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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Is there a living thing smaller than a virus?

« on: 31/08/2017 20:00:21 »

Those things must be gold mines for genes. I only recall learning that a dozen transcription/translation targets were packed into a virus.

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Is there a living thing smaller than a virus?

« on: 31/08/2017 15:33:48 »

Imagining a virus with 1 million bps is absurd. It's capsid proteins must be unusual. For a virus to be larger than protozoans and bacteria, I don't know. Unless of course the virus has found a way to efficiently pack the DNA and RNA more so than cellular lifeforms.

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Is there a living thing smaller than a virus?

« on: 31/08/2017 13:15:27 »

DNA, RNA, protein aside, is there anything smaller? I was thinking of the boundaries between biology and chemistry/physics.

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Is there a living thing smaller than a virus?

« on: 30/08/2017 22:48:03 »

Assuming that viruses are the smallest form of living matter, is there evidence for something biological and smaller than them?

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Engineering a virus to kill cancer: what virus would you use?

« on: 30/08/2017 22:46:25 »

Some sort of phage on E. coli probably, but only if chemo and radiation therapies are not working.

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Is there any useful writing on whether human reproductive cloning should be allowed?

« on: 09/09/2016 01:50:53 »

There's a lot of recent public announcements from China about genetically engineering human embryos with CRISPR. So really the next step would be to grow those embryos to maturity, which is probably one of the biggest obstacles in the science of cloning. Human embryos are required to be discarded and not allowed to be grown past a certain number of cell divisions or hours, but animals have already been cloned (Dolly the sheep) for a long time. You can even get your pet cloned and South Korea has, I believe, the best facilities for that.

It's probably not a matter of if it should be allowed, but when it will actually start publicly happening. It's probably been already done.

In terms of writing, look up ethical papers about CRISPR editing of human embryos and about Korean animal cloning facilities.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Are spider webs edible, for spiders or humans?

« on: 09/09/2016 01:35:24 »

The protein can be broken down in our stomach's acid.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: How does the brain control our handwriting?

« on: 09/09/2016 01:30:54 »

I would say writing is mostly learned/nurtured and not genetic, but we have had fine precision tool use for millions of years, so maybe some genetic elements for fine motor skills evolved for us to write better thus far.

Basically, to write requires several motor neurons extending from the hand to the brain. Vision allows for us to control and correct our muscles with these neurons to write. There's lots of muscle memory involved as well since our handwriting is consistent every time we write.

Our psychology could have an affect on our writing. Some people might prefer one style of lettering (blocky versus cursive) based on their personal preferences. I don't think there has been research confirming that cool people have good hand writing.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is the earth flat?

« on: 09/09/2016 01:23:35 »

Okay so my math needs some corrections (I blame you guys lol), I think. According to some other forums, because the buildings are partially visible, the earth is round. I'm going to spend some time soon correcting the math to support the hypothesis that objects disappear under curvature.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is the earth flat?

« on: 04/09/2016 18:53:15 »

I finished the experiment. Here's the video:

Thanks for your support!

I wonder what people think.

EDIT: link not working, maybe this: youtu.be/QwQExaWbzSw

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: What is the effect of disinfectant on HIV?

« on: 03/09/2016 07:27:53 »

HIV is an enveloped virus. This means that the core of the virus, which contains the genetic information, is wrapped up in an oily layer. Sticking out of this oily envelope are the "receptor" molecules that are used by the virus particle to attach to - and infect - target cells.

What is the oil made of?

The envelope is stable only in an aqueous (watery) environment. This means that while it is in blood the virus remains viable. But transferred to an external surface, which will dry out, the virus will also dry and the envelope will be disrupted. When this happens the receptors upon which it depends for infectivity will also be disrupted and hence the virus is incapable of infecting.

How does an oily virus gain access to an aqueous environment when oil and water don't mix?

At the same time, in the environment the virus is exposed to ultraviolet rays which chemically destroy the nucleic acid (RNA) that comprises the viral genomes (each particle has 2 copies of its genome). This mutates the virus out of existence, further reducing viability.

How can a virus which is dead by ultraviolet light can infect other people at the same time?

The "oily" refers to fatty acids which are in a bilayer. The FAs have a hydrophillic head and hydrophobic tail, the tails touch one another. So the oil and water analogy makes it so that the pressures exerted in the aqueous environment keep the viral envelope intact. If a virus is dead by UV, if it's DNA/RNA is inactivated, its receptor proteins may still be activated and can insert the damaged DNA/RNA, which in most cases does nothing or some very rare things.

