Biology Forums - Study Force

Post something interesting and accurate that is related to biology / science...

I'll start:

Like humans, armadillos (below) can suffer from the disease leprosy. There are also cases of transmission of this disease from an armadillo to human.

RVF is a viral disease which is serious in both animals and humans, and which leads to high rates of mortality. Sheep and goats are among the species affected by the disease. Sheep in particular are susceptible to the virus. Outbreaks occur in sub-Saharan and North Africa . The disease is spread among animals by biting mosquitoes. Humans can become infected through the bite of a mosquito or through contact with the blood or bodily fluids of infected animals.

Only 15% of the world's population can wiggle their ears!

The muscles that control ear wiggling are the Auriculares muscles that surround the outer ear (the part we can see). Aside from once being able to impress your friends on the schoolyard, they've never been much use to you.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Gray906.png)

I like this post:

Here is a strange fact... Enterobiasis is a condition in which pinworms squirm out of your ass at night to lay their eggs in the folds of your anus. In fact, one out of every ten people who read this post is currently infected with Enterobius vermicularis pinworms.

lol

To avoid predators, a mother Slow Loris licks its offspring with poison before sending them off to search for food.

Bananas are best eaten during menstruation, because the content of calcium and glucose to help stabilize serotonin levels. :hey:

Hummingbird is the only bird that can fly upside down. :hey:

http://www.creativelynx.ca/Images/hummingbird.jpg (http://www.creativelynx.ca/Images/hummingbird.jpg)

“Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.” (Albert Einstein) HA HA

Apparently, scientists found out that the bacteria that thrive in arsenic have VIRTUALLY NOTHING IN COMMON with ALL known living beings !!! If that is true then it has either ET origin –or- life on earth had, at least, two different beginnings !!!

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/files/2010/12/Mono_lake_arsenic_bacteria.jpg (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/files/2010/12/Mono_lake_arsenic_bacteria.jpg)

Starfish have no brains. :-:)

In sea horses, the male becomes pregnant then the female:) how cool.
Lucky female!

The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'!

The purpose of eyebrows is to keep sweat from running into the eyes.

The human heart beats an average of 35,000,000 times per year – thus, the average human heart beats around 100,000 times per day

Dolphins sleep with one eye open!

did u know?
While we're awake, our brain generates enough power to illuminate a light bulb of 25 watts.

Elephants can hear through their feet.

On average, people fear spiders more then they do death.

If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months, and 6 days, you would  have produced enough sound energy to heat up one cup of coffee.

You shed and regrow your skin every 28 days, that's about 1000 times in a lifetime.

Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

Mammalian blood is red, insect blood is yellow, and lobster blood is blue.

Males of the African goliath beetle is the heaviest insect in the world. They have a length of 110 mm and weighs 100 grams. If the weight is increased a little bit alone, surely he will not move.

(http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/resources/Goliath%20Beetle.jpg?timestamp=1263328792282)

Petting an Irritated Goliath Beetle (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRqPXPGYSc8#)

Mitochondria have their own unique DNA which replicates inside the mitochondria.

During reproduction, mitochondria are passed on from the mother; therefore, the offspring has a rendition of the mother’s mitochondria.

The only present day bacteria to look like a mitochondrion is the bacteria species, Rickettsia prowazekii. Its DNA and the DNA of mitochondria are very similar. It also shares its size.

For each litre of gasoline used in a car, 2.3 kilograms of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.

http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/files/2011/02/platypus_zoom.jpeg (http://blogs.plos.org/speakeasyscience/files/2011/02/platypus_zoom.jpeg)

The Platypus is stranger than you think.

Platypuses have no nipples.  After the young hatch, the mother oozes milk from the pores all over her body.

The male platypus has a poison barb on the inside of its hind legs.  The purpose of this weapon is uncertain.

While often compared to the beaver, the platypus is only about 20 inches in length -- more comparable to the size of the muskrat.

The Platypus bill is actually just an elongated muzzle covered with much the same kind of tough skin found on a dog's nose.  This bill contains an electrically-sensitive organ that can detect the electrical signatures of the small aquatic animals it eats.

The praying mantis has excellent eyesight and can see up to about 50 feet away.

Where did you read this from, that's freaking cool! lol

The coldest temperature ever recorded in North America was -63oC at Snag, Yukon on February 3, 1947.

and backwards!

Aaa... so they mammary glands, but no nipples. Interesting :)

Barnacles have penises up to 8 times their body size!

With penises up to 8 times their body size, Barnacles have the biggest penises of all animals.
Compelled to mate, yet firmly attached to the rock, barnacles have evolved the longest penis of any animal for their size – up to 8 times their body length – so they can find and fertilize distant neighbours.

(http://www.hiltonpond.org/images/KatydidBushFProfile01.jpg)

Katydid bugs hear with their feet

Some animals do remarkable things with their feet. The butterfly for example taste with its feet. The Katydid bug, also known as bush-cricket, is another creature that does remarkable things with its feet; Katydid bugs hear with their feet. Their ears tympana (hearing organs) are placed on their front legs.

Bombardier beetles can shoot boiling toxics from their behinds

(http://www.apologeticspress.org/image/docsdis/dc-03-08a.jpg)

Bombardier beetles have one of the most remarkable and sophisticated defense mechanisms seen in any animal. When threatened, bombardier beetles spray the suspected attacker with a boiling hot mixture of caustic chemicals. The predator hears a loud pop, then finds itself bathed in a cloud of toxins reaching 212o F (100 oC). Even more impressive, the bombardier beetle can aim the poisonous eruption in the direction of the harasser.

