News tagged with biology
Folding light: Wrinkles and twists boost power from solar panels
Taking their cue from the humble leaf, researchers have used microscopic folds on the surface of photovoltaic material to significantly increase the power output of flexible, low-cost solar cells.
Apr 27, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (15) |
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Climate change helps then quickly stunts growth, decade-long study shows
(Phys.org) -- Global warming may initially make the grass greener, but not for long, according to new research conducted at Northern Arizona University.
Apr 10, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (18) |
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Change in developmental timing was crucial in the evolutionary shift from dinosaurs to birds: study
At first glance, it's hard to see how a common house sparrow and a Tyrannosaurus Rex might have anything in common. After all, one is a bird that weighs less than an ounce, and the other is a dinosaur that ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 27, 2012 |
4.9 / 5 (14) |
1
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Use of imidacloprid - common pesticide - linked to bee colony collapse
The likely culprit in sharp worldwide declines in honeybee colonies since 2006 is imidacloprid, one of the most widely used pesticides, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
Apr 05, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (13) |
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Finding the roots and early branches of the tree of life
A study published in PLoS Computational Biology maps the development of life-sustaining chemistry to the history of early life. Researchers Rogier Braakman and Eric Smith of the Santa Fe Institute traced the six methods of car ...
Apr 19, 2012 |
5 / 5 (12) |
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Turing was right: Two proteins fit decades-old prediction
Today, Alan Turing is best known as the father of modern computer science, but in 1952 he sketched out a biological model in which two chemicals an activator and an inhibitor could interact to ...
Apr 24, 2012 |
5 / 5 (12) |
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Researchers generate electricity from viruses
Imagine charging your phone as you walk, thanks to a paper-thin generator embedded in the sole of your shoe. This futuristic scenario is now a little closer to reality. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence ...
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
May 13, 2012 |
5 / 5 (11) |
1
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Mathematical physics reveal nature's formula for survival (w/ Video)
(Phys.org) -- The vascular system of a leaf provides its structure and delivers its nutrients. When you light up that vascular structure with some fluorescent dye and view it using time-lapse photography, details begin to ...
May 14, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (12) |
10
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Free-floating planets in the Milky Way outnumber stars by factors of thousands
A few hundred thousand billion free-floating life-bearing Earth-sized planets may exist in the space between stars in the Milky Way. So argues an international team of scientists led by Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, Director ...
May 10, 2012 |
2.6 / 5 (17) |
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Is a new form of life really so alien?
The idea of discovering a new form of life has not only excited astronomers and astrobiologists for decades, but also the wider public. The notion that we are the only example of a successful life form in the galaxy has, ...
May 08, 2012 |
3.6 / 5 (12) |
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First proof of ferroelectricity in simplest amino acid
The boundary between electronics and biology is blurring with the first detection by researchers at Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory of ferroelectric properties in an amino acid called ...
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Apr 19, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (9) |
4
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Strategy discovered to activate genes that suppress tumors and inhibit cancer
(Medical Xpress) -- A team of scientists has developed a promising new strategy for "reactivating" genes that cause cancer tumors to shrink and die. The researchers hope that their discovery will aid in the ...
May 21, 2012 |
5 / 5 (8) |
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Gaseous emissions from dinosaurs may have warmed prehistoric earth
Sauropod dinosaurs could in principle have produced enough of the greenhouse gas methane to warm the climate many millions of years ago, at a time when the Earth was warm and wet. That's according to calculations ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 07, 2012 |
2.6 / 5 (15) |
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Hacking code of leaf vein architecture solves mysteries, allows predictions of past climate
(Phys.org) -- UCLA life scientists have discovered new laws that determine the construction of leaf vein systems as leaves grow and evolve. These easy-to-apply mathematical rules can now be used to better ...
May 23, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (10) |
2
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Researchers solve structure of human protein critical for silencing genes
In a study published in the journal Cell on May 24, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists describe the three-dimensional atomic structure of a human protein bound to a piece of RNA that "guides" the pr ...
May 25, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (8) |
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Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines. Among the most important topics are five unifying principles that can be said to be the fundamental axioms of modern biology:
Subdisciplines of biology are recognized on the basis of the scale at which organisms are studied and the methods used to study them: biochemistry examines the rudimentary chemistry of life; molecular biology studies the complex interactions of systems of biological molecules; cellular biology examines the basic building block of all life, the cell; physiology examines the physical and chemical functions of the tissues, organs, and organ systems of an organism; and ecology examines how various organisms interact and associate with their environment.
For more information about Biology, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
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