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[Levi]

Pretty fascinating, though it makes a lot of sense. As for sample size, there's the cited study of gut flora transplahts having the same effect on mice. That said, I don't think it explains all obesity; diet, exercise, climate, metabolic rate, and digestive efficiency (microbiome included?) all work together to determine whether or not you end each day with excess unspent food calories for your body to store as fat.

Oh yeah, for sure.  Depending on how big of a role the gut bacteria play, I wonder if its possible to populate your colony with bacteria that would actively prevent obesity even if you have a terrible lifestyle?  Could you tailor your bacterial colony to your lifestyle?

I've always thought it wasn't fair that I eat like a pig and stay a reasonable weight, and I see other people who eat a lot less and are more active can be very overweight.  It would be neat if this led to solutions for that.

[Solifuge]

I agree! I'm excited by new discoveries and applications in biotech, and I bet research into gut flora symbiosis will have health applications like that... maybe even tailored microbes could treat other digestive issues too.

[scrdest]

The Chinese actually find eye contact to be rude, so a traditional chinese person talking to a westerner would theoretically be a liiiiittle awkward.

I dunno, maybe its a regional thing.  Most of the chinese people I know make eye-contact just fine.  Or maybe they just adapt fast when they come over here?



Poop Transplant causes woman to become obese? 

Its only a single example so take with a massive tablespoon of scepticism, but I think it would be funny if it turned out most obesity wasn't genetic but just a result of gut-bacteria. 

I believe that a link between gut flora and obesity has been proposed in the past..

It was - several papers, too, I've written a short presentation on that and a possible autism link. The problem is, various researchers report sometimes directly contradictory results (such as one study reporting they found an increase in A:B in obese people, another claims it's B:A, and yet another it's (A+B):C where letters are various bacterial phyla).

[Dutchling]

Are you... that guy mom!?

[Descan]

Aren't... Aren't they already doing this, though? Like, in hospitals and all that? Transplant from healthy person to overweight?

Like, you're all talking about this like it was some new discovery last week, but... I could have sworn it's a medical practice at this point. o_o

[Levi]

Aren't... Aren't they already doing this, though? Like, in hospitals and all that? Transplant from healthy person to overweight?

Like, you're all talking about this like it was some new discovery last week, but... I could have sworn it's a medical practice at this point. o_o

Its done, but I don't think it was intended for weight loss or gain. 

[Dutchling]

I wonder how many people's fetish this is.

[scrdest]

*gasps*

Scrdest, did you do any autism links and vaccines? Are you... that guy!?

The smiley leaves me thoroughly unable to even whether or not you seriously considered me being an anti-vaxer.

's not related to vaccines at all; there's some vague links and plausible pathways between gut microflora and brain, but even still it's more a risk factor than a direct cause.

[scrdest]

I was joking about the whole thing. Just 'autism is related to something medical' and I decided to make a joke baout you being the guy that 'found' the 'link' between vaccines and autism.

I realized now you were talking about a specific 'that guy' instead the far more ambiguous option of 'that guy' as in 'don't be that guy'.

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Sorry if I'm butting in on any current conversation but I had a question
With the famous E=mc2 
(Energy = mass times the speed of light squared) shows that mass can be converted into energy, but I was wondering if it is at all possible to make mass from energy? Has anyone ever attempted this? If so what happened? Is this just a dumb question?

[MonkeyHead]

Sorry if I'm butting in on any current conversation but I had a question
With the famous E=mc2 
(Energy = mass times the speed of light squared) shows that mass can be converted into energy, but I was wondering if it is at all possible to make mass from energy? Has anyone ever attempted this? If so what happened? Is this just a dumb question?

In order...

Yes.

Yes.

Particle accelerators/Nuclear processes - formation of new and interesting matter.

No.

[sjm9876]

It's not actually that rare tbh. It's most evident in something like a particle accelerator, where the energy of the particles beforehand becomes many many more smaller particles. Less obviously, it occurs in chemical reactions, such as photosynthesis - the mass of the products is very very slightly greater than the reactants ( due to binding energies IIRC) and the energy from sunlight makes up the difference.

The main reason this isn't obvious is because of the conversion factor of c^2 - it takes a vast amount of energy to create even a small mass - thus it isn't witnessed outside of miniscule mass increases and incredibly high energy environs.

Ninja'd by MonkeyHead, who sums it up far more nicely

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

Has anyone ever specifically tried to make mass on purpose though?
The exaples you guys used were having the extra mass just be by product of doing something else.

[Bauglir]

What do you mean by "as the product of doing something else"? For instance, in photosynthesis, the storage of energy is exactly the point, to whatever extent things that come about by natural selection can even be said to have a point.

[sjm9876]

Particle accelerators are very much on purpose - discovering new subatomic particles first requires creating them, after all.