Only the female mosquito bites you

(http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/publichealth/images/mosquito/popups/mosquito01.jpg)

Only female mosquitoes bite (bite! mosquitoes don’t sting!). Mosquitoes don’t typically feed on blood, but the female needs the blood to develop her eggs. Male mosquitoes normally feed on nectar and plant juices. That’s why only female mosquitoes bite.

The Hippopotamus is one of the most dangerous animals in the world

The somewhat funny looking hippopotamus is responsible for more human fatalities than any other large animal. The hippopotamus is by nature a very aggressive animal, even more when they have young calves. Hippopotamuses are known to attack people in their boats or on land without any provocation; being there is enough for the hippo to start attacking you!

Butterflies taste with their feet

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_fP1y4T5-DFE/TNw6DndA_3I/AAAAAAAADkY/oqDdCXhQgPk/s1600/smithsonian-butterflies.jpg)

The taste receptors of a butterfly are placed on its feet? A butterfly’s sense of taste is coordinated by chemoreceptors on the tarsi, or feet, which work only on contact, and are used to determine whether an egg-laying insect’s offspring will be able to feed on a leaf before eggs are laid on it. A female butterfly lands on different plants, drumming the leaves with her feet to make the plant release its juices. Spines on the back of her legs have chemoreceptors that detect the right match of plant chemicals. When she identified the right plant, she lays her eggs. A butterfly will also step on its food, using organs that sense dissolved sugars to taste food sources like fermenting fruit.

A bee has five eyes

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_-fxaDP5WWbI/TA7gYGrPlRI/AAAAAAAAAGk/eTJOK5wv9UE/s1600/sm_Anatomy+Bee.jpg)

A bee has five eyes; three simple eyes, or ocelli, and two compound eyes. The compound eyes are made of lots of small, repeating eye parts called ommatidia. In each compound eye, about 150 ommatidia specialize in seeing patterns.

Octopuses get erections

Octopuses can get erections, according to US researchers. The male octopus seems to have an inflatable organ, called the ligula, on one of its arms. This is the so called ‘mating arm’. The structure of the ligula is remarkably similar to mammal penises and clitorises, so say the researchers. It has cavities that fill with blood held together by collagen. Male octopuses produce a packet of sperm and insert it into their mate using this specialized arm. When all goes according to plan, the ligula is deployed inside the female, obscuring its function and size. It might help to transfer sperm, or it might scrub out the sperm of previous mates. The organ is bright white, lacking the colour-changing cells that camouflage the rest of the octopus. In the two-spot, which hunts by day, this might be a beacon to predators. Shrinking it away might minimize this risk. I guess the female octopi can be glad he has this organ on only one of his many arms!

interesting

Thanks

The longest time someone has been awake is 264 hours.

The longest someone went on without any sleep was 264, which is 11 days!

This remarkable record was set in 1964, when Randy Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours. He was 17 years old at the time of his record. He stayed awake without using stimulants of any kind.

After completing his record, Gardner slept 14 hours and 40 minutes, awoke naturally around 10:00 p.m., stayed awake 24 hours, then slept a normal eight hours.

There are quite a few claims of beating this record, but none are documented enough to make it official. The Guiness Book of Records has decided not to include this record anymore because of the health risks.

Women’s tears lessen sexual arousal in men

Men who smell women’s tears have lower levels of testosterone and less physiological arousal than men who smell a saline solution.

This is the outcome of a research into the presence of chemical signals in tears of women.
The researchers knew that mouse tears contain pheromones that convey information to other mice. So they looked for similar kinds of signals in human tears.

Two women volunteered to watch sad movies and have their tears collected. Twenty-four men were then asked to sniff the movie tears or a saline solution. The men noted no particular smell in either sample of salty water. But the men?s own body chemistry could tell the difference.

When the men looked at emotionally neutral images of women?s faces after sniffing real tears, they reported less sexual attraction. The men also had lower levels of testosterone and less physiological arousal after smelling emotional tears compared with saline. Future studies will look at men's tears, once researchers have collected enough videos of heartbreaking losses in big football games.

Love can ease pain

According to Stanford University researchers Love might ease pain.

Brain scans suggest many of the areas normally involved in pain response are also activated by amorous thoughts.

Stanford University researchers gave 15 students mild doses of pain, while checking if they were distracted by gazing at photos of their beloved.

The study focused on people early in a romance, journal PLoS One reported, so the “drug of love” may wear off.

It has been known for some time that strong feelings of love are linked to intense activity in several different brain regions.

These include areas linked to the brain chemical dopamine, which produces the brain’s feel-good state following certain stimulants – from eating sweets to taking cocaine.
They found that viewing the picture of their beloved reduced perceptions of pain much more than looking at the image of the acquaintance.

Dr Jarred Younger, one of the researchers involved, said that the “love-induced analgesia” appeared to involve more primitive functions of the brain, working in a similar way to opioid painkillers.

The biggest frog is almost the size of a house cat

(http://www.didyouknowthat.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/goliath.jpg)

The Goliath frog is the biggest frog in the world and can grow up to 33cm (13 inches) in length and can weigh up to 3kg (8 lb).

The goliath frog lives mainly in Cameroun and Equatorial Guinea. The frog can live up to 15 years and it eats mainly crabs.

Strawberries are a member of the rose family

Strawberries are a member of the rose family. The garden strawberry belongs to the roses family. The Rosaceae is the rose family. Even more surprisingly might be the fact that also apples, apricots, plums, cherries, peaches, pears, raspberries and even almonds belong to the rose family.

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_z4vuxqrLY3c/TCJHRuBpE1I/AAAAAAAAA5Q/jbE9GD4-RQU/s320/strawberry.jpg)

The Golden Dart Frog is the most poisonous animal in the world

(http://animalreview.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/new-picture-42.png)

Phyllobates terribilis, the Golden Dart Frog, is a poison dart frog endemic to the Pacific coast of Colombia. This amphibian of the family Dendrobatidae is currently considered the most poisonous vertebrate worldwide. This poison dart frog is confirmed to have killed humans who touched the wild frog directly. It carries enough poison to kill around 20 people.

