Feeling really low after being honest

😂

Oh I like that, not come across that before.

I ate them all!

When DNA is copied to be made into a protein, only one strand is copied.

The operon is the bit of code that tells the copying 'machine' where to start.

The operon 'start here' code can be on the same strand that is being copied, or the opposite side.

Prokaryotic = mostly bacteria.

Like roadsigns, the sign for your junction could be on your side of the road, or on the opposite side of the road.

Which side of the Atlantic is "cis-Atlantic" or does it depend on whether you're standing in New York or Manchester?

I can only think of Cisalpine Gaul. The part of Gaul on this ie the Italian side of the Alps. The rest of Gaul being Transalpine.

This

Absolutely.

It pisses me off no end, that we have used 'trans' to mean 'across' since Latin times (trans-Siberian railway, across Siberia, transcript, someone across from you is writing, transparent, you can see across it)

Cis has only ever been used as a chemical locator term (isomers, genes).

Where’d all the friendly marshmallows go? 😩

The first ever described operon was that for lactose metabolism in E. coli. Jacob&Monod got a Nobel prize for it. At least it involves some sugar.

Absolutely @EasternStandard

🤯

Where’d all the friendly marshmallows go? 😩

And that’s where the ‘cis’ part should stay

cis and trans is also used in genetics to describe if the regulatory elements of transcription control of an operon (mostly in Prokaryotes but not exclusively so) or genes are sitting on the same or the opposite strand of DNA that is being transcribed.

That’s such a good explanation! I genuinely wish you’d been my chem teacher. One of the reasons this board is so great. Years of being terrified by moles (usually have to qualify that comment to avoid rodenty misinterpretation) - & now a vague sense emerging that they’re not actually that scary… Thank you.

Did someone mention gummy bears?

😘@Boiledbeetle

@Catiette

A mole is just a set number.

6.02 x 10^23

A very, very big number!

We use it, in much the same way we use a 'dozen', or a 'pair' to mean numbers.

However, atoms and molecules are very small, but, they all have their own masses.

For example, 1 mole of pure charcoal is the size of a £1 coin.

1 mole of copper is about the size of a digestive biscuit.

Another way of thinking about it is with sweets.

If you have been good in class, I could gave you 10g of marshmallows, there might be 10 marshmallows.

If I gave Bob 10g of gummy bears, there might only be 5 sweets.

It would be fairer to give you each 10 sweets.

So, to work out how reactions work properly, we need to know the number of atoms or molecules reacting.

The number of moles is the mass of the chemical (in grams) divided into the atomic (or formula) mass.

Its a bit like saying "how many dozen eggs do I need to make a cake with 2000g of flour?"

An example.

How many moles of magnesium are there in 48g of magnesium?

Well, if we GUESS

Given

Mass = 48g
Atomic mass of Magnesium = 24 (from the periodic table)

Unknown
Moles = ?

Equation
Moles = Mass ÷ Atomic mass

Substitute
Moles = 48 ÷ 24

Solve
Moles = 2

There are 2 moles of Magnesium in 48g

This allows us to use the correct ratios for reactions, and can be used to predict how much product we might make.

Lesson over I think

sorry for the derail

@Vebrithien .

I needed that lesson - though it brought back some bad memories of exams & weird things called moles that I never got to grips with.

So, in chemistry, “cis” clarifies, refines, offers precision & certainty.

Whereas currently, in this debate, it does the opposite.

It genuinely distresses me that I used to be able to refer, for example, to “the oppression of the women of Afghanistan” safe in the knowledge that everyone knew the demographic was female, & the reason for their oppression, their sex. Now, children are systematically being taught to interpret women as “identifies as” or “presents as”, including “trans” & “cis”. The meaning & root of the oppression has been, terrifyingly, obscured. I used to be able to read a reference to a “woman” committing a crime / winning an award / setting a record etc. etc. etc. & feel the correspondent surprise at something so unusual (eg. sex crimes), or pride at “our” achievement after millennia of oppression on the basis of our sex. From being a teen, I’ve reacted like this, quite consciously.

And now it’s been taken away, & replaced with a loss of clarity - & in the demand that I understand woman differently is an implicit demand that I understand myself differently; that I align with a different demographic, define myself according to their values, celebrate their achievements as in some way representative of who I am. But it’s not who I am. I want to celebrate trans women’s progress as a different demographic, & retain my precious sense of my own.

It’s actually quite demeaning as well as distressing. And a huge loss.

