MediumTex wrote:
I heard it was fish lips compressed into the form of a filet.

Sounds like the fish equivalent of a hot dog.  Yummy.

Lots of good advice here.   Once you get some experience buying coins and feel more comfortable with the process, be sure to check out local coin shows for some of the best deals on small quantities.  They can be hit or miss, but I recently picked up a 1/4 Krugerrand for $10 under spot during the la...

Although others comment that you should not look at the PP results every day, I have been.  As is my luck, the PP declined in early September.  Gold took a dive, although that was somewhat offset by bonds and equities.  So I went through all of September and the better part of October before my PP ...

moda0306 wrote: I can tell you that the lack of something like this is what has kept me from doing direct bond ownership.

Same with me.  I will now be owning them with my next rebalance.

This. Is. Awesome.

Within higher ed, I am constantly being asked by upper administrators to explore achieving greater "educational efficiency" from my science faculty.  This is a less than subtle nudge to offer more online courses.

Gumby,

Thanks for this!  I really miss the Google version of the chart you brought to our attention.  That was pure gold!

The yahoo version, although not as "clean", will have to do.

Bigamish, You seem like someone who might have thought about this a lot, so how do you think that first cluster of proteins (and whatever else cells are made of) got together to create a self-replicating organism? Going from nothing to something spontaneously is a pretty amazing step. Now that my m...

Medium Tex, they think it was first an RNA world. RNA can be both a genetic coding material and also fold up to form enzymes. We share relics of that RNA world in our ribosomes (the things that translate the genetic code into proteins). Ribosomal RNA shows amazing sequence conservation across all l...

The eye is another one... mind-boggling. What is even more mind boggling is how cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish, octopuses, etc.) evolved an eye functionally identical to that of that of mammals, through a completely different evolutionary and embryological path.  The anatomy is disturbingly similar...

moda sex is very ancient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_conjugation. It is a key way to ensure survival because it is much easier to tinker with the existing tool kit by recombining than it is to start afresh. Definitely.  Sex encourages tremendous genetic variability in offspring due to th...

From an evolutionary perspective, how did we come to have hair on 90% of our bodies that is basically programmed to grow to a certain length and then stop, but we have hair on our heads that appears to never stop growing no matter how long it gets? What possible survival advantage could there be in...

I'm confused on a few points: The saliva of carnivorous animals does not contain digestive enzymes. Human saliva contains the carbohy- drate–digesting enzyme, salivary amylase. This enzyme is responsible for the majority of starch digestion. Is Mills' implication that salivary amylase (carbohydrate ...

"Healthy whole grains" is pure marketing fiction, I now believe. As it is depicted on the front of cereal boxes and bags of chips, absolutely.  However the form of the grain makes all the difference.  A beneficial whole grain should be as close to it's non-pulverized form as possible.  As...

stone wrote: Is the PP an investment strategy that appeals on the whole to the freakishly ripped?

Sadly, I am living evidence to the contrary...but at least I still have my chaps!

Bigamish, I think the article that I came across was: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/35846 I work alongside people who work on hypoxia and that's how I came across it. Very cool.   I wrongly assumed from your post that you were describing the role of O2 consumption/lactate influences on skeletal ...

Stone, you are absolutely correct regarding exercise & western diet.   Exercise is part of the whole picture, and regularly and intelligently applied, can stave off all sorts of lifestyle diseases, much like proper diet can.  However from a pure calorie in/out perspective, diet trumps exercise b...

I've also seen plenty of people who have followed a Vegan diet and have lost weight, lowered their cholesterol, avoided diabetes and have regained their health.   [snip] Yes-- low carb works.  On everyone? No it does not. Agreed on both counts.   Caveman low-carb (i.e., early phase Atkins-style), a...

Speaking as an academically-oriented animal physiologist, I am not sure that current dietary dogma is all big Pharmas fault.  Just as much blame should be placed on academic inertia.  Decades of repeating the same dietary advice has created an environment where suggesting alternatives to the norm, i...

jmourik wrote: BigAmish... Teaching evolution... Now that makes one curious about the person behind the handle and avatar...

Like an onion...I have layers. 

It's a funny thing, but sometimes people can come to a more rational understanding of things on their own through the careful placement of rational clues than if they are put through a formal re-education program to make their thinking match the one who has taken responsibility for re-educating the...

Where is that stat from?  Did you know that 50.000001% of private school teachers quit within the first 4.39 years.   :) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/08/AR2006050801344.html Also be aware that the $100K/year gym teacher, assuming the stat is real, is not the rule.  L...

I have several options in the Atlanta-metro area, ranging from outrageously marked up to fairly reasonable (~5-6% above spot).  However, the local monthly coin show is where I get the absolute best deals.  The local dealers that come to those shows lower their mark-up by 1-2% due to all of the conce...

Melveyer's website can be accessed by clicking the "Earth" icon on the left side of his posts.

I checked it out & was very impressed.  Stunned really, as it is written by a 20 year old. 

Well done Melveyer!

I'm in the exact same boat as you Murphy.  In my case, I am a first time "active" investor whose previous investing experience was simply throwing money into a set 403b TIAA-CREF retirement plan.  Having recently set early semi-retirement in 10 years as a personal goal, I started reading u...