The Golden Poison Frog’s skin is drenched in alkaloid poison, one of a number of poisons common to dart frogs (batrachotoxins) which prevents nerves from transmitting impulses, leaving the muscles in an inactive state of contraction. This can lead to heart failure or fibrillation. Alkaloid batrachotoxins can be stored by frogs for years after the frog is deprived of a food-based source, and such toxins do not readily deteriorate, even when transferred to another surface. Chickens and dogs have died from contact with a paper towel on which a frog had walked.

The average dose carried will vary between locations, and consequent local diet, but the average wild P. terribilis is generally estimated to contain about one milligram of poison, enough to kill about 10,000 mice. This estimate will vary in turn, but most agree that this dose is enough to kill between 10 and 20 humans, which correlates to up to two African bull elephants. This is roughly 15,000 humans per gram.

oh nice. .thanks for info. .can i know how it is embryologicaly proved?

Intersting. thanks for sharing

Hi, read up on this:

Prothero D.R, Schoch R. M (2003). Horns, Tusks, and Flippers: The Evolution of Hoofed Mammals. Johns Hopkins University Press.

It describes the evidence :)

my professor said today that lemon iced tea is worse for your teeth than coca cola

Did he give a reason?

Because the lemon in the ice tea is more acidic than coke

lol Interesting

Femur is a bone in our human body which is present in both arm and thigh region. .it is the strongest bone and can with stand upto 70lbs pressure

Mice genome is approximately equal to the human genome. .So the researchers use mice as key Species. .!

Human have enough carbon's to make 900 Pencil's! and enough fats to make 9 soap bars!

Human Heart is the only engine with 4 valve and 4 piston which works non-stoply :hey: Without getting heated !!

Science Miracle_ Meditation is a old thing but it is advance than present science !!! It is only technique to alter a cellular function without giving any physical or chemical disturbance !!!

Future is Hydrogen!!!!!!!!! Hydrogen is abundant in earth Which is planned to b used as future vehicular fuel. .though it is a natural component, so there will b NO POLLUTION OR  END FOR SOURCE!

Not in it's pure form (elemental form). I think it's a big myth and absurd to think that hydrogen will save us from our fuel crisis.

NO it was proved n BMW car company have used in one new car which works with Hydrogen

Each person sheds 40lbs of skin in his or her lifetime.

But like Duddy said, while it is the most abundant element, it is not found naturally in its elemental form.

So what?. In that hydrogen car ,H is used as combustion fuel ,either in liquid form or gaseous form. . so it works !

You're missing the point, it takes A LOT of energy to produce pure hydrogen. We want to reduce the amount of energy we use!

Ya,i missed that point. .but i just posted because after the solar it was the talk

 :-X[- Memory -]
During experiments conducted in 1962 at the University of Michigan, scientists successfully extracted memory from one animal and transferred it to another. The experiment was conducted in the following manner. Over a period of time planarian worms were trained to behave in a particular way when exposed to light. These worms were then cut into pieces and fed to untrained planarians, and the untrained worms were put through the same learning paces as their predecessors. The second batch of worms, those that had dined on the first, learned many times faster than the originals, indicating that knowledge had somehow been transferred through body tissue. Similar experiments were later conducted at Baylor University: mice were trained to run through a maze, and an extract was then made of their brains. This extract was fed to untrained mice, which then learned the same maze twice as fast as their predecessors. If placed in a different maze, the untrained mice showed no particular aptitude for learning the layout. The implication of these experiments is that memory can be transferred from one being to another somatically as well as experientially.

looks nice,huh :thi:

 :-[[- Cockroach -]
They can live several weeks with their head cut off.

<<- Extinction ->>
More than 99.9 percent of all animal species that have ever lived on earth were extinct before the coming of man. :'( :(

 8)Only in one single cell, there are 100,000 chemical reactions that take place every second.

Ten of the 105 known Elements had been discovered and were in use in prehistoric times: gold, silver, lead, iron, copper, zinc, tin, sulfur, carbon, and mercury. The largest individual contribution to the table of Elements was that of the nineteenth century English chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, who identified boron, barium, calcium, potassium, sodium, and strontium in 1807 and 1808. He also demonstrated that diamonds are composed of pure carbon and discovered the hilarious properties of nitrous oxide --"laughing gas."

What do you mean by live? Do you mean that the insect can simply move or actually work towards a goal, i.e. find food, mate? Remember, after killing a cockroach or any bug, you still have random nerve impulses that stimulate parts of its body to move, causing small contractions of random muscles. These nerves are scattered throughout the body, similar to chickens, snakes, etc. ;)

A peanut is neither a pea or a nut

It sounds strange but it’s true; a peanut is no pea and its also no nut. A peanut is a legume.
The peanut, or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea), is a species in the legume or “bean” family.
After pollination, the fruit develops into a legume 3 to 7 cm (1.2 to 2.8 in) long, containing 1 to 4 seeds, which forces its way underground to mature. Hypogaea means “under the earth.”

(http://thesunnysidesup.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/toasted_peanut_in_shell1.jpg)

Square melons are grown in Japan

(http://www.didyouknowthat.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/square-watermelon2.gif)

Because watermelons can take up a lot of space because they are round, the Japanese decided to solve this problem by growing square watermelons. It is actualy quite straight forward to do this: simply place a strong square casing around the watermelon while it is still growing on the vine and you will end up with a square melon that you can stack and store easy!

