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1500 questions
37
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1 answer
What is this unusual structure inside this banana?
I was eating a banana, and I found this strange biological structure inside of it.
It was a bit tougher than the banana, and ran inside of the body through most of the length. To be clear, I peeled back banana with my fingers to reveal it; it was…
Phoenix
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Is a butterfly one or two animals?
I have read somewhere that a butterfly might be two animals that combined together. One animal was a worm-like creature and the other an insect.
And the insect basically hatched inside the worm. Somehow they combined into one creature.
Is there any…
zooby
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37
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3 answers
What does it mean to "write an image and GIF into the DNA of bacteria"?
BBC News recently published an article saying that:
An image and short film has been encoded in DNA, using the units of inheritance as a medium for storing information ...
The team sequenced the bacterial DNA to retrieve the gif and the image,…
PiratePi
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37
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What is itching?
What exactly at the molecular level is itching? What physiological function does itching serve, if any? I cant remember the reference but a PLCb3 null mice lost the itch phenotype, so presumably it is mediated by the Gq-PLCbeta pathway through a…
gkadam
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37
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3 answers
Do trees really get a large share of their mass from the carbon in the air?
I remember hearing that trees and other plants actually obtain a large amount of their mass from the carbon floating in the air, not the ground beneath them. Does the makeup of air actually contain enough carbon to support this theory, and is a…
Elliot Bonneville
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37
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1 answer
Is the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" beneficial for marine wildlife?
A study was just released by researchers at Scripps Institute of Oceanography revealing a drastic increase in the amount of plastic adrift in the Pacific Ocean. According to the paper, the amount of plastic in the North Pacific Subtropical…
samthebrand
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36
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2 answers
Is C. elegans always observed with precisely 302 neurons? Are there ever individual viable exceptions?
This answer mentions that the C. elegans hermaphrodite has exactly 302 distinct neurons. This has made it a very effective model for a variety of types of biological research, including neurology and cell differentiation. It is also currently the…
uhoh
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36
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2 answers
Are there any non-mammalian species known that lactate?
Are there any non-mammalian animals that produce milk to feed their young, or are mammals the only milk-producing animals?
Bohemian
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36
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1 answer
Does this recording sound like the pulses emitted by bats?
Out of curiosity, I recorded sounds in an area with lots of bats, hoping to be able to "hear" the bats communicating by lowering the ultrasound to a level down to the frequency which can be heard by a human.
After a bit of post-processing, I…
Arseni Mourzenko
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36
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2 answers
How many mosquitoes would it take to "drain" enough blood to put a person into shock?
I'm just curious, how many mosquito "bites" (mosquitoes which have removed blood from a person) would it take to remove enough blood to put a person into shock? (Putting aside all reasons why it wouldn't happen, how many would it take?)
Nolohice
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36
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3 answers
Why don't teeth glow?
Hydroxyapatite is the main component of tooth enamel. It contains phosphorus in the form of phosphates, pyrophosphates etc. that are found to exhibit the the property of phosphorescence. But why don't the teeth glow in the dark ?
Stp30
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36
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2 answers
Why do we have two kidneys but one liver?
Both the liver and the kidneys are involved in "cleaning" our blood. But why we have one liver and two kidneys? I can just as well imagine that we have two livers and one kidney. Is this just a coincidence?
Deschele Schilder
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35
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7 answers
If plants benefit from carbon dioxide, why is car traffic something bad?
This is going to sound really stupid or as a joke, but... Ever since I was a little kid, I have been confused about the following:
Humans need air/oxygen to breathe in order to live.
Plants/trees/bushes/flowers produce this oxygen, and are thus…
Karlin
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35
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2 answers
Who are humans' closest relatives, after primates?
This question here addresses the controversy of whether humans are more closely related to bonobos or chimps.
My question is - which group of animals are are closest relatives, beyond primates? Or which group of animals are all primates most…
dwjohnston
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35
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1 answer
Can someone identify this ant?
This is one of seven ant queens I just collected yesterday morning (2015-09-21 9AM) around home.
I live in Hong Kong, at a hillside facing south. The weather was as follows (Hong Kong Observatory Daily Weather Summary, Hong Kong Observatory Daily…
Kal
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