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1500 questions
11
votes
1 answer
Why do chickens not try to get up if laid on their backs?
I've seen a few videos about chickens being laid on their backs for a few seconds after which the chickens stay in that position until they are turned over. Comments around the video suggested that lying on their backs is a very unnatural position…
user1306322
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What is basis of multifunctionality of "master glands" in the endocrine system?
I have just started reading about the endocrine system and I am having some difficulty understanding the basis of distribution of glands and associated hormones.
I am using multifuntionality to describe the amount of relatively independent input and…
hkjairam
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11
votes
2 answers
How are antibodies designed?
Antibodies have the ability of recognising highly specific peptide sequences and bind it at their antigen-binding site.
This ability is harnessed as a tool in research to purify target structures in the cell (e.g. in chromatin immunoprecipitation,…
Konrad Rudolph
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11
votes
1 answer
What is the mass of a pigeon tail feather?
There is question at Space.SE If I drop a feather from orbit, would it burn up or “hit” the ground? there is an attempt to answer the question, but the mass of pigeon tail feather and possibly the drag coefficient is required to complete the answer.…
James Jenkins
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11
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1 answer
Do fish break a water molecule to absorb oxygen?
How do fish separate oxygen from H20 & consume it? Do they break the water molecule and absorb the oxygen only?
Zo Has
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11
votes
1 answer
Sequence evolution simulation tool
I'm looking for a tool to simulate sequence evolution given a specific mutation model and birth-death model. I'm aware of tools and packages like INDELible, Seq-Gen and PhyloSim, but they simulate evolution along phylogenetic trees. What I want is…
Eli Korvigo
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11
votes
1 answer
What is the connection between sleep requirement and age?
By this question: Is the human biological clock genetically programmed or learnt? we discussed that the sleep requirement depends on the age of the individual.
- Figure 1. - Sleep requirements by age - ref
I thought I ask the question, why?
inf3rno
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11
votes
1 answer
What kind of memory is "keyboard/keypad memory"?
I work in IT and I have observed many people who cannot remember their iPhone passwords or computer passwords off the top of their head. However, if presented with a keyboard or a phone with a functioning keypad, they can instantly remember exactly…
yuritsuki
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11
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4 answers
Why is it sometimes difficult to resuspend E. coli in P1?
It's a curiosity question. When I'm doing minipreps after pelleting the bacteria sometimes it's very easy to resuspend them in P1 (Qiagen kit), but sometimes they form a rubbery clump that is very hard to break up with a pipette and I have to vortex…
Maciej Trybiło
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11
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1 answer
What is the base cancer rate for an arbitrary carcinogen?
Are all carcinogens equally potent? Is the relationship between dose and probability of cancer roughly equal, or are there some carcinogens that provoke cancer significantly more than their cousins?
Chris Wenham
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11
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2 answers
Do antibiotics attenuate immune response on subsequent exposure to same bacteria?
A healthy immune response to a bacterial infection includes "memory" to permit the body to thwart subsequent exposure to same bacteria. What are the dynamics of using antibiotics on initial exposure to the bacteria regarding a possible degradation…
Scott Stensland
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11
votes
1 answer
Coincidence that navel is near the womb?
The attachment point of the umbilical cord in a baby girl is very close to where her own baby would develop. Is there something in the evolutionary history of mammals that explains this, or some anatomical constraint? Or is it just a coincidence?
tim_hutton
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3 answers
Is it possible for a parasitic wasp to alter the behaviour of its host after emerging from it?
I know that parasitic wasp larvae can live for a long time inside their live host (eg. caterpillar), but I always thought that they kill the host when they eventually get out of it. But I've seen a film, where it's shown that not only can a…
Marta Cz-C
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11
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1 answer
Why are there nail growth differences between humans and other mammals?
When a cat is growing, his nails are growing with him to some extent. A grown cat has a fixed nail length that is not extending.
By contrast, human finger nails just keep on growing, so we have to cut them to keep an aesthetically pleasing…
Maxim V. Pavlov
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11
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Why can I see a light flicker when it's in my peripheral vision?
When I'm looking at an old CRT monitor or a worn fluorescent lamp, but not directly in the center of my gaze, the light from it seems to flicker. When I focus my gaze onto the monitor or lamp, the flickering stops.
Why can I see a light flicker only…
Marc Dingena
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