Fruit flies have the longest sperm in the world

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Drosophila_melanogaster_-_side_(aka).jpg)

Drosophila, the really small flies better known as ‘fruit flies’ are known to have the longest sperm cells in the world. Although the fly itself is only 2-4 millimeters long, the sperm cells are 58mm (2.3in) long! This is over 1250 times as large as the human sperm cell, which measures only 0.046mm.

Kangaroo rats can live without drinking any water

(http://nature.ca/notebooks/images/img/153_p_0052_p.jpg)

Kangaroo rats live in arid and semi-arid areas of Canada, the US and Mexico. The kangaroo rat has the ability to live without the need to drink any water, if it has its normal diet with hydrocarbons available.

The rat has a very water-efficient metabolism. Their kidneys are at least four times more efficient at retaining water and excreting salt than a human kidney.
If certain animals need little (or no) water this is often explained by the fact the animal gets the water from eating the plants’ leaves and roots as they are getting the moisture that is in those plants.

The kangaroo rat however has a special ability; they manufacture the water through a metabolic process called ‘oxidative phosphorylation’, which basically means it is gaining water from burning the food it eats. You get carbon dioxide and water as waste products if you ‘burn’ carbohydrates.

Debunked: A lemon contains more sugar than a strawberry

(http://www.cookbookpeople.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/lemon-strawberry.jpg)

Another remarkable fact that is well spread around the internet; A lemon contains more sugar than a strawberry. The acid within the lemon would mask the sweetness of the sugar, so is the explanation.

To determine if this is true we first need to agree on how to compare the two, since a lemon is of course much bigger and heavier than one strawberry. To make a fair comparison we should look at the amount of sugar per a certain amount of substance, lets take the standard of 100gram.

Then we will see that a lemon contains 2.50g sugar per 100g, and a strawberry contains 5g sugar per 100g. Twice the amount of that of a lemon!

So we can safely conclude this fact is not true and debunked; A strawberry contains in fact twice as much sugar as a lemon.

The koala bear is not a bear

The koala is often referred to as the ‘koala bear’, but it actually is not a real bear. The koala is a marsupial, just like a kangaroo.

The word koala comes from the Dharuk gula. The word is erroneously said to mean “doesn’t drink”. English-speaking settlers from the late 18th century first called it koala bear due to its similarity in appearance to bears and until today the koala is frequently referred to as the koala bear.

(http://medicineden.webs.com/Telepathy,%20dreamworker,%20lucid%20dreaming,%20intuition,%20meditation,%20mother-child%20bond.jpg)

The Albatross has a wing span of up to 14 feet and only needs to land once every couple of years to breed. They can travel hundreds of thousands of miles each flight.!

Honeybees have hair on their eyes.

The Earth and the diversity of life it harbors continues to surprise us. This year, researchers found some truly astounding creatures that had been unknown to science even through centuries of exploration. While some of these newfound species were found in remote, little-visited corners of the world, others were hiding in seemingly plain sight.

Here, OurAmazingPlanet takes a look of at some of the new species found in 2010.

Head-Bobbing Lemur

A new long-tongued, squirrel-sized species of lemur was discovered in Madagascar this year and announced on Dec. 13.

The new creature doesn't have a species name yet, but is of the genus Phaner, otherwise known as fork-marked lemurs. The long-tongued species has a unique head-bobbing move that showed up in the flashlight beam as discoverers searched the treetops for a glimpse of the animal.

The lemur was first spotted during a 1995 expedition by Conservation International president and primate expert Russ Mittermeier, but the animal couldn't be identified as a new species until Mittermeier conducted a follow-up expedition in October of this year.

That's cool, but remember, only mammals have hair... it's probably something close to hair, but not "real" hair like in humans.

HAHA that's a must see!

Wow, so unbelievable though.

MYSTERIOUS CURVED TREES: In Western Poland A Forest Of About 400 Pine Trees Suddenly Grew With A 90 Degrees Bent At The Base Of Their Trunks And Their Bent Points Northward. Yet The Larger Forest That Surrounds It Have Normal Straight Trunks !!

I have a plausible explanation for it.

Carbon dating is method of determining the age of fossilized creatures, such as dinosaur remains.

Scientists compare the ratio of two carbon isotopes in the sample: C-14, which is radioactive, and C-12, which is stable. Because everything on Earth has about the same ration of C-14 and C-12 at any given time, measuring this ratio tells when the creature lived.

It looks like someone intentionally bent them over (in the same direction) when they were young.

Actually, the trunks only could get such abrupt change in direction on their axis ( about 90 degrees ) if they got –partially broken- instead of just bent. And they, probably, got broken when they were quite younger and more fragile but also, probably, with better capability to cicatrize the severe damage. But it is unlike that a person would care to break about 400 trees in exactly the same direction. If it was an act of vandalism the breakage would be more likely done in random directions and not all close to the base of the trunk. The best candidate to break all those trees when they were young, in the same direction and at the base of their trunks - is a very strong wind, which was, probably, caused by a storm, a tornado or something akin. And such strong wind, probably, lasted a short time, otherwise, it would have rather caused a long trail instead of being localized in relatively small area ( unless some physical object like a nearby mountain caused an sudden change in the direction and force of the wind current).

And the trees tendency to correct their growth into a vertical direction due, perhaps, phototropism caused the big curves in their trunks.

Charles Osborne hiccuped continuously for 69 years

Charles Osborne hiccuped an estimated 430 million times between 1922 and 1990. His hiccups started in 1922 when he was weighing a hog for slaughter and suddenly stopped in 1990. Charles Osborne died 1 year later of complications of ulcers. Despite his hiccups he managed to live a normal live. He got married and had eight children.

