Biology

Hi everyone. I am a first year university student from South Africa. As one of our assignments, we were asked to express our opinion on a topic of interest to us, so the following is merely my opinion on the topic of GM food, as a South African student. I recently attended a seminar on the topic of GMOs and both the positive and negative effects of them on public health as well as the local agricultural industries that was presented by a fellow student. South Africa has an economy that depends greatly on agriculture. Much of the lower class population (making up greater than 60% of the 60 million population) consists of subsistence farmers or farm workers that are th…

Hi, im a high school student and i currently have an assignment on current Australian geneticists and their work (in regards to DNA). If any one has time, would it be alright if i asked you a few questions concerning your work that you currently doing? Many thanks If it would be alright, please message me

When I usually goes swimming either in a river or in the sea my skin gets wrinkle!!!! Why does this happen?? Water is suppose to enter my body by osmosis as human body water concentration is lower ,that is 60% less than the water surrounding me which is approximately at 90% and which is 30% higher than the body concentration. What is the reason behind this?? I have made some researches and they are saying that the skin layer contains an oil but I dont understand how it works!!!! I need a suitable answer!! Tks for any humble requests in advance!!!

I'm seriously pissed and you guys seemingly have no explanation. http://youtu.be/g5P7FadUugI I video taped myself talking about this, please watch the video. If you disregard the video, I'll post more here. I literally want wings. I don't normally just come out and say things like this if they haven't been on my mind for a while already. I've literally thought in great detail of what is necessary for me to have wings and I've exercised the areas of my back where they need to be growing from. There are good ideas of general science that can help in the study of this topic, which I talk about in the video. Namely, pragmatic aspects of acquiring wings. If anyone …

As all of you guys know, mutation accumulates as our cells divides, which might be a big factor of why we age. Brain cells however, mostly do not divide at all. Therefore it may not mutated as much as other cells. The progress we are making in organ engineering and genetics and other biological field may increase the lifespan of human to indefinite. However, these technologies requires to use our genetic informations, and ofcourse it is important to use the unmutated ones. I am young (17 years old) and i want to live long enough to live forever. Therefore my question is: is it worthful to preserve my stem cells when i am young? If it is worthful, how and which co…

Memory Encoding is a natural process when we look, hear, smell or think things. However, is there a way to encode memory artificially inside our brain?

I am confused about how some creatures can be clear, or at least mostly clear. One example is the clear squid (more commonly called the glass squid). How can their organs be clear, their stomachs must produce acid which I assume has some coloring. Surely their blood must not be clear, or is it? And most puzzling to me, how can they produce black inc when they appear clear? I thought that maybe they combined two clear chemicals to produce one black chemical but I wasn't quite sure. Perhapse this just stems from my misunderstanding of how squid work. Thank you in advance for all replies and your assistance to help me further understand this topic.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2202&dat=19260114&id=F9MlAAAAIBAJ&sjid=B_wFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5410,1795860 Man Suffocates to Death in Cold York, Jan. 14 -- Swelling of the thymus gland in his throat due to the extreme cold Monday morning caused the death of George C. Young, a farmer of New Freedom, this county. He was suffocated when the swelling cut off his breathing. At 5 o'clock Monday morning the mercury stood at 2 degrees below zero in that locality. Young went to his barn to do his chores and, on feeling his breath being shut off, rushed back to the house, told his wife he was choking and died in a few minutes. Physicians said the cold cause the …

Last week I got curious with liquid oxygen, and poked into video experiments with liquid air. For air to turn fluid, you do need an extremely low temperature, so we never see this occurring naturally on Earth. But I was curious about one thing: Could humans and animals theoretically breathe liquid oxygen like they do gas oxygen? From the perspective of chemical composition, would the lungs treat it the same way? Obviously, this is a theoretical question only. In practice no one could inhale liquid oxygen because the extremely cold temperature would freeze their lungs and cause instant death! But if somehow temperature itself wouldn't be a problem, and this factor …

The cage divers use to observe sharks on occasions are in essence Faraday cages. If you ran a current through them, would it attract sharks because of their ability to sense electrostatic discharge? Or would they ignore it because of their other senses not noticing any disturbances? Just an idle curiosity.

In the production of SCP involving yeast fermentation, I was wondering why the media needed phosphate? Why is it essential? Does anyone know the pathway that the phosphate enters once it is taken up by the cells? Also, metabolically, what is the difference between KH2PO4 and Na2HPO4? I have noticed that both compounds are added to the media, usually more KH2PO4 than Na2HPO4. Are both required for the successful production of SCP? Or could the organism ferment well with only KH2PO4? Thank you for your responses.

What do you think about Origin of Borneo elephants native to the island or descendants from elephants introduced by Sultan of sulu. it's told Borneo elephants are surviving Java elephants (thought to Extinct)

I need to get some information to understand how this works. I have a half-brother that I plan to do a DNA test with soon to determine if we are related. Now, I know the general stuff - father passes down Y-chromosome to father and to son. Where I start to get confusion is in the DNA aspect. Males are made up of X and Y. But what I don't understand is, our DNA is different. Even twin brothers have different DNA. So how is it that they can test the Y-Chromosome in one male(myself) and see if it pairs up with another Y-Chromosome(my half-brother)? Aren't the DNA inside of those chromosomes different? Sorry for the dumb question. Biology confuses me. Lol.

