Biology

how strong is the stomach? like really? my friend thinks its llike ridiculously sturdy. i dont get what hes on about.. like he rekons if there was any explosions in it... it would flood out your thraot or anus. so eyah... can someone clear that up? thanks alot.

Human Body in a Vacuum I love this... what the theorized effects of being in the vacuum of space would be like to a human. Hollywood should take note... but really, its hollywood so I guess not.

My housemate's dog (Bassett Hound) keeps eating plants in the garden. Plants! I am assuming this is due to some kind of dietary deficiency at the moment... anyone had any experience with this?

As McCoy was apt to say. I was watching an episode of Star Trek which featured a Vulcan who bled a lot. This got me thinking about the colour of blood and why it is the colour it is. In particular, I pondered why a Vulcan should have green blood. The official explanation according to Trek Lore appears to be that a Vulcan's blood is copper based, but if that were so, then surely they are not metabolising oxygen as oxygen would not bind to the iron-containing haem group? Apparently there are some species of lizard which have green blood. I have also heard that horseshoe crabs have blue blood which is blue when oxygenated and colourless when deoxygenated. D…

Here are some interesting excerpts from Space.com explaining how we might be the least intelligent species in our galaxy: " SETI folk are mostly interested in alien intelligence, not the brainpower of the local school kids. But investigating terrestrial IQs may help us estimate how often sentient beings evolve elsewhere. To test human intelligence is straightforward, if controversial. But how can we assess the brainpower of other critters? One approach taken by biologists is to compute an "encephalization quotient," which is really no more than a measure of how weighty the brain is for an animal of a given body size. Of course, bigger bodies usually mean bigger brains…

I have start to germinate a seed and i was just wondering if i put the pot that the seed is in, in a incibator at a 100 degrees. Would that speed you the process or will it just stay a seed?

Does having a higher metabolism... ...make you age faster? Which in turn could make your life shorter? ...make you think faster? My thinking behind this is that metabolism is simply defined as the rate at which chemical reactions occur in an organism. So if these reactions happen fast, wouldn't that mean that you age faster? Or is aging not controlled by chemical reactions? And about thinking faster. Isn't thinking something to do with chemical reactions in the brain? Or is it electronic impulses? And are the electronic impulses controlled by chemical reactions?

Ok, so for 200,000 years or more we, humans, remained wood, bone, rock specialists with not much advancement in technology over that time before we somehow discovered iron and copper and leaped into the future. Have I got that right? Ok, so my question is...did we stay idle for 200,000 years because of our lack of intelligence and inquisitive nature necessary for the discovery of such minerals? Or...?

As I get older, I'm becoming hairier. This is not a complaint, you understand. I don't look forward to the possibility that conspicuous parts of it may one day fall out. However, at the same time, it occurs to me that this aspect of maturation does not deserve to be taken for granted. Why not? Well, for one thing, it doesn't seem to make sense. I'm more hairy now than I was 10, or even 5, years ago. I refer specifically to body hair. Torso hair is what doesn't make sense. Obviously, it's all a left over from our primitive past but what we do have still contributes something on those chilly nights, and for our arguably slightly hairier immediate ancestors, ever…

hi, can someone please help me answer this questions concerning ART's. 1.which assisted reproductive technologies might help the following couples? a) a woman who is born without a uterus, but manufactures healthy ova. b) a man whoese cancer treatment greatly damage his sperm c)a woman's fallopian tubes are blocked due to an infection, so her ovum cannot reach the uterus 2. Give views on the ethical issues: a) wealthy couples could hire poor women as surrogates simply becuase the adoptive mother does not want to be pregnant. Would you object to this practice? b) Do you think children born of an assisted reproduction technology should be told ab…

I know that antibiotics have no effect against viruses, but why do many microbiologists often criticize doctors who do so, apart from the reason that I have given above?

Quite often in non-technical sources, you find people talking about 'poisonous snakes', often referring to species such as cobras or rattlesnakes. And the usual smart-aleck response is "There's no such thing as a poisonous snake, only venomous snakes", the difference being that venom is a method of procuring prey (as in cobras and such) or fighting off predators (wasp venom), while poison usually refers to a chemical that must be consumed to have an effect. Paper on poisonous garter snakes In the pacific northwest, there's a small, harmless snake (the garter snake) with a wide ranging diet. One particular population preys mostly upon newts, the catch being that…

For my science fair project, I am doing it on "is the iris imprint more reliable than the fingerprint?" But I don't know how to do a scientific experiment to find out that answer. Please could someone help me???

