BioNerd

I have never heard of it being very detrimental to your health. However, I have heard some other theories on drinking cold drinks: It is said that drinking a cold beverage (regardless of the kind) is a bad idea before singing. Your vocal cords become chilled and can make it harder for your to hit the correct notes. Instead, you should drink lukewarm or warm drinks before singing. Also, I've heard that cold water is detrimental to your physical performance when exercising. While it can help you if you are suffering from overheating, cold water in your stomach can make your blood rush to your stomach to warm it to core temperature. This causes less blood circulation to your muscles which can result in cramping. -M

The problem with that idea is that your body has to be able to break-down this completely dense object. Think about it this way: copper is a nutrient that humans need to live. However, if you swallowed a penny you cannot digest the whole thing - it's just too dense. Instead, it would just pass right through the digestive tract without being digested. You would need a much longer digestive tract and some very very strong enzymes and chemicals to breakdown such a massively concentrated pill. I mean you're talking about smushing the atoms down to subnuclear size here. -M

What is the point of forming glucose via photosynthesis if a cell cannot use it via glycolysis? Yes, glycolysis happens in the cytosol, as does anaerobic respiration. However, aerobic respiration occurrs in the mitochondrion. Let's think about this for a minute - aerobic respiration = oxygen needs to be present. Glycolysis from photosynthesis-formed glucose = no need for oxygen. I have changed my opinion from mitochondria evolving before chloroplasts due to this evidence to the chloroplasts forming first. Another thing to ponder - mitochondria have two lipid membranes while chloroplasts have three. And hasn't anyone heard of the endosymbiont theory?

Yeast is a fungus. How would antibiotics do anything?

You have obviously never taken a biology class, otherwise you would have known that our "theories" are really in fact "laws" without the same jargon. I, and my current physics professor, would argue that evolution is just as scientifically justified as the law of gravitation. We just use different words to describe our principles.

Now why would we be able to see colonization on Mars in our lifetime? Yes, I think it will happen eventually, but within 100 years? We landed on the Moon a long time ago, and there is nothing close to colonization there. Mars is so much further away, the climate is so much more harsh, and we haven't even landed on it yet. We can barely keep our probes alive on it! samulito: my thoughts exactly

Actually, in that case, I would believe the heart to be the most "vital" organ because without it, the brain is nothing. The heart can beat after the brain ceases functioning, and often times the heart will continue to beat even after the animal is considered dead. Similarly, the heart can continue to beat after being extracted from the body. The muscle cells of the heart control their own ability to pulsate, and the only intervention the brain has is whether the pulse should speed-up or slow-down.

When in my biology classes, we always talk about what would happen if XYZ happened - and often times it's either something catastrophic to the animal/cell or it causes death. But this has me wondering - what decides death? How do you decipher between a plant that is alive or dead? Does death happen at the cellular - or even subcellular level? Or does it have to involve the break-down of tissues and organs? I know an animal can be considered dead even if the heart is still beating, but then how do you know it is dead? And with plants - if you cut a flower, is it considered dead? If it is mostly wilted but part of it is still green and turgid, is it still considered living in some respects?