Something that Qain mentioned has me wondering now. I have offered my thoughts on biology topics from time to time because I am about to get a degree in Biology, but I don't think that I was the one who talked to Qain about soylent. That makes me think that there are other people here on the forums who are in the same field. Makes me interested in knowing just how many there are.
I got my degree in molecular biology with a chemistry minor, but I'm not in the field any more. I don't know who Qain was speaking of when they were talking about soylent, but I imagine that he was referring to something like epigenetics (the switching of genes on or off due to environmental or external factors instead of changes to the DNA sequence). Diabetes type 2 is expected to be a result of epigenetics. Some recent studies have reported that several genes involved with the synthesis and release of insulin show epigenetic changes even though the under lying DNA sequences remain the same.
Sorry about replying so late. Got side tracked and forgot to comment.
Anyway, I also have a chem minor (and a CS minor, but that is neither here nor there). And At my university, there is only a generic Biology degree, however, the vast majority of my classes have been in molecular biology types of classes (currently in a course called Molecular Biology, actually, as well as Molecular Pathology). Always plenty of interesting stuff going on with the molecular genetics and all of that. I hadn't heard that type 2 diabetes was thought to be a result of epigenetics. Though, I never really looked into diabetes that much at all (all I know is that there is a weakening of the response to insulin, but whatever). Very interesting. It seems that more and more, they are finding that the complexity of humans arises not from the genes themselves but from the interactions (ie epigenetics and alternative splicing). That is something that my professors are pretty enthusiastic about. They want to encourage people to not get stuck in the mindset of just the central dogma.
But, I've gone and forgotten what it was exactly that Qain said about it now, so I can't really comment on it exactly. I might go back and look into it some more later though. I've seen some articles about how soylent could affect your intestinal flora and therefore affect your health, but other than that, I don't relaly know.