Everything about biology

24/10/2023

Do you know what TAPVR means ?

14/08/2023

Layers of Atmosphere with explanation.

07/05/2023

Acid Rain

15/10/2022

Apoptosis vs Necrosis

07/10/2021

We have more than five senses (and each has its own sensory organ or specialized receptors)
While we typically think of the traditional five senses of touch, taste, hearing, vision, and smell, our bodies can actually sense many other things. Some of the most important senses include:

Vision
Hearing
Smell
Taste
Touch
Balance
Temperature
Proprioception (spatial body awareness, aka why you can touch your nose with your eyes shut)
Pain
Each is associated with its own organ (taste with the tongue, smell with the nose) or sensory receptor (the skin contains separate touch, temperature, and pain receptors).

08/07/2020

Human antibodies neutralize enterovirus D68 and protect against infection and paralytic disease

Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) is a human respiratory virus associated with acute flaccid myelitis, a rare paralytic disease primarily occurring in young children. To develop a potential therapeutic agent for this emerging disease, Vogt et al. screened B cells from participants with past EV-D68 infection....

01/07/2020

Some mind-blowing facts about biology
5. All free oxygen in the air was brought there by cyanobacteria, around 2.4 billion years ago. The reactive properties of free oxygen caused almost all life to go extinct, but also paved the way for more complex, multicellular life. This is perhaps the strongest example of the ‘extended phenotype’: the environment did not just shape and influence life, life has also shaped and influenced the environment. In this case, life altered the chemical composition of earth’s entire atmosphere.
6. In 2012, a group of scientists completed a computer model of a cell. It simulated the complete life-cycle of the species Mycoplasma genitalium, including all molecular interactions. The simulation of a single cell-division took 10 hours to run on a 128 core Linux cluster, which happens to be about the same time the physical cell-division takes!
7. In humans, there are more pair-wise gene interactions possible than there are atoms in the observable universe. And most physiological processes involve more than two genes.
8. Some biological theories form the basis for machine learning algorithms, such as evolution for genetic algorithms, and natural neural networks (a.k.a. ‘brains’) for artificial neural networks.
9. LUCA (Last Universally Common Ancestor) is the hypothetical most recent ancestor of all life observed today. A molecular clock model applied to the genomes of modern species estimated that LUCA lived about 4.5 billion years ago. This implies that all organisms living today contain genomes that are in essence heavily modified, 4.5 billion year old copies of LUCA’s genome.
10. The origin of life may never get a plausible explanation, because it could have been an extremely implausible event. However, once initiated, it would have led to a chain reaction of reproduction, adaptation and diversification that is still occurring to this day.

29/06/2020

PART 1
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Some mind-blowing facts about biology
So here is my list of some (increasingly) mind-blowing facts about biology…
1. The color of blood is dependent on the protein responsible for oxygen transport. Hemoglobin is present in vertebrate’s blood and gives the blood a red color. Hemocyanin is present in squid, octopi, horeshoe crabs and some other cephalopods and arthropods. It turns their blood blue. Some worms even have green blood, resulting from oxygenated hemerythrin proteins.
2. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and brussels sprouts are all the same species: Brassica oleracea. The variation between these cultivars is caused by artificial selection by humans, but genetically, they remain the same species.
3. The avocado plant likely co-evolved with now-extinct megafauna, such as ground sloths, as the seeds of its fruits are far too large to be successfully dispersed by any wild animal presently alive in the Americas.
4. Plants generally have larger genomes and higher mutation rates than animals. This is thought to be caused by the immobility of plants. Animals tackle local variation and predation by the generic act of locomotion. In contrast, plants need to adapt their physiology to changes in their local environment. This includes variable water levels, temperature, solar radiation, soil composition, and predation (by caterpillars and other herbivores). This requires a larger and more adaptable genome.

14/06/2020

BASIC HUMAN BIOLOGY FACTS
2. There are four blood groups: A, B, AB, and O.
Your lettered blood type is determined by which antibodies are in your plasma and which antigens are found on your red blood cells. Antibodies are blood proteins, while antigens are substances that activate an immune response and control what enters and exits a cell. Each blood group can be either positive or negative, resulting in eight possible blood types. The +/- part of a person’s blood type is determined by the presence (or absence) of a third antigen called the Rh factor.
Our bodies can handle blood without the presence of an antigen that we usually have, but cannot handle the introduction of a new antigen into the circulatory system. That’s why people with O- blood are known as universal donors; anyone can use O- blood. People with AB+ blood, on the other hand, are universal recipients; they have every antigen in their blood already.

13/06/2020

Basic Human Biology Facts
1. The human body has 12 systems.
They are: the cardiovascular system, the digestive system, the endocrine system, the immune system, the integumentary system, the lymphatic system, the muscular system, the nervous system, the reproductive system, the respiratory system, the skeletal system, and the urinary system.
All of these systems work together to ensure that our bodies work correctly. The cardiovascular (or circulatory) system transports blood, oxygen, and nutrients throughout the body. The digestive system takes in and processes food. The endocrine system produces hormones that regulate metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, s*xual reproduction, sleep, and mood. The immune system fights infection.
The integumentary system protects the body from outside damage. The lymphatic system connects the lymph nodes in our bodies and helps the circulatory and immune systems. The muscular system allows us to move. The nervous system transmits signals through the body and controls voluntary and involuntary actions. The reproductive system allows us to have s*x and children. The respiratory system enables us to take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide as we breathe. The skeletal system gives our bodies a framework and supports the systems. The urinary system expels waste. All of these are only some of the main functions of each system, but each system performs many others.

14/01/2019

REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM
KEY TERMS;
Term Meaning
Gamete A reproductive (s*x) cell. In males, s***m; in females, eggs
Puberty Process during which adolescents reach s*xual and reproductive maturity
Te**es Male reproductive gland that produces s***m and male hormones
Ovaries Female reproductive gland that produces eggs and female hormones
Menstrual cycle Pattern of events in females involving the development and release of an egg
Fertilization The process in s*xual reproduction in which a male gamete and female gamete fuse to form a new cell

26/09/2018