Disinfectant on very dirty surfaces may be effective for HIV cleaning. Biofilms caused by large amounts of bacteria may harbour viruses as well. Mucosal, phlegmy and bloody surfaces for example. So disinfectant to destroy the biofilm and virus is a good strategy. Otherwise, if the surface is relatively clean, like a lab bench, then that would be a waste. A good strategy may be to simply disinfect the surface before and after use. But once per day would probably be way more than enough because a surface exposed to regular air is unlikely to get HIV on it, unless you are in a hospital with bleeding HIV patients.

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Where are all the bees?

« on: 03/09/2016 02:30:49 »

Also came across something that said bees sperm count were extremely lowered. Recently in South Carolina spraying of farms wiped out colonies nearby too.

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Can Viruses be Considered as Zoetic (Living) Beings?

« on: 16/08/2016 05:59:59 »

Yes, viruses are living beings in my opinion. I would consider something alive if it can reproduce it's atomic structure and information. Viruses meet these criteria because they can produce more virus particles from infecting cells using the information encoded in their DNA. Just because they need another living thing, a host, to replicate still makes them alive. Bigger living things need environments with nutrients, energy, etc. and viruses simply use living things as their environment.

However, these general criteria could extend to things not considered biologically alive, such as computer viruses, certain rocks/minerals and who knows what else.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is the earth flat?

« on: 16/08/2016 05:22:25 »

Of course the earth is flat... there is so much here to prove it......

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/home/index.php/flat-earth-library/library-books

LOL.

A dozen or so books is at least something. But compared to the thousands (or more) on globe earth or based on it?

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Plant Sciences, Zoology & Evolution / Re: Which evolved first, the human skin, blood, or the human heart?

« on: 14/08/2016 06:45:32 »

My first thought was about the definitions and specificity like Bored Chemist pointed out.

You probably left out the human in blood, so I'll assume human blood and not just generic blood (whatever that is). I'm interpreting this question as what is most unique and most different from the last common ancestor of humans (homo sapiens), a great ape probably, to humans. Hearts are quite universal, transplant of hearts can occur between human and pigs, I've read, and probably apes. Blood is also somewhat universal and there are some differences in antigens and blood groups between species, but not enough that can't be edited such that transfusions are impossible. So the heart and blood is not uniquely human, but skin is probably what makes humans human more than anything. It was probably the first thing to evolve and distinguish the first member from its previous species.

More than anything, I would say the brain though.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: Does the temperature of your food affect the energy it gives you?

« on: 14/08/2016 06:26:07 »

The body incorporates nutrients into itself and keeps them at 37 degrees Celsius. I think that if you eat something cold, the body would have to heat it up first, spending energy and metabolizing a few things to put that heat into the cold thing, which burns calories/joules. The body needs to maintain homeostasis. Alternatively, things over 37 degrees would give you heat and more calories.

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Physiology & Medicine / Re: When is the optimal time post-vaccination to measure MMR titres?

« on: 14/08/2016 06:21:08 »

Off the top of my head, a month, probably more to be safe. Reasons for this are that the vaccine has live attenuated virus particles, meaning the virus can still infect you but it won't do harm. So it takes a while for the virus to go through all it's cycles because it is still alive and for the immune system to recognize it and grant immunity to the host.

cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/mumps/vac-faqs-tech.htm says 80%+ people have immunity after a month.

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Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Is the earth flat?

« on: 14/08/2016 06:08:33 »

Hoping to do my first expedition soon but the weather is incredibly hot and I'll cook under the sun in the couple hours I need to do this.

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Science Experiments / Re: Biotechnology-related experiments.. Can you suggest any?

« on: 06/08/2016 05:55:14 »

A long time ago I recall watching banana DNA being extracted into a tube. Lots of results if you google banana DNA extraction.

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Cells, Microbes & Viruses / Re: Could we alter virus' to make them easier to kill?

« on: 06/08/2016 05:50:14 »

It's definitely possible to engineer a virus to make it susceptible to something. For example, a dormant gene can be added such that when the virus infects the host, that dormant gene is activated by a harmless drug that the host can take. Once the drug is in the host, the now active gene produces some kind of product that prevents the virus from replicating further or destroys it.

There are tons of problems with this approach I described. It would be difficult to deliver this system into all the viral particles that are out there. Viruses also mutate very rapidly and would select out or disable this system quite fast.

Vaccination of hosts and genetically engineering hosts against viruses is much more effective and is used today.