Questions tagged [biology]
For questions relating to the study of life and life-related processes
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How sensitive was the frog galvanoscope?
Frog galvanoscope is an instrument for detecting small voltages, made of a frog's leg.
Wikipedia notes:
The instrument is capable of detecting extremely small voltages, and could far surpass other ...
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Semmelweis had no explanation?
That Semmelweis noticed a huge drop in mortality among new mothers simply by having doctors wash their hands between patients.
But according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis he did ...
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Who was the first to understand that there is not a net flux of energy between Sun and Earth, but of entropy?
According to Penrose's Cycles of Time, he starts by reminding the usefulness of the second law of thermodynamics and how it applies to everyday life. In particular, how the net energy of Earth is a ...
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Why did systems theory never gain popularity?
Briefly from wikipedia,
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has ...
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Were scientific discoveries ever inspired by art?
We can often see art that is influenced by science, be it in paintings, music, novels or movies. But has any idea from the arts ever influenced a scientist to come up with a new discovery or idea?
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When Kervran suggested biological transmutation of elements did anyone argue this
My understanding is that Kervran fed chickens a diet lacking in calcium and yet eggs were produced with calcium in their shells.
Two related questions:
Could not the calcium have been from the bones ...
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Did Kary Mullis actually invent PCR as he claimed?
I remember learning that the inventor of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was Kary Mullis, who was awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1993. I recently learned that there is some controversy about ...
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When was the first electron microscope image of a roundish or geometrical (e.g. icospiked virus particle produced?
The first TEM image of a human coronavirus was in 1967 but both images of virus particles and Transmission Electron Microscopy were around long before that.
What molecule's models might Linus ...
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What is Aristotle's view on Plant generation?
I am new to Aristotle study, In Book 1 of Generation of Aristotle give his view on plant generation,
In Book 1.1 Aristotle writes " But all those creatures which do not move, as the Testacea and ...
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What date is assigned to Hippocratic treatises "On Generation" and "On the Nature of the Child"?
On the nature of the Child is quoted by Galen in his Book "On Semen". I want to know what date is given to these two books, especially "On Generation"?
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What is "female seed" in Galen's work?
On the last page (page 84) of Anthony Preus's paper$^\star$ on Galen's criticism of Aristotle's Conception Theory, the author writes that Galen discussing the second book of "On Seed", which ...
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What alternative theories of learning were there before classical and operant conditioning?
The two main forms of (animal) learning are operant conditioning and classical conditioning, both established only in the 20th century. However, before they were established, surely there have been ...
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Books on history of biochemistry
I am looking for books on the history of biochemistry. Searching online there are some short articles that can be found, which just mention a few highlights, but I haven't really found more ...
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When were cephalopods assigned to the taxonomic phylum Mollusca?
I am fascinated to read about the evolution of cephalopod intelligence while I understand why cephalopods are mollusks (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod), but I cannot easily find when ...
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On what grounds did Crick find the central dogma of biology?
In 1957 Crick installed the central dogma of biology:
The Central Dogma. This states that once "information" has passed into protein it cannot get out again. In more detail, the transfer of ...
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What were Gregor Mendel's and Darwin's views on evolution?
Mendel's laws (like the laws of segregation or inheritance) became known to a wider publis decades after he discovered these laws. He assumed trait particles in operation that were responible for his ...
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"Stone of Folly" based on maybe finding and removing brain tumors?
There is a famous painting by Hieronymus Bosch in which someone is being operated on to remove the "stone of folly".
Detail from Hieronymus Bosch's painting titled "Extraction of the ...
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History of Mathematical Biology - Resource Recommendations
Biology nowadays is filled with mathematics. Indeed, the field of mathematical biology is huge, and shows no sign of decay. But the mathematisation of biology is, to my knowledge, a recent phenomenon -...
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What were the original techniques used to study CAM (Crassulacean acid metabolism) plants? Who first employed these methods?
In biology and botany, there is extensive research concerning the nature of different plant types and their methods of respiration and nutrient intake.
How were CAM (Crassulacean Acid Metabolism) ...
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Who identified the four basic types of animal tissue?
It is stated in innumerous introductory histology texts that there are four basic types of tissue - epithelial, connective, muscular, and nervous. I have never come across one that provides a ...
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What was considered Evolutionary Science or Biology proper in 1880-1890 in the US?
I have a question that is more related to the history of evolutionary biology rather than the science itself, namely I am interested in knowing what might have been considered the 'orthodoxy' of the ...
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Natura non facit saltus (nature does not make jumps), who said that?
The sentence is Latin for nature doesn't make jumps. It refers to the fact that, in most physical processes, quantities vary continuously.
The principle was used by Leibniz, Kant and Darwin among ...
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How did Jenner and his contemporaries understand vaccination before germ theory of disease?
Edward Jenner was a British doctor in the 18th century who in 1798 developed "vaccination," that is exposing humans to cow pox in order to prevent them from acquiring small pox. Vaccination was ...
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Why did Linnaeus equate the phoenix, the mythical bird, with Phoenix, a palm genus?
I've been reading about the "paradoxa" section of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae, where he debunk some of the more far fetched ideas about animals.
Wikipedia includes this translation of what ...
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When did the idea of thoughts occuring in the human head originate?
The early reference to the brain is found in Edwin Smith Papyrus
The Edwin Smith Papyrus, an ancient Egyptian medical treatise written
in the 17th century BC, contains the earliest recorded ...
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Did Darwin say that the human menstrual cycle length was influenced by the tides?
According to this article from the BBC's Science Focus
Charles Darwin thought that the 28-day human menstrual cycle was
evidence that our ancestors lived on the seashore and needed to
...
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What did Kaspar contribute to the gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy?
I've read on KEI website that in the early 2000s Dr Martine Barkats, from France, successfuly treated mice with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) with an AAV9 viral vector; and that Dr Brian Kaspar, an ...
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Was Lord Kelvin at any point a proponent of vitalism?
Vitalism is the notion now discredited as pseudoscientific that there is some fundamental cleavage between living and non-living matter.
This blog post contains some quotes that suggest Lord Kelvin ...
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When and why was the symbol $w$ introduced for biological fitness?
$w$ the visually similar $\omega$ are often used to represent biological fitness in population genetics models. (Sometimes $W$ is used for absolute fitness, and $w$ for relative fitness.)
These ...
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What did scientists think was the function of breathing before the discovery of atmospheric gases?
Before we knew about gases in the atmosphere, what did scientists think was the function of breathing?
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How did Quetelet discover that the body mass is proportional to the squared height?
The Body Mass Index (BMI) compares body masses on the assumption they scale with height squared, not cubed, an example of allometry. BMI is due to Lambert Quetelet. Why did he settle on this power law?...
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Who coined the term "immune system"?
Who coined the term "immune system"?
The OED lists the following as its earliest example of the term "immune system":
1943 Science 30 Apr. 406/1Complement..is removed by the addition of an ...
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Coverage of a topic by scientific research through time
I'm interesting of how scientific research covers a specific topic in a time. Scientific field: biology, cellulosic ethanol production
Like:
...
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Why didn't Mendel's experiments draw attention until the 20th century?
In The Gene: An Intimate History, author concludes the Mendel's pea experiments publication by these words:
Mendel himself requested forty reprints, which he mailed, heavily annotated, to many ...
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What were the early uses of differential equations for modeling chemical reactions?
What are some of the original examples of uses of differential equations for modeling and analyzing chemical reactions, particularly those relevant to biochemistry, involving proteins and enzymes? ...
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Has science fiction ever caused scientