire.

I'm asking these questions of you not because I'm trying to prove some point but because most of the time when I've engaged others in this topic they haven't understood the science and so they've had some rather profound misconceptions about the nature of genes, the nature of proteins, the nature of DNA or they haven't really grasped that, for instance, while fruits *want* to be eaten vegetables, on the whole, *don't*. (I'm speaking metaphorically, of course, neither fruits nor vegetables 'want' anything.) So what is the problem with genetic engineering, in general? Not Monsanto's business practices (that's a separate issue) but with genetic engineering specifically?

Why is it unnatural to take a gene that does precisely what we want done and *only* that thing and implant it in a species unnatural when if we simply selectively bred for resistance to cold and got to, more or less, the same protein but it took us a thousand generations (plant not human) to get there it would be natural? It's the same protein, it does the same thing, the only difference is one is a one-step process and the other is a blind, multi-step process with each step along the way having a risk of picking up genes we don't want and which might have deleterious effects.

Thanks for answering. It's a rare treat to be able to ask someone who understands the biology, can do "gene's eye view" thinking, grasps the 'central dogma' of modern molecular biology (that genes code for proteins) and still is opposed to genetic engineering in the terms you've expressed above.

Cheers
Aj

I haven't been on much lately, and I just saw this. I'm prone to being succinct in my answers Aj, even more so when I've just arrived home from work. So, I hope that my short answer helps.

Basically, I think that necessary evolution of plants and animals happens in its own time. It is probably my Native American side that recoils from tampering with plants and animals, and changing them by inserting proteins or anything else into them, that would not be possible through a natural evolutionary process or through selective processes.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Hollylane

I haven't been on much lately, and I just saw this. I'm prone to being succinct in my answers Aj, even more so when I've just arrived home from work. So, I hope that my short answer helps.

Basically, I think that necessary evolution of plants and animals happens in its own time. It is probably my Native American side that recoils from tampering with plants and animals, and changing them by inserting proteins or anything else into them, that would not be possible through a natural evolutionary process or through selective processes.

If I can ask you one other follow-up, does that same feeling (I don't know what to call it when you say your Native American side) apply to editing *out* genes? I ask that in the context of the Huntington's chorea example I gave a few days ago. Since we know that any number of repeats above 35 is where things start to go badly and there is *no* benefit to having 39+ repeats of the CAG motif on chromosome 4, editing out all repeats above 35 would prevent people from a rather horrible disease. Are you saying that just as you don't think we should be changing genes except in the long, blind process (which, in my mind, is pretty wasteful) of selection that we shouldn't edit out genes even if doing so would save lives? I'm trying to understand where the line would get drawn.

If inserting genes in is, for lack of any better term, against nature isn't editing genes out also against nature? If we apply the standard consistently (i.e. don't insert anything and don't remove anything) then aren't we condemning people who could otherwise be saved? Admittedly, it is perfectly natural to die of Huntington's. I will not argue that somehow it is unnatural. There are lots of fates that are perfectly natural but that I am glad we can overrule. I'm not ready to condemn people to a horrible disease starting at 27 just because they have 50 repeats of a gene on chromosome 4. There's no evolutionary benefit to Huntington's disease. It is simply one of those things where nothing nature says it *can't* happen so it *does* happen.

So why on Earth does the motif continue to show up in a small portion of the population? Why hasn't it been selected out? Because by the time you reach your late 20s, in the environments in which we evolved, you've already likely had children. Any gene for a disease that can, if you'll excuse the term, hold its horses until *after* you've had at least one child will tend to be able to ride along with the rest of your genome. After you've passed your genes on at least once, nature really doesn't have much use for you. Another way of putting it is that genes that cause diseases that kill you before you have a chance to reproduce are selected out. So all of the low-hanging fruit, from the gene's point of view, was selected out hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago. The genes for diseases that we see tend to strike after your early twenties which, in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation) was well into the average person's reproductive career. So diseases like Alzheimer's and Huntington's and heart disease and high blood pressure are all back-loaded toward the end of one's reproductive career. A bunch of fifteen year old people dying is a net-loss from the gene's point of view, particularly in the EEA. A bunch of 45 year old people dying is zero-sum from the gene's point of view. By 45 you've already reproduced a few times, your oldest surviving children are, at that point, adults. From the point of view of nature, you're now superfluous. Thanks for playing. Nice of you to leave some genes around. You're expendable, your genes are not. That's nature for you.

So unless we intervene using technology (selective breeding in humans, needless to say, is a road we should not even contemplate going down) then we're pretty much signing the death warrants of any person unlucky enough to have 39+ repeats of the CAG motif on C-4. That's the natural way. I think we should veto nature because I think it is wrong vis a vis Huntington's.

Cheers
Aj

[Hollylane]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

If I can ask you one other follow-up, does that same feeling (I don't know what to call it when you say your Native American side) apply to editing *out* genes? I ask that in the context of the Huntington's chorea example I gave a few days ago. Since we know that any number of repeats above 35 is where things start to go badly and there is *no* benefit to having 39+ repeats of the CAG motif on chromosome 4, editing out all repeats above 35 would prevent people from a rather horrible disease. Are you saying that just as you don't think we should be changing genes except in the long, blind process (which, in my mind, is pretty wasteful) of selection that we shouldn't edit out genes even if doing so would save lives? I'm trying to understand where the line would get drawn.

If inserting genes in is, for lack of any better term, against nature isn't editing genes out also against nature? If we apply the standard consistently (i.e. don't insert anything and don't remove anything) then aren't we condemning people who could otherwise be saved? Admittedly, it is perfectly natural to die of Huntington's. I will not argue that somehow it is unnatural. There are lots of fates that are perfectly natural but that I am glad we can overrule. I'm not ready to condemn people to a horrible disease starting at 27 just because they have 50 repeats of a gene on chromosome 4. There's no evolutionary benefit to Huntington's disease. It is simply one of those things where nothing nature says it *can't* happen so it *does* happen.

So why on Earth does the motif continue to show up in a small portion of the population? Why hasn't it been selected out? Because by the time you reach your late 20s, in the environments in which we evolved, you've already likely had children. Any gene for a disease that can, if you'll excuse the term, hold its horses until *after* you've had at least one child will tend to be able to ride along with the rest of your genome. After you've passed your genes on at least once, nature really doesn't have much use for you. Another way of putting it is that genes that cause diseases that kill you before you have a chance to reproduce are selected out. So all of the low-hanging fruit, from the gene's point of view, was selected out hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago. The genes for diseases that we see tend to strike after your early twenties which, in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation) was well into the average person's reproductive career. So diseases like Alzheimer's and Huntington's and heart disease and high blood pressure are all back-loaded toward the end of one's reproductive career. A bunch of fifteen year old people dying is a net-loss from the gene's point of view, particularly in the EEA. A bunch of 45 year old people dying is zero-sum from the gene's point of view. By 45 you've already reproduced a few times, your oldest surviving children are, at that point, adults. From the point of view of nature, you're now superfluous. Thanks for playing. Nice of you to leave some genes around. You're expendable, your genes are not. That's nature for you.

So unless we intervene using technology (selective breeding in humans, needless to say, is a road we should not even contemplate going down) then we're pretty much signing the death warrants of any person unlucky enough to have 39+ repeats of the CAG motif on C-4. That's the natural way. I think we should veto nature because I think it is wrong vis a vis Huntington's.

Cheers
Aj

No, I am not applying that to intervening with technology where humans are concerned. Humans can make choices about their bodies, and about the health and well-being of their children, animals and plants cannot.

Additionally, there is a lot of information available that suggests, that many problems in humans(and in animals and plants) exist, because of the things that humans do to this planet (with science & technology), and what they choose to put into their bodies (food, medication, chemicals..etc).

When I refer to my Native American side, I am referring to how I feel about taking care of this planet, with the belief that everything is connected, and that every thing that we do has an effect on something else. Despite all of the information available, despite the existence of amazing science and technology, I cannot agree with changing plants or animals by inserting anything, or removing anything, in a manner that would not occur naturally. I also adamantly refuse to accept that torturing animals in the name of science, is our right as coinhabitants of this planet.

A simple example of where this has gone wrong, is corn production. The majority of corn produced in the US at this time has very little nutritional value in comparison to the original crop native to this continent, maize. Corn grown today, could not have existed as a wild plant, in its present form. A great film that illustrates perfectly the reasons why I used corn as an example, is the documentary, King Corn.

[Toughy]

I posted this in the Zombie thread....however it does belong here:

from HuffPo

Bats' Oral Sex Helps Prolong Copulation, Scientists Say (VIDEO)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...een&ref=topbar

[Corkey]

http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-pos...205206362.html


Looking for dark matter.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Corkey

http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-pos...205206362.html


Looking for dark matter.

You beat me to the punch on this the other day, Corkey. I started working on an explanation and it became a bit more complex. So, I wanted to ask would people find it helpful if I put together a short primer on dark matter, what it is and why it matters?

Cheers
Aj

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

You beat me to the punch on this the other day, Corkey. I started working on an explanation and it became a bit more complex. So, I wanted to ask would people find it helpful if I put together a short primer on dark matter, what it is and why it matters?

Cheers
Aj

Great idea Aj, go for it!