Biology

Hello :) If I have plasmid DNA that I want bacteria to pick up, how should I encapsulate it to make it attractive for them? At the same time, I want the capsule to be immuno-invisible to the human system. Do you know of any particular techniques? Possibly companies/researchers who focus on this? Bacteria exchange the plasmids between each other, but would they also pick them up from the environment, if the plasmids were, say, encapsulated in a micelle? Curious to hear your knowledge and thoughts. Thank you!

Can someone here briefly explain the reproduction process, would be glad with pictures or document

So I literally know nothing about this but I have a trippy question. Could the atoms in our bodies have been part of something else in the past? Like lets say one of the atoms that are part of a piece of skin on my finger.. could that atom have once been part of a piece of pottery in ancient Egypt? This seems like a stupid question but I am genuinely curious.

Hi Everyone, I'm new to the forums so a big hello to you all. I hope it's ok that I post this here. Ok I'm not a science person at all, so please be patient 🙄. I keep many fish tanks and have a couple with a unknown disease. All research and help from the fish keeping community thinks it's a bacterial infection, the problem is it's a guess and I'm over misusing antibiotics for reasons that people here would know. So I'm after a microscope that would be good enough to identity the bacteria in question. Because it's only a hobby, I'm not looking at buying a microscope with anything fancy and would like not to spend heaps on it if possible. I know it's probab…

Hello scientists. Was wondering if anyone could chime in on a debate I’m having with my wife. My daighter has been unwell with a cough/flu virus for several days. One morning I gave her a really small glass of cola to drink, about 20ml. It was room temperature, about 8-12oC. Could this have had any major effect on prolonging her cough/flu virus? I’m thinking that it wont have had virtually noneffect at all, let alone a major one. Obviously everything has ‘some’ effect but with regards to altering viral systematic processes within the body, I wouldn’t have thought a tiny drop of cola would make hardly any difference to her condition. Any input and insight is appreciat…

Which biophysics journals are free for authors to publish? So far, I know only PBMB but it takes only reviews.

There are these papers which strongly imply that the inner ear hair cells, and not the medulla, is primarily the driving factor in the CO2 drive reflex https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21130842 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3988803/ But every fMRI study done on chemoreceptors has shown only areas of the brain and carotid bodies light up in response to CO2. I could not find any fMRI study papers showing that the inner ears light up in response to CO2 or any histological evidence that the hair cells of the inner ear are chemosensitive and play a larger role in chemosensation than the brain like these studies are trying to imply. It is said t…

This is a question that has puzzled me for some time. It is that on land in every part of the world where there is abundant water and sunlight, there is vegetation everywhere (rainforests typically). But on the oceans in the same parts of the world (tropical and equatorial regions) there is typically very little, if any, floating seaweed. Given that floating seaweed is able to live in salt water, has access to abundant amounts of water (obviously), and has the same access to the air to support photosynthesis, why hasn't floating seaweed grown to the same extent as the plants on land? Now, there is one type of seaweed that does seem to accumulate - Sargassum. But…

It may be worth repeating that the present scientific consensus is against electrosensitivity at humans. I haven't heard of one experiment that succeeded detecting an electrosensitive person. Science evolves, though, as it did about ball lightning. Many bird species are sensitive to the geomagnetic field. Possibly humans, or some persons, have a sensitivity to the electric of magnetic field. After all, microwaves serve to speed up some chemical reactions, despite the process isn't understood. The self-discharge of a battery creates no current loop the size of this battery, and the equivalent intensity is tiny, so it would produce no magnetic field comparable to …

- Ribozyme self-replication happened only once in history, and it’s the ancestor of all eukaryotic life on Earth - Endosymbiosis that lead to eukaryotic cells happened only once in history, and it’s the ancestor of all multicellular life on Earth - Two ape chromosomes that fused together into one human chromosome (chromosome 2) happened only once in history, and it’s the ancestor of all human life on Earth What is the reason that these events could only have happened once in history, and will never happen again?

Could dead people frozen in liquid nitrogen be revived by future technology?

Hi everyone. If the entire Amazon rainforest burns down, will we all find it noticeably harder to breath? Will it be like we are all at a higher altitude?