Seagrasses are flowering plants that live in submerged shallow marine and estuarine environments. They possess leaves, stems and roots. Leaves of seagrass have cuticle for gas and nutrient exchange. Leaves have aerenchyma for water and nutrient transport throughout the plant. Aerenchyma consists of lacunae that provide buoyancy and allow gas exchange to the plant. Their leaves also have chloroplasts which is essential for photosynthesis, to convert carbon dioxide and water to oxygen and sugar (McKenzie, 2008). In this manner, it converts light energy to chemical energy which can be used by the plant or other organisms that feed on the plant. Seagrass stems and roots are …

Hello to all, I have a web to which I would like that you give a look, in concrete to the science section of (url removed by moderator) to see what you think. My web is based on the idea that the consciusness is the electromagnetism but to demonstrate it goes embracing from numerous perspectives (and always with scientific studies) as how it can be this way at all the levels from cellular to organism and even planetarium. Therefore embracing topics as the biophotonics, the interaction of the electromagnetic fields whith the material quantum fields mediated by biomolecules or water, the effects of electromagnetic contamination, different mensurations and studies of dista…

Hi everyone, Im currently a full time student and my major is biology. The thing is that i went to a couple of advisors at my University and i dont know why when i asked them about what career they think it will fit me according to my preferences they never give me an concrete answer. This past semester i took immunology and i became obsess with the class( I LOVED IT) and i went to speak to 4 different advisors because my major is biology and i wanted to make sure i was taking the right classes since i know that biology is more general than immunology. The thing is that i wanted to know that if i should change my major to microbiology ( that is more concentrated in micro…

I am currently working on a small camera trap project, and was reordering supplies for the upcoming field season. I had an issue with SD card mismanagement last year, and wanted to buy a SD card holder case for them. I work in the temperate deciduous forests of eastern North America. What cases have been the most effective? I was wondering the difference between a soft case and a hard-plastic case. If the soft case remains in a book bag, would it be suitable? Or is a more durable case necessary?

Hello everyone Let me get straight to the point: About every morning, we have dozens of grey/dark brownish worms or maggots crawling around on our terrace (blue/grey stone). In the afternoon, they all crawl in the corner of 2 walls, away from sunlight (I guess)... The morning after, they're all dead (they look black and dehydrated and much smaller), but another wave of worms/maggots has arrived And so on... They are 1-2cm long, look like them on the photo in the link in the post scriptum, but they're not as thick. Deriving from their behavior, I suspect they don't like warmth, for they prefer the cold bluegrey terrace stone and shade. Temperatures he…

I am trying to understand how a primary oocyte with 46 chromosomes undergoes meiosis twice and still has 23 chromosomes. Meiosis 1 suggests 23 chromosomes and Meiosis 2 suggests 23/2 (plus 23 from the fertilizing sperm cell). I do see some sources indicating chromosomes forming tetrads in the primary oocyte. This doubling of information is apparently not considered to be 92 chromosomes, but still just 46 by some descriptions. The secondary oocyte after meiosis 1 completes is labeled haploid with 23 chromosomes, but some representations appear to be diploid. Then, meiosis 2 reduces the ovum to a haploid cell with 23 chromosomes. ???

Hi, After finding no reliable sources detailing the effect of electrical charge on the growth of plants, I have decided to begin conducting my own series of experiments. Please help me in establishing a set of control variables. My list so far: Temperature Humidity Sunlight Primary and Secondary Macronutrient Content in Soil (Please Help) Water CO2 Content in the Air Growing Space Altitude Is there anything else I should consider? Or better yet, is there an established set of official guidelines for conducting experiments on plant growth? Thanks, Regards, pyroglycerine

Did you know that there was a prehistoric type of crocidile that lived in the Jurassic era that was up to about 40ft long and weighed about 12 tons!!! Tryanasorous Rex weighed up to about 7 tons. The prehistoric crocidile may have been the Earth's largest land carnivore!!! There is a larger type of T-Rex but I don't know if that's as large. Cheers - Mike

Hello everyone This would be my very last question concerning genetics. Imagine a crossing of an organism with genotype AaBb, and an organism with organism aaBb. Between the alleles A(a) and B(b) is a distance of [math]2x\; cM[/math]. What is the chance of getting an organism with genotype Aabb? [math]\begin{tabular}{|c||c|c|c|c|}\hline & AB & Ab & aB & ab \\ \hline\hline aB & AaBB & AaBb & aaBB & aaBb \\ \hline ab & AaBb & Aabb & aaBb & aabb \\ \hline aB & AaBB & AaBb & aaBB & aaBb \\ \hline ab & AaBb & Aabb & aaBb & aabb \\ \hline \end{tabular}[/math] Now, in order to solve th…

I think the ovum released during ovulation is viable for a couple days, after which it disintegrates if not fertilized within that period. Do we have any insight into why the secretory phase of the menstrual cycle (humans of course) lasts fourteen days in preparation of a fertilized egg (zygote) developing into a blastocyst and implanting into the uterine endometrium?

Hi! I just joined this forum because I needed to ask a question about a scientific term that I couldn't seem to find on Google. A little backstory: I'm not much of a scientist myself, really more of a fantasy writer/artist. But I do value science, and whenever I create fanciful alien worlds/realities, I can't help but take a very... "logical" approach to everything. Everything has to "make sense". For instance, when designing a system for how magic works in my world, I created an unidentifiable pseudo-plant that consumes physical matter and generates magical energy, to compensate for the fact that mages consume magical energy to conjure rocks and chemicals and such ou…

Hi! I'm considering growing bacteria in agar in petri dishes. However, I have heard that once bacteria have grown in the agar, you should not open the dish for safety reasons. I would like to ask: What are the risks? What should I and shouldn’t I do to avoid growing harmful bacteria? And if it is best not to reopen the dish, then what is the point of using them, if you cannot apply the microbes to a slide to be analyzed under a microscope?