Topics and discussions relevant to Natural Sciences

[DrJohnZoidberg]

What about astronomy? Astrophysics? (OK that one could be covered under physics I suppose)

But still, Astronomy doesn't really fit in with any of the ones mentioned.

Is there really a significant difference between astronomy and astrophysics? After some reading it seems modern astrophysics covers these bases.

[Techne]

I agree to the above inclusions, which I believe would fall under the biology category, except for ontology. This in the end entices philosophical debates which is what we are trying to avoid here. I think these topics would be better suited to the PD section.

Think this a fair assessment?

It's pretty relevant and important to science and several good peer-reviewed science journals are dedicated to this particular area. I see no reason to exclude it from natural sciences.

But if people really feel strongly about it, so be it, would be a shame though.

[DrJohnZoidberg]

It's pretty relevant and important to science and several good peer-reviewed science journals are dedicated to this particular area. I see no reason to exclude it from natural sciences.

But if people really feel strongly about it, so be it, would be a shame though.

Ontology is intrinsically philosophical, which does not fall under the natural sciences umbrella I proposed.

[Techne]

Ontology is intrinsically philosophical, which does not fall under the natural sciences umbrella I proposed.

While I agree that some aspects of ontology are intrinsically philosophical, I disagree that it is necessarily so.

Biologically ontologies (e.g. Gene Ontology - GO) are practically very much relevant. I make use of it almost on a weekly basis. We work with large information sets of gene and protein expression and without GO and the GO-related software it would virtually be impossible to analyse the data. GO is of course not perfect and it is constantly being improved and is intrinsically relevant to many areas of the biological sciences.

[TJ99]

Is there really a significant difference between astronomy and astrophysics? After some reading it seems modern astrophysics covers these bases.

Well, the way I see it, astrophysics is a sub-field or branch of astronomy but I just don't see astronomy itself as being covered by Physics, Chemistry or Earth Sciences, and definitely not one of the Life Sciences as listed in the OP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophysics also mentions it as a branch of astronomy. (Again with the caveat that Wikipedia is not the source of absolute facts or definitions)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_sciences Also lists astronomy under natural sciences. First, in fact.

[DrJohnZoidberg]

Well, the way I see it, astrophysics is a sub-field or branch of astronomy but I just don't see astronomy itself as being covered by Physics, Chemistry or Earth Sciences, and definitely not one of the Life Sciences as listed in the OP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophysics also mentions it as a branch of astronomy. (Again with the caveat that Wikipedia is not the source of absolute facts or definitions)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_sciences Also lists astronomy under natural sciences. First, in fact.

Cool, let's add an astronomy to the list, its pretty obvious for that to be included.

[DrJohnZoidberg]

While I agree that some aspects of ontology are intrinsically philosophical, I disagree that it is necessarily so.

Biologically ontologies (e.g. Gene Ontology - GO) are practically very much relevant. I make use of it almost on a weekly basis. We work with large information sets of gene and protein expression and without GO and the GO-related software it would virtually be impossible to analyse the data. GO is of course not perfect and it is constantly being improved and is intrinsically relevant to many areas of the biological sciences.

I don't know enough on the subject to understand all the complexities but I think for a field like this which is being physically applied it makes sense to include it.

I just want to avoid arguments that stem from "why's" which don't have answers that can be scientifically reasoned.

[RiaX]

http://www.newtbdrugs.org/blog/tb-rd...ial-published/

its might make its debut here in SA

[Techne]

http://www.newtbdrugs.org/blog/tb-rd...ial-published/

its might make its debut here in SA

Pretty cool drug that PA-824.
PA-824 Kills Nonreplicating Mycobacterium tuberculosis by Intracellular NO Release
The mechanism of action of PA-824

Have they discovered the specific protein[s] it binds to that are relevant to its activity? Any resolved crystal structures so far?

EDIT: Ooh, found it 3R5R

I am sure we can get people here involved to find a more potent South African analogs...using freely available computational chemistry software ...

[RiaX]

I doubt that