I am doing research on the Kuru disease now, which I learn is caused by a prion, and infectious protein. Now what I'd like to know is that what exactly does the prion do that causes the different brain problems? One thing I read on Wikipedia under the Prion article is that the PrP^Sc protein which is somewhat similar to the HuPrP^Sc (kuru prion protein) contains a lot more of a amino acid structure called "beta sheet". This beta sheet causes amyloid aggregation. Now what exactly is amyloid aggregation? The article for amyloids in Wikipedia didn't tell me much apart from the fact that it's plays a role in certain brain diseases, and that it's thin, fibrous and mad…

Abscisic helps in closure of stomata !! But how does it works (mechanism involve Ca 2+) ?? I got a lot of different explanations !!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4532608.stm

In light of two threads, one of which was getting off-topic, I have decided to create this thread about extiction. My question to all of you is Is extinction actually bad? If I were asked this question, I would say, "Yes of course it is." But then I would begin to think of all the natural occuring mass-extinctions, and probably change my answer to, "It is if humans kill them for more money than they already have." So what's your take on this?

I found this news story while browsing youtube from a local newstation about a 12 year old stuck in a 9 month old's body. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0rbr3Z_NpU&eurl imagine if you could have some kind of geneticist do that to you in your mid to late twenties? this could truly be the fountain of youth? and it seems she cant die, everytime the doctors think she is close to death she miracously heals herself, the doctors say she is the only known case in the WORLD with this condition. maybe the government or some big company should ask the parents to borrow her and perfom some safe tests on her to figure it out?

Link "Until now eight species of animals were found in the cave, all of them unknown to science." - Dr Hanan Dimantman, biologist at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. While drilling rock at a quarry near Ramle, miners uncovered a cave that had recieved no sunlight in over 5 million years. There, Israeli scientists have uncovered an entire ecosystem adapted to its environment. Along with various bacteria, 8 different life forms which closely resembled scorpions were found. "Every species we examined had no eyes which means they lost their sight due to evolution," added Dimantman. "This is a cave of fantastic biodiversity."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5503685

I'm writing a book and I need to know if the absence of Iron, copper, or other minerals would hold the human civilization back in terms of industry, weapons, machinery and electricity. I would think without the basic building blocks for our various metals, mankind would still be relegated to the proverbial "bush", without any electricity, machinery or any of that good stuff. Am I wrong here?

I have heard some 1 say that plants digest food using some enzymes

Hi folks: I'm brand new here, this is my first post. I've taught astronomy, mathematics, earth science and CS so far, but I just got hired to teach a bio class for the first time this fall (9th grade level, but REALLY bright kids!). I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on a good lesson plan to base the course on, or any advice on where kids usually get caught subject-wide. To give you an idea, I taught the same kids Earth science last semester, and despite them being in 8th grade, by the end of the semester I had to ramp up the lessons to freshman college level to keep them challenged. Some have had chem, some haven't, so things like osmos…

As usual I found myself wondering around the science section of a local bookstore. I tried to convince myself that I should finish reading one of the seven books by my bed before spending anymore of my, rent, money. After browsing the covers of numerous books, I was just ‘looking’, one caught my eye. A very visible font read: “Richard Dawkins”. I picked it up assuming, wrongly so, that this was Dawkins biography. I usually have a habit of reading the preface of the book I have my eye on, this time I went straight to the register. I started reading the book in the car when I walked out of the bookstore. Two days after, of non-stop reading, I have just put it down. …

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/giant_bateating_centipede.php The centipede is 13 inches (35 centimeters) long and dwells in total darkness, in a cave in Venezuela. It lives by eating small bats It is early morning: bedtime for bats. The bats are returning to their cave where they will pass the daylight hours hanging from the ceiling. The movie shows the centipede as it is climbing up the wall of the cave and thence out onto the ceiling, where it waits for a bat to fly past. The movie shows the centipede catch a bat in flight.