biology

Saw this homeschool biology text referred to on Freep so I looked it up. http://www.highschoolscience.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4 Make sure you check out the sample module. It's filled with awful.

OK, I admit up front to some poetic license with the thread title, so I hope folks don't get too focused on that, but here's the thing.... Consider some of the great issues of our time: Climate change Energy Environmental degradation Nuclear power and weapons The global economy Stem cell...

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/snakes.html?npu=1&mbid=yhp This is incredibly interesting, because it could explain how life formed on early Earth. There are several videos and a fairly long article, but you won't be disappointed.

I remember learning in high school biology that every part of the body has a matching area in the brain, with a size roughly corresponding to the number of sensory nerves in that body part - so the scalp is just a tiny patch, the torso is fairly small, the fingertips are huge, etc. But how does...

http://www.nature.com/scitable is a free, new (AFAIK) site for (technically ) university faculty and students. The first/current topic is aspects of chromosomes, evolutionary genetics and related. Research based and, unless my reading skills have dramatically died, real science!!:):):):)

I was having a conversation with amb about Fermi's Paradox, and it occurred to me that it would be useful to be able to point to a list of requirements that are prerequisites for intelligent life evolving. I am attracted by the arguments for assuming that evolution of intelligent life is...

Just noticed this article from the New Scientist newsfeed. Biology is so cool. :D What is interesting about this is the fact that kleptoplastisized genes are almost always nonfunctional in the host organism.

The picture of a genetic makeup that fluctuates by the hour and minutes seems at odds with the public perception: That genes determine everything from our physical characteristics all the way to our behaviour. Many scientists seem to think that our geners form an immutable blueprint that our...

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html An interesting article on efforts to recreate the first proto-cells. Obviously this is only one possible path to the origins of life and is not claimed to be THE way it happened but very interesting none the less. Nice to see...

I'm a bit puzzled about how much is known about the conditions on the early Earth before any life arose? Was Stanley Miller close to the truth? How much do we know currently, is it controversial? I'm once again getting lost in the information and looking for a short cut before getting my hands...

The intelligent design crowd says humans are far too advanced to have evolved, and therefore must have been designed, and that thus implies a designer. While there are a couple of logical fallacies in that conclusion, I'm more interested in the assertion that humans are designed. Off the top of...

Sounds like woo woo hogwash, but this is really cool: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11544353 Bacteria do communicate with each other. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of this before, so I had to share. I'm not sure if it is spelled out online, but I saw the person who coined the term...

Here is an exchange between Andy Schlafly, bloke behind "conservapedia", and Richard Lenski. I found it on Ben Goldacre's site. Wonderful wonderful wonderful. Hope the mods agree it's ok to post in its entirety. Link to removed content...

Men and Women Really Do Think Differently according to our gray matter and white matter brain structures. I wanted to discuss this without the political context we were discussing it in before. Forget about the political or social implications where there is no supporting evidence for the...

I'm looking to buy a general biology textbook, and am wondering what people here would recommend. I spent half an hour in a bookshop today looking through about half a dozen. The one that seemed best to me was Biology by Solomon, Berg, and Martin...

I'm getting way ahead of myself here as I'm still working on completing my Associates Degree before transferring for a Bachelors. I definitely want to do something with Biology, but I'm trying to narrow it down. I'd be happy with anything in the greater field, but I am definitely most...

The Origin of Species.

This is a question that I asked incidentally on another thread and that was not answered. I am still interested in any answers. Can you offer an item of scientific evidence that contradicts the hypothesis of a life force (a.k.a. chi, a.k.a. elan vital)? Please do not post that it's not...

This is interesting. What I'd like to know is, what is this 'internal signal' exactly?

"In cell biology, a mitochondrion (plural mitochondria) is a membrane-enclosed organelle that is found in most eukaryotic cells." "Endosymbiotic theory suggests that eukaryotic cells first appeared when a prokaryotic cell (a bacterium) was absorbed into another cell without being digested...

Does a newborn baby have eyes that are the same size as his adult eyes? I know that mammilian babies have proportionally larger eyes than adults, but what of the common assertion that our eyes do not increase in size as we, as humans, mature?

I was curious about whether or not a biology angle has ever been approached when trying to resolve conflicting witness testimony on 9/11. The ability to recall what actually happened varies wildly. One of these factors I remember is stress. I read that humans thrive on a little stress but...

Here's an interesting article called "Science of the Soul." It must be so nice to get the "truth" directly from the source.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/04/04/neurotheology/index.html presents both sides but dwells a little more on evolution

I don't recall seeing this article from the New York Times anywhere here, so if this is a repeat, forgive me. Interesting stuff. The rest of the article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/science/20moral.html

I have a problem with the current definition of life. The "definition" that we were all fed in school is essentially a laundry list of things that cells do. It's way more complicated than it needs to be, it's against occam's razor. Let's try to think of what fundimentally makes living systems...

Because some have never studied biology and the creative basis for all living matter, but just study inanimate unconnected heavenly trivia. Allow me to suggest that the geometry that the ancients knew and passed on in their Mystery Schools is the very basis that would help you connect up what...

An amazing thing has happened in the LightCreatedLife thread: We have actually stumbled upon an honest-to-goodness science question. It's biology so all you astrophysicists might as well go learn why 432 is sacred or something: How long after a human dies can it be said with some certainty...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/popup?id=2735366 So, 52 species we didn't know about until recently. What does that bring our total count to on the planet that we know of? How many more may we not know about that exist out there for now?

My bandmates and I were discussing the next large technoligical trends. One suggested that one of the next large steps is to create organic cells that can be used as machinery. An example is how a spider naturally creates webbing that is as tough as kevlar body armor, if we could figure out...