Sharks can get pregnant without fertilization of a male

Biologists found a female shark which was pregnant without the involvement of a male. The embryo’s found in the shark solely had the mothers DNA. Scientists think this is a mechanism and ability of nature to avoid extinction. The ability to reproduce without the fertilization of a male is called ‘Parthenogenesis‘. This is the second time parthenogenesis is witnissed among sharks. Other species among which parthenogenesis occurs are some bird, snake, fish and scorpion species.

Women get smarter because of pregnancy

During pregnancy, learning and memory skills improve dramatically, say researchers, reversing the popular myth that it is a time of dumbing down. Key brain areas also alter in size; changes that can persist for decades. Far from transforming mothers into weakened emotional wrecks who lose car keys and drop in IQ, it turns out having children makes them cleverer. It’s just hard to spot thanks to all that lost sleep.

‘Many benefits seem to emerge from motherhood, as the maternal brain rises to the reproductive challenge,’ says Professor Craig Kinsley, of Richmond University, and Professor Kelly Lambert, of Randolph-Macon College, both in Virginia, writing in the latest Scientific American. ‘In other words, when the going gets tough, the brain gets going.’

Their paper reveals that the brain-boosting potential of parenthood includes enhanced sensory abilities just after childbirth, allowing women to recognise their infants by faint smells and sounds. It also reports that women who have children in their forties are four times more likely to survive to 100 than women who gave birth earlier. Pregnancy enhances women’s brains just when the memory decline of middle age normally kicks in, say researchers, leading to better mental health and longevity.

Underlying these changes are two key processes. The first involves the hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy, birth and lactation, which remodel the brain, increasing the size of neurons in some regions. Women become vigilant and alert – and the benefits appear to be long-lasting, say Kinsley and Lambert.

Secondly, rearing a child is so challenging it stimulates brain activity. Having a baby is ‘a revolution for the brain’, says Dr Michael Merzenich of the University of California in San Francisco. The brain creates cells that thrive the more they are used and the emotional, novel experiences of childraising provide the most stimulating use of all.

People with red hair feel more pain than blondes or brunettes

People with red hair feel more pain than people with blond or dark hair. It is scientificaly proven that people with red hair need about 20% more anaesthetic during operations than other patients.

The cells that produce skin and hair pigment have a dysfunctional melanocortin 1 receptor in people with red hair.

This dysfunction triggers the release of more of the hormone that stimulates these cells, but this hormone also stimulates a brain receptor related to pain sensitivity.

This causes people with red hair to be more sensetive to pain.
Poor redheads!

Snake gourd in gardens Which had contact with snakes skin will b bitter even after cooking!

100% true, because I've experienced with my own tongue lol

did u know a dictyo slug can form a fruiting body and go back to being a spore and forming slug all over again :)

lol I know this one, I had to do an experiment on it in developmental biology class years ago.

Yes, changing life cycles, the perfect experiment.

Are you sure? According to a particular source, males just take care of the egg by keeping it in its body.

Not so much biology-related, but:

Matches were invented in China in 577AD. They were originally pieces of timber dipped in sulphur. They were not commonly known in Europe until 1530. Matches were later dipped in phosphorus, but they also were dangerous because they easily caught fire.

Did you know that animals such as horses, cattle, dogs where given arsenic in their food to get shiny coat? Unfortunately it lead to many cases of intoxication...

All Sebras have different patterns on their body and it is like human finger print ;)

The yak has the warmest fur in the world. Mittens made by yak fur can go for $1500.00 - $2,000.00.

Gravity pushes, not pulls.

How?

Le Sage's theory of gravitation

 :hey:1. Jellyfishes are made up of more than 95% water.
Their bodies are soft and lack a skeletal structure or outer shell. They are delicate and easily damanged. Jellyfishes require water to help support their body and if removed from their aquatic surroundings, they collapse and die.

A jellyfish has a simple digestives system with only one opening.

A jellyfish takes food in through its mouth which is located on the underside if its bell. Food is digested in a sac-like structure called a coelenteron or gastrovascular cavity. Waste material is passed out through the mouth.

Jellyfishes have no brain, no blood, and no nervous system.

Their senses are primitive and consist of a neural net, eye spots that can sense light from dark, and chemosensory pits that help them identify potential prey.

There are about 200 species of True Jellyfishes.

True Jellyfish are species belonging to the Class Scyphozoa. Examples of True Jellyfish include Moon Jellies, Mediterranean Jellyfish, Sea Nettles, Lion's Mane Jellyfish, Blue Jellies, and many other lesser known species. The Class Cubozoa includes about 20 species not considered to be True Jellyfish. The Class Cubozoa is also referred to as box jellyfish. The most imfamous of the Cubozoa is the Sea Wasp, a creature with a deadly sting that inhabits the waters off the coast of Australia. 8)

http://www.curriki.org/nroc/Introductory_Physics_1/lesson19/1F4_pt1.swf

Bio, when that started to play, I was trying to find out where it was coming from. 

I don't like how the animation starts as soon as you open the page. :s

The Earth weighs about 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 metric tons (1 metric ton = 2,204.6 pounds)

And that will always remain constant.

The largest earthquake ever recorded was 9.5 magnitude in Chile on May 22, 1960.

Upbeat music can increase adrenaline, levels of productivity, motivation, and movement of a person.

In one square inch of human skin there are 20 million microscopic creatures.

1 – The speed of light is generally rounded down to 186,000 miles per second. In exact terms it is 299,792,458 m/s (equal to 186,287.49 miles per second).

2 – It takes 8 minutes 17 seconds for light to travel from the Sun’s surface to the Earth.

3 – 10 percent of all human beings ever born are alive at this very moment.

4 – The Earth spins at 1,000 mph but it travels through space at an incredible 67,000 mph.

5 – Every year, over one million earthquakes shake the Earth.

6 – When Krakatoa erupted in 1883, its force was so great it could be heard 4,800 kilometers away in Australia.

