Biology

[Vekurama]

I'm intresting in sharing and learning new iformation of recent studies in the field of Biology and Biochemistry. Please post.

[Nuts]

To begin a thread in the Intellectual Rountable, you must put forth some thought or a hypothesis or at the very least an opinion. This is not a random discussion forum.

Please check the Members Lounge for such discussions.

Welcome to the forums.

[Schwitzer]

Would you be interested in things relating to biotechnology? There's been some interesting things happening in that field lately...

[Magmaniac]

Alls I gots so fars this:

Humans != Fish
Humans =< Fish

this took years of careful research on my part, and THE GOVERNMENT REFUSED TO FUND MY RESEARCH!!!
Can you beleive that?
I mean come on, this is important shit here.

[Vekurama]

Ok maybe you could explain how this relates; humans=fish, how did you come to that conclusion?

[Xenon]

Ok maybe you could explain how this relates; humans=fish, how did you come to that conclusion?

Actually, he said Humans!=Fish. In programming this means Humans are not equal to fish. Then he said Humans=<Fish. In programming this means Fish are greater than humans. If he wanted to say Humans are equal to Fish, he would have said Humans == Fish.

[Schwitzer]

Yes. Magmaniac was making some kind of joke, which probably falls short of the sorts of posts you were hoping to receive in reply to your thread...

[Mindslaver]

I'm finding morphogenesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogenesis) to be very interesting. Basically, a zygote is composed of only stem cells. How are these cells directed of their own accord to differentiate into various types of cells, and how do they know how to arrange themselves in three-dimensional space?

[Vekurama]

I've also been fasinated in the field of morphogenesis. I've been reaserching a lot on Gap Genes recently.

[TinyDancer]

Gap Jeans, on sale now, $44! :P

[singo]

So long and thanks for all the fish.....
So sad that it should come to this....

http://til.gamingsource.net/dogate/til_fishystick.jpg

Have a fishystick....

[Vekurama]

Gap Jeans, on sale now, $44! :P

:D That was the first science related joke I have ever laughed to. Good one.

[TinyDancer]

:D That was the first science related joke I have ever laughed to. Good one.

Wow. I wasn't even trying on that one..thanks.

[Black.Ice]

Gap Jeans, on sale now, $44! :P

That got me to laugh as well. :)

I really haven't kept up with biological news lately. I was into it several years ago, however, my interest has faded significantly. Don't get me wrong, I still find some of it fascinating.

[Spdstr]

Gap Jeans, on sale now, $44! :P

Um, spam anyone?

So is this post, but just saying...

Member,
~ Spdstr

[Magmaniac]

How dare you disregard my hard found conclusions a joke.
Were you real, I would slap you, but you are only in my head.

[GenocideAlive]

There's something called "microRNA" that's a slight shift in the paradigm of biological dogma.

Basically there are little 20-25 base pair strands of antisense RNA floating around that bind certain RNA sites to prevent them from being coded. While extremely simple, the impact on biology at all levels of life is pretty tremendous. miRNA profiling is being done, to see which miRNAs are active in which body parts at which time, and to attempt to detect novel miRNAs for better categorization and understanding of their roles.

It's an extremely simple contributor, but if you know much about biology, the impact is far-reaching and pretty tremendous.

[Cyberspirit]

Finally, a useful post.

And don't forget the recent advances in cloning that allow us to grow new tissue that would fit perfectly into our own systems (i.e. they would not be attacked by the body's immune system because genetically, the new tissue is identical with the system), allowing us to repair damaged tissue much more easily.

I should take this chance to clarify one point:

cloning != duplication
(genetic cloning is NOT making an exact copy of a person !)

Why this is obvious :
identical twins are even more genetically related than any clones that scientists can create (because i twins share similar mitochondrial as well as nuclear DNA, while lab clones only share similar nuclear DNA with the original organisms).
Yet, you cannot deny that each of the two twins is still a unique individual, with his/her own thoughts and even slightly different physical traits acquired late in life. OK, I have heard of the telepathy and stuff, but an intimate relationship does not imply a single merged identity.

Back to biotech: there was recently an interest in using bacteriophages to combat illness caused by bacteria. Phage viruses seem only to attack bacteria, and they keep multiplying until every bacteria nearby is dead, so even one or two phages can stem an entire bacterial infection without doing damage to the human body.
Currently, this method is popular only in Georgia ( and some Caucasus countries) but I think it would be widely used around the world once doctors figure out how to create phages that target particular bacteria

A group of scientists are figuring out how to use diatoms to create microscopic structures for use in nano-machines.
Diatoms are uni-cellular chromists("brown algae") that build intricate but durable glass shell around their single cells. The scientists figured that if they could alter the diatoms slightly to mass-produce microscopic cog-wheels, pins, screws etc, they could save a phenomenal amount of energy and resources previously devoted to nano-machining.

More biology to come ...