I read some people have a bad immune reaction if they drink plain water (tap, distilled, sparkling water, etc) and I read about a girl who could not drink even a sip of plain water because it'd send her into anaphylaxis, but if they drink tea, milk or cola they have little to no reaction, so how would their immune cells 'know' if they just drunk plain water? The water molecules floating around in a glass of milk (>90% water) are still water molecules, right? Why would the water/liquid in the body be seen as ''OK'' but plain water is ''not okay'' in these people's immune system cells?

From what I learned, fiber is the non-nutritional part of foods that end taking part of the bulk of stools. With some seen emphasis on the importance of fiber intake; does it mean that poorly nutritional foods are also good to have ? How does it work ?

This is new for me, dropped my jaw as never seen before. Enjoy ----> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQMYpzbQIDA

What factors affect sexual fluidity?

Hi Everyone There is something which confuses me. I have read that if you add salt to water, it helps with hydration. I have also read that adding salt to water makes you pee more. Wouldn't this cause dehydration? How can both of these statements be true? I would be very grateful to anyone who can remove my confusion about the relationship between salt and hydration. Thank you very much. Kind regards Tim

1. Could we induce embryonic stem cells the same way we induce pluripotent stem cells? 2. Could embryonic stem cells regenerate into an entire embryo?

I was watching the below video on cleaning contact lenses, which have to be sterile when you put them in your eyes or you risk an eye infection. The video says take your lenses out, put them in this container of hydrogen peroxide and seal them up. You leave them in there for 6 hours and the hydrogen peroxide gets converted to saline and then they say the lenses can stay in there for 7 days. I'm wondering, what if the lenses were to be left there indefinitely? How could they get infected if everything in the container had been killed by the hydrogen peroxide? Is there any chance they could get infected if left in there for a month and if so how, where would the life c…

I read that women on average are lighter skinned than men, so I was wondering, are humans more inclined to be attracted to lighter skin or is it just cultural? Look at this study: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-535828/Why-men-prefer-fair-skinned-maidens-women-like-dark-handsome-strangers.html

Hello, I'm looking for a way to isolate Zooxanthellae cells from agar plates without killing the algae. I'm growing Zooxanthellae algae that have been isolated from soft coral tissues on agar plates made with F/2 medium. As of so far, they seem to be growing nicely. In order to perform more tests on the algae, I have to isolate them while keeping them alive. Is there any way to dissolve the agar, so that I could centrifuge the cells out? I know heat will melt the agar, but it would be too hot for the algae. Thank you! Ynon.

I appologize if I put this is in the wrong section. We got a 5 month old, we did 3 out of 4 dosages of a 5 in 1 "Pentaxim" vaccine which is mandatory here. 4th and last dosage will be at 18 months. Up untill now fortunately - zero side effects appart from a very slight temperature increase but this is negligible. I've been all over the internet looking for legitimate information on vaccinations but there is so much missinformation that it's easy to go nuts. Some of my friends who have children, already went from taking a scientific stance to full nuts due to the crap that is outthere. I'm looking for websites based on scientific sources and scientific opinions based…

I realy want to know,for example: We say, after syhntesis ,mRNA goes through to por. Then protein syhntesis. But until this moment ,how it do that. I mean it goes through to por. but how ?Or the other things. thoose are just molecules " they are not alive"... this is my topic ... cell is alive but its building blocks are not... they do somethings with each other but... how ?They cant decide what they do, they can just interact with each other. There was some chemical things.. yeah.. but what...

Hello folks, newbie here, and I have a question for you. Bindweed is a common, invasive weed that can create new growth from tiny fragments of roots remaining after the main body of the plant has been dug out. Because it can regrow from tiny fragments, it's extremely persistent, and causes a lot of problems for farmers, gardeners, horticulture etc. This may seem like no big deal, but when you consider the growth can be a shoot 20-30cm long, yet come from a fragment of root less than 1cm, and in complete darkness - how can this be?

For the biology people out there, question for you: does exhaling deeply immediately after inhaling something help to expel it from the lungs? For example, if one inhales smoke or other substance and then immediately exhales as deeply as they can, does that get rid of (more of) the smoke/substance in their body (than otherwise)? Or does it do nothing, or worse?