7 – Every second around 100 lightning bolts strike the Earth.

8 – Every year lightning kills 1000 people.

9 – In October 1999 an Iceberg the size of London broke free from the Antarctic ice shelf .

10 – If you could drive your car straight up you would arrive in space in just over an hour.

11 – Human tapeworms can grow up to 22.9m.

12 – The Earth is 4.56 billion years old…the same age as the Moon and the Sun.

13 – The dinosaurs became extinct before the Rockies or the Alps were formed.

14 – Female black widow spiders eat their males after mating.

15 – When a flea jumps, the rate of acceleration is 20 times that of the space shuttle during launch.

16 – If our Sun were just inch in diameter, the nearest star would be 445 miles away.

17 – Astronauts cannot belch – there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.

18 – The air at the summit of Mount Everest, 29,029 feet is only a third as thick as the air at sea level.

19 – One million, million, million, million, millionth of a second after the Big Bang the Universe was the size of a …pea.

20 – DNA was first discovered in 1869 by Swiss Friedrich Mieschler.

21 – The molecular structure of DNA was first determined by Watson and Crick in 1953.

22 – The first synthetic human chromosome was constructed by US scientists in 1997.

23 – The thermometer was invented in 1607 by Galileo.

24 – Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1866.

25 – Wilhelm Rontgen won the first Nobel Prize for physics for discovering X-rays in 1895.

26 – The tallest tree ever was an Australian eucalyptus – In 1872 it was measured at 435 feet tall.

27 – Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant in 1967 – the patient lived for 18 days.

28 – An electric eel can produce a shock of up to 650 volts.

29 – ‘Wireless’ communications took a giant leap forward in 1962 with the launch of Telstar, the first satellite capable of relaying telephone and satellite TV signals.

30 – The Ebola virus kills 4 out of every 5 humans it infects.

31 – In 5 billion years the Sun will run out of fuel and turn into a Red Giant.

32 – Giraffes often sleep for only 20 minutes in any 24 hours. They may sleep up to 2 hours (in spurts – not all at once), but this is rare. They never lie down.

33 – There are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.

34 – An individual blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.

35 – On the day that Alexander Graham Bell was buried the entire US telephone system was shut down for 1 minute in tribute.

36 – The low frequency call of the humpback whale is the loudest noise made by a living creature.

37 – A quarter of the world’s plants are threatened with extinction by the year 2010.

38 – Each person sheds 40lbs of skin in his or her lifetime.

39 – At 15 inches the eyes of giant squids are the largest on the planet.

40 – The Universe contains over 100 billion galaxies.

41 – Wounds infested with maggots heal quickly and without spread of gangrene or other infection.

42 – More germs are transferred shaking hands than kissing.

43 – The fastest speed a falling raindrop can hit you is 18mph.

44 – It would take over an hour for a heavy object to sink 6.7 miles down to the deepest part of the ocean.

45 – Around a million, billion neutrinos from the Sun will pass through your body while you read this sentence.

46 – The deepest part of any ocean in the world is the Mariana trench in the Pacific with a depth of 35,797 feet.

47 – Every hour the Universe expands by a billion miles in all directions.

48 – Somewhere in the flicker of a badly tuned TV set is the background radiation from the Big Bang.

49 – Even traveling at the speed of light it would take 2 million years to reach the nearest large galaxy, Andromeda.

50 – A thimbleful of a neutron star would weigh over 100 million tons.

Flea's can jump 130 times higher than their own height. In human terms this is equal to a 6ft. person jumping 780 ft. into the air.

The most dangerous animal in the world is the common housefly. Because of their habits of visiting animal waste, they transmit more diseases than any other animal.

A new born blue whale measures 20-26 feet (6.0 - 7.9 meters) long and weighs up to 6,614 pounds (3003 kg).

The world's largest amphibian is the giant salamander. It can grow up to 5 ft. in length.

100 years ago: The first virus was found in both plants and animals.

The largest meteorite crater in the world is in Winslow, Arizona. It is 4,150 feet across and 150 feet deep.

Giraffe is the animal which has high blood pressure.

How Blood is pumped to brain through its long neck?

It has thick heart walls which creates enough pressure to pump blood to brain..

And it has frequent walves in blood vessels. .which also helps in pumping blood :hey:

High levels of worrying are linked to a high IQ

chloroplast also has its own DNA

we make 500ml saliva ever day

If a pilot flew above the Armstrong limit using only an oxygen mask and no pressure suit, the water wetting his lungs would boil as would the saliva in his mouth.

See also: Armstrong limit

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/11/F-16_pilot%2C_closeup%2C_canopy_blemishes_cleaned.jpg/800px-F-16_pilot%2C_closeup%2C_canopy_blemishes_cleaned.jpg)

very nice

The bit about 15 percent of people being able to wiggle their ears is amazing.

I'm one of them!

Did you know peanuts aren't actually nuts? They are actually legumes. Most nuts grow on trees, whereas peanut grow on shrubs.

Did you know, scorpions glow in the dark under ultraviolet (UV) light? :-\

Yes :D

(http://www.karlonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/scorpion-fluorescent-glow.jpg)

Did you know that the moon rotates?

Does the Moon Rotate?

Facts about DNA
Just how much DNA do we have in our body?
If uncoiled, the DNA in all our cells would go 10 billion miles. That’s from Earth to Pluto – and back.

Over 99% of our DNA sequence is the same as other humans’

Humans have the longest genome, right?

Wrong! Compared to the Paris japonica, a flowering plant native to Japan, the human genome is pitiful. The plant’s genome has almost 150 billion base pairs – 50 times more than ours.