Just to add to the sentiments that you were very brave and there would 100% be others in the room who agreed with you, and there would also be people who are on the fence who would have listened to you and maybe gone to do some reading of their own. Well done.

Visual example

As I'm not in school today, I feel like giving a little chemistry lesson 😆

Cis and trans are terms used in organic chemistry, to differentiate between two different forms of the same chemical.

These chemicals are called isomers, and they have the same chemical formula (the same number and type of each atom). If you just looked at their chemical formula, you might think that they are exactly the same.
For example, CHF=CHF.

However, carbon requires 4 bonds to be chemically stable, and in this example, each carbon only has access to a H, a F and another C.

So, each carbon here makes a double bond to the other carbon. It looks like an equal sign.

This is significant, because a double bond does not allow for rotation around itself.

If there was only single bond, the groups on the end could rotate, and you could change from having F and H on the top of the molecule, to having H and H, or F and F on the top.

If there is a double bond, the groups are locked in that orientation.

Simply, if two of the same groups are locked on the same side of the double bond, that isomer is "cis"

If the same groups are locked on opposite sides of the double bond, the isomer is "trans".

This can have a massive effect, for example one isomer of paracetamol is inactive in the body (but harmless), whilst the other version has it's analgesic properties.

Now, students are also taught to use the E/Z classification for isomers, as well as cis/trans (same/across)

E stands for Entgegen (German = opposite)

Z stands for Zusammen (German = together)

I'd be quite up for calling us zusammen women!

Can't think why entgegen women isn't used!?

But ultimately, cis is a chemical term. A geometric double bond is either cis or trans.

Given that there are meant to be over 100 different genders, transgender REALLY doesn't make sense.

Perhaps we should go back to using transsexual?

Although, that phrase was knowingly replaced, as talking about transsexual children starts to raise all sorts of questions.

Transsexual adults, and gender questioning children.

Stick around if you're sincere, Mingling. We all started somewhere.

I'm generally inclined to take this approach.

It's worth trying to nail down what your understanding of various terms is, though.
Is a trans person someone who wants to be the opposite sex, or someone that really and literally is a man/woman/neither based on what they're like as a person? (Personality traits such as those culturally assumed to be "feminine"/"masculine"/sonething else?) If so, when you say 'woman' what are your describing that sets one apart from someone who isn't a woman?

Most people on this board tend to use women to mean female, so when we had someone come in to discuss "feeling female" it led to pages of genuine confusion as people didn't realise the poster wasnt using "female" to actually mean female.

Without this belief in gender identity ideology, if a "cis woman" means a woman who isn't trans, a "trans woman" should mean an adult female person who, for whatever reason, identifies as a man.

I'm sure I've seen a survey reported somewhere that showed around a third of people did interpret the term that way.

Many of the women 'accepting transwomen in female facilities' therefore do think it means 'women who call themselves male'.

Clarity is not helped of course by the insistence from the male people concerned that they ARE women/ female/ knew they were girls since being little boys/are biological females despite the testicles, etc etc etc.

Stick around if you're sincere, Mingling. We all started somewhere.

Because you came here to lecture on how we know nothing and you are somehow enlightened.

It is disrespectful and saying that transwomen are a subset of women is offensive. It's sexist. It's ideological claptrap.

Your whole spiel about being interested and finding things fascinating is utterly disengenous. We've seen plenty come here say they are so interested and want to learn and all they do is repeat by rote the same rehearsed and contrived script and aren't remotely interested in listening or respecting.

Men and women can't change sex. Saying you can is a lie. It's a falsehood. You can have cosmetic surgery and take harmful medications and adopt gendered stereotypes but you remain the same sex and this matters because discrimination on the basis of sex doesn't magically disappear because we replace sex with gender. Indeed it only reinforces it.

You can try and force an ideology based on gendered stereotypes on others, but sex retains it's importance and people are not obliged to take up your quasi-religious beliefs.

Cis is ideological manipulation to coerce women into accepting men into their spaces by suggesting women have a privilege over transwomen. This is such utter nonsense. This is highlighted by the ideological capture of the corporate world and the public sector and numerous intimidation campaign and unlawful treatment of women who have been treated appallingly because lobby groups have successfully convinced everyone that the law says something completely different to what it actually does.

That's a terrifying amount of power.

I firmly call sealioning.

It boils down to legal rights and structures.

Again the question is needed; why were women given single sex spaces in law in the first place?

Group trans men in as a subset of men and they loose their maternity rights.