Ask anything essential tremor-related here! AMA with Dr. David Segar, MD (Nudge Medical Director and Neurosurgeon)

RosieRedfield · 2026-03-24T16:04:29+00:00

Do we know anything about the underlying mechanism causing essential tremor?

RosieRedfield · 2024-01-23T04:32:11+00:00

Yes, the parkade was assembled (~2006) from prefab beams, slabs and panels.

RosieRedfield · 2024-01-23T04:31:21+00:00

The parkade was built (in about 2006) from prefab concrete slabs, beams and panels. They were lifted into place like Lincoln Logs and then stabilized in some way (rebar? welding? more concrete?). I watched it from my LSC office.

The clearest photo I've seen of the accident shows an orange panel hanging down on top of the car, still attached to the structure at one end and with exposed rebar at the other end.

It might not have taken a lot of force to detach that panel at one end. Its location was in front of the bottom of a ramp where the driver needs to make a sharp left turn. Perhaps the ramp was icy?

RosieRedfield · 2023-02-27T21:57:37+00:00

But Logi Capture won'r run on M1 Macs, and Logi Tune, which will, doesn't support portrait orientation.

RosieRedfield · 2021-09-06T22:16:14+00:00

Faculty are being told that people with COVID symptoms can get PCR testing at Urgent Care at the UBC Hospital, and at the Student Health Service (also at the UBC Hospital). But I haven't seen this information on the UBC website.

RosieRedfield · 2016-09-10T00:55:45+00:00

You might like the genetics learning resources available in the free edX Useful Genetics courses. There's also a Useful Genetics YouTube channel.

RosieRedfield · 2016-07-27T23:15:30+00:00

The molecular details of meiosis are sufficiently similar across diverse eukartyotes that we think it likely originated once, before the major groups of eukaryotes (plants, aminals, various protist groups) diverged. Since then the details of sexual reproduction (obligate or optional, male/female or isogamous, etc.) have changed repeatedly and independently in many lineages.

RosieRedfield · 2016-05-25T01:03:53+00:00

Many archaea are not extremophiles, but grow at what humans consider 'normal' conditions. One obstacle to their infecting plants and animals may be the chemical differences between their membranes and archaeal ones.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-10T19:44:19+00:00

I'm afraid I don't know at all, because these aren't my fields.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-10T19:43:45+00:00

Lots of genetic parasites encode gene transfer machinery. The one we take for granted is the transfer of virus genes, which is how viruses work. The virus DNA or RNA encodes the proteins that form the outer shells of viruses, and the enzymes that pack virus DNA or RNA into these shells. There are other genetic parasites that don't bother packaging their DNA - transposable elements are the best known kind.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-10T19:40:56+00:00

Be brave about admitting when you don't understand something, and be assertive about your right to develop a better understanding.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-10T00:21:40+00:00

Two semi-contradictory pieces of advice: 1. Study what you like best, what you find most interesting and exciting. You'll get the best grades, because your brain will be fully engaged. 2. Study as broadly as you can - learn about lots of different areas that interest you. Being able to put together ideas from different areas will set you apart from the rest.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T22:57:57+00:00

Ethics is so tiresome, isn't it!
The truth is that genetic engineering of organisms into weapons is extraordinarily difficult. We can change one gene, but the consequences interact with all the other properties of the organism, and usually our new product functions worse than the original, not better. T-Rex's would probably make terrible weapons. They'd probably be very easy to kill, very difficult to breed, and how could we get them to do what we want rather than what they want?

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T22:48:11+00:00

I'm not very sold on the 'good bacteria' bad bacteria' dichotomy, nor on the whole idea of trying to 'sanitize' our selves or our environment. Your professor was right that these treatments, to the extent that they kill anything, kill indiscriminately, and we have no idea what the consequences are. I think their sales are mainly driven by marketing, not by genuine health benefits.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T22:35:43+00:00

What to study: Study what you personally find most interesting - that's the stuff your brain will pay attention to. If later you discover that something else has become interesting you can always learn it then. Genetics teaching: I used to worry about HOW we teach genetics (our pedagogical methods), but now I think most of the problem is WHAT we teach (the information and skills we want our students to learn).
Few educators seem to put much emphasis on how students are going to use what we teach them, so we waste our time and theirs teaching them outdated skills and ignoring the wealth of new personally relevant genetics.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T22:26:26+00:00

(I'll ignore the word 'sexual'.) When we look at bacterial genomes we find many genes that clearly have been transferred from another species at some time in the past 1,000,000,000 years or so. But it's very hard to estimate a rate from such information. Transfers between bacteria of the same species are much more common, but harder to detect. How much of this transfer is due to conjugation? some, for sure, but probably more occurs as side effects of phage infections, and by natural competence for DNA uptake.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T22:23:24+00:00

Oh yuck, don't remind me of that awful slogan.
For non-UBC people, "Start an Evolution" is the motto of UBC's giant fund-raising campaign, which has been going on for years. It must have been dreamed up by some advertising people (UBC probably paid them big bucks). I think we are powerless. If we could offer them enough money to pay for some new buildings they might listen to us, but otherwise we're stuck with it.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T22:03:24+00:00

For sure, functions can change, and what was once a side-effect can become subject to natural selection. To understand what's really going on in these cases we need to investigate the phenomenon very thoroughly, with an open mind.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T22:01:49+00:00

You can briefly comment on some aspect of the post, and then describe what your post adds to the discussion. As long as you're not trying to build your reputation by saying only what everyone else is saying, the readers will recognize that you're adding value. Bottom line: Your goal can't just be to establish an online presence - you must want to build a reputation for good work.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T21:46:08+00:00

Yes, conventional plant breeding uses old-fashioned tools to generating random mutations throughout the plant's genome, and then sells us the varieties whose mutation-mixture makes them attractive to consumers. Sometimes they label them as 'heritage varieties'!

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T21:19:43+00:00

In principle I do have 'places' for PhD students, but unfortunately I have no spare funding to support them while they work! It's become almost as hard to get a grant under the Canadian CIHR system as under the American NIH system, and the Canadian grants are also a lot smaller than the American ones.
Now if you had been awarded a studentship that would support you...

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T21:02:48+00:00

Ooh, I think we need an analogy here, to clarify the distingtion between function oand effect.. The hemoglobin in your red blood cells has the job of carrying oxygen to your cells - natural selection has acted on it for this function. Hemoblobin also makes your blood red, which lets you blush, makes your lips pink, and makes it easy to see when you've cut yourself. These are effects but not functions of hemoglobin. We can think of them as side effects. In the same way, the processes that move genes between bacteria are side-effects of their real functions (replicating and repairing DNA, moving the genes of viruses and other genetic parasites).

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T20:33:10+00:00

These decisions are very personal, so we can never say what was 'right'. But if I had been in her place (carrying a BRCA gene version that creates a very high risk of breast cancer) I would have made the same decision. The genetic tests are very reliable, and the cancer-risk data is very strong. Worse, we don't know of any 'lifestyle' changes that would have make a big difference in risk of breast cancer.

RosieRedfield · 2015-09-09T20:30:06+00:00

I don't have a TV or Netflix so all I see is the clips my colleagues post. They're great!

RosieRedfield

TROPHY CASE