Did you know, some species of Stomatopoda (the mantis shrimps) have hyperspectral vision--they have photoreceptors that pick up visible and UV photons, and can see all planes of polarized light, including circularly polarized light?

Okay, I find this too hard to believe, why would they have evolved to have such great vision, it doesn't make sense >:(

Does human have capability of viewing circular polarised light?

Nobody seems to have a definitive answer as to why this particular organism developed such an amazing visual system, but some researchers have theorized that it has to do with communication.

Many species of mantis shrimp are vividly colored or have intricate patterns on their first appendages, particularly the outward facing side. Some have been observed performing displays with these appendages when in the presence of others...having amazing vision would certainly be advantageous if these displays convey some kind of important message.

I don't think humans can see circularly polarized light...I'm a bit jealous of these mantis shrimp...but being colorblind I'm jealous of anything with functional color vision

I am more so jealous of the octopus! Octopuses, like the shrimp and other cephalopods have keen eyesight, that is they can distinguish the polarization of light.

Did you know that the word laser is actually an acronym?

thats awesome

People who removed their gall bladder cannot process fat

I assisted in the first single incision robotic cholecystectomy in my state. I don't find that interesting but I'm sure somebody might.

I found it interesting to read that nonoxyl-9, the spermicide added to condoms, is also in betadine. It is in betadine as a surfactant. Betadine, for those that aren't familiar is a soap used to cleanse the skin before surgery.

That's not true lol Gallbladder houses bile. Bile is still produced regardless of the gallbladder.


That's really cool.

My bad, should've been specific to after the gall bladder-removal surgery. But they cannot process it well, and so tend to have a more fluid, fatty stool. After approximately 4 months, the bile from the liver continues to produce bile and sends it continuously through the bile duct into the small intestine, unlike when the gall bladder was present to secret bile on demand. When the body adjusts to to living without a gall bladder, it could however process small quantities of fat, and as a result, in general, most patients tend to have a more watery stool due to constant bile secretions.  :) Hope this clarifies.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/519061-what-happens-if-i-eat-a-fatty-meal-after-gallbladder-surgery/
http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/your-gallbladder-removed-where-bile-stored-does-195569
http://ibs.about.com/od/relatedconditions/a/IBS-After-Gallbladder-Removal.htm

^^ Better :) I know two people who have had one, but they've never complained of such symptoms.

Well, as it is mentioned in the articles, certain percentages of patients experience those syptoms, not all, depending maybe on the physical fitness of the individual. On the other hand, Lol, even if they did experience them, it would've been embarrassing to talk about don't you think?  ;)

A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.

The crocodile's tongue is attached to the bottom of its mouth by a membrane. A crocodile may not be able to stick out its tongue at you, but it isn't entirely useless. The crocodile's tongue has salt glands, which means that a crocodile's tongue performs the same function for a crocodile that kidneys perform for us: excreting salt. Crocodiles have less efficient kidneys and have thick, salt-resistant skin, which means that they have a hard time releasing salt through their skin. They have to use their tongue to get rid of salt and keep from getting dehydrated.

Dolphins and whales sleep with only one half of the brain at a time to stay alert and avoid drowning.  :)

Hi, guys this is first time i am visiting this forum. Its glad to see such a great info posted here. So many things i came to know new by this forum.

lol That's so cool.

Wow, cool facts we have going on here.

Post Merge: 10 years ago

A sperm whale can go underwater over 3,600 ft.

Music makes you high by boosting your brain's production of the 'pleasure chemical' dopamine, which is also released during sex and eating.

Australian researchers have unravelled the mysteries of p53, a powerful protein that has the potential to protect against cancer development. The protein stops cell division and promotes cell death, which helps prevent cancer formation.

Spiders that don't build webs catch their prey using adhesive pads covered in branched hairs called setae.

That's interesting. I wish I could do that my self xD

Wow, this thread is so interesting. I can't believe how much information there is out there, just thinking about biology fascinates me so much.

 Dog's shoulder blades are not attached to their rest of their skeleton. This always for greater flexibility while running. Average speed for a dog is 19mph. Fastest bread of dog Grey Hound can do clock over 40mph.

I read this and thought it was fascinating: "To avoid predators, a mother Slow Loris licks its offspring with poison before sending them off to search for food."

8-)viruses is called as biological

You mean viruses are *not* living?

The first person to see a live cell with a microscope was Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, in 1674.

Wow, I've learned a lot from this thread! I think it's cute that rats are ticklish and that they will run mazes for the reward of being tickled.

The barnacle penis is up to 40 times larger than its body size (not 10 as someone posted in the first page of this thread)! This renders such organism with the largest penis : body size ratio.

Laughing, and why we do it lol

Scientists think that when we laugh, we communicate a playful intent, indicating to others we trust them as a group member. This explains why laughing is contagious, and tests have shown that humans are far less likely to laugh when alone.

And when it comes to scratching, from an evolutionary standpoint, it is your body’s way of eliminating potentially harmful irritants or external objects. For example: an ant crawls onto your foot, so that area of your foot itches; you scratch that area and brush the ant away.

The Koala does not normally need to drink, because it can obtain all of the moisture it needs by eating leaves

Snakes use their tongue to smell, they have a special organ called the vomeronasal system on the roof of their mouth.

Butterflies have two compound eyes consisting of thousands of lenses, yet they can only see the colors red, green and yellow.

Giraffes can survive longer without water than a camel.

Really cool!

DMT the Psychedelic is present in various %'s in every day plants. The reason you don't trip everyday is due to enzymes currently blocking them.

Overgrowth of the prostate causing strangulation of the urethra.

Alligators give birth to females in cold temperatures and to males when it's hot.

The best time of the day to drink coffee is between 9:30 am and 11:30 am, when your cortisol levels are dropping and you need a boost to be alert.

Ever wondered why we have microwaves to make things hot in seconds, but nothing to make things cold just as fast?

Researchers have finally invented a gadget that can chill a drink in 45 seconds flat. The ‘reverse microwave’ uses a special type of collapsed vortex that spins the drink around in water to maintain its original state while rapidly bringing down its temperature. According to the researchers, it uses 80% less energy than existing drink-chilling devices.

I like this suggestion. :)

This is awesome! :D 

A traffic jam in Beijing once lasted 12 days - it took a car three days to travel 62 miles (100 km).

People tend to be perceived as more attractive when they are in groups, research shows.

There is only one mammal physically incapable of jumping: the elephant.

Human beings are the only animals that ask questions.

An adult is made up of around 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (7 octillion) atoms.

cool!

Did you know that toilet paper and tissues is made out of recycled computer paper?

Ants don't have lungs because oxygen pass through their bones in small holes of their bones.

Ants, like all insects, don’t have lungs, breathing through tiny holes in their sides – spiracles – one pair per segment. These lead into a network of tiny tubes – tracheae – permeating their entire body, getting narrower and narrower, supplying air (and hence oxygen), right to the tissues that use it, rather than using blood to transport it like us. Though they can open and close their spiracles, they have little ability to pump air in and out, which happens just through general movement. It’s this inability that stops insects getting as big as us, with our ultra-efficient lungs and blood.

The top speed of a sloth is 0.15 mph.

A group of 5 pregnant cockroaches could grow to 45 million in just one year.

A medium-sized cumulus cloud weighs about the same as 80 elephants.

Thank you for posting this info!

When a great white shark opens its mouth you can see right through its gills.

endo is inside for the prefix

The cornea is the only human tissue that doesn't require blood, but needs oxygen?

Bedtime? Newborn Bottle-nose dolphins do not sleep for the first month of their lives!

A 270 kg (600 lb) Octopus can squeeze through a small coin-size hole.

Post Merge: 9 years ago

The largest organ of the human body is the skin.

A mosquito has 47 teeth!?!

Mosquitoes don't have teeth.

 Live maggots of certain species of flies ( larvae of Brachyceran flies, such as houseflies, cheese flies, and blowflies ) have been applied as an effective means of wound debridement. They feed on the dead tissue .Long ago, some doctors noticed soldiers that had maggots on their wounds healed quicker than those without maggots.maggot therapy was being used in around 1,000 medical centres in Europe and over 300 medical centres in the United States.  :o

Great idea for this topic. Nice. :)

Post Merge: 9 years ago

A kangaroo rat (genus dipodomys) can spend its entire life without drinking water.

Post Merge: 9 years ago

Also:
The water animal Hydra never gets old, and can live forever.

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Despite being similar, Triceratops aren't ancestors of rhinoceros.

Right, the triceratops (cool name) was a reptile.

They didn't look like reptiles, though. Wasn't the word "reptile" means "crawling"/"slithering"? Triceratops just walked normally, didn't they?

I don't think so.. hmm

A reptile is a cold-blooded vertebrate of a class that includes snakes, lizards, crocodiles, turtles, and tortoises. They are distinguished by having a dry scaly skin, and typically laying soft-shelled eggs on land.

Well, if rhinoceros isn't a descendant of Triceratops despite being similar because rhinoceros is a mammal and Triceratops is a reptile, maybe the true descendant of Triceratops is this thing?
https://www.google.com/search?q=three+horned+chameleon&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNy5qplprKAhUSC44KHfQ6DEkQ_AUICCgC&biw=1024&bih=586#q=three+horned+chameleon&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbs=isz:l
It is also three-horned quadripedal reptile, after all.

Interesting theory.

Maybe the similarities between triceratops and the rhino is an example of convergent evolution.

That's not hair.

Higher IQ means Higher Sex Drive

The adult sex toy retailer, Lovehoney, reported that there is a very strong correlation between intelligence and sex drives. Based on their sales data, they showed a “heightened interest in sex among students in the Russell Group of elite universities.” Based on that data, one could extrapolate that smarter people have higher sex drives. That doesn’t however mean that they have more sex. According to a 2007 article entitled “Intercourse and Intelligence,” 80% of U.S. males and 75% of U.S. women have had sex by the age of 19. Compare that to 56% of Princeton undergraduates, 59% of Harvard undergraduates and 51% of MIT undergraduates who report having had sexual intercourse. Amazingly, only 65% of MIT graduate students have ever had sex. This doesn’t mean that smart people have less sex, it means that they are pickier and smarter about it.

When shark is turned 180 degree, it will be in a state of being comatose

•   There are five classifications of lipoproteins:
-   Chylomicrons
-   Very Low Density Lipoproteins (VLDL)
-   Intermediate Density Lipoproteins (IDL)
-   Low Density Lipoproteins (LDL-bad)
-   High Density Lipoproteins (HDL-good

If Earth were flat, water would cover everything in a layer two miles deep!

(https://biology-forums.com/gallery/27/6_07_04_17_3_26_50.jpeg) (https://biology-forums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=27478)

Burj Khalifa is so tall, you could view a sunset twice if you saw it first at the base and then immediately used the rather fast elevators the building has to go to the top floor...

Eiffel designed the structure for his tower based on the inside of human bone. In studying the strength of the femur, he saw the honeycomb shape helped to disperse pressure. That's why the metal bracing of the tower has that setup. :)

The Hoover Dam was finished in 1935. Concrete in the core is still curing.

Every year motorists spend about 3.7 billion hours waiting in gridlocked traffic. The average U.S. worker earned about $24.5 per hour in 2012, so the implicit opportunity cost of all those hours spent in traffic is around $91 billion per year. Thus the annual total social cost of U.S. traffic gridlock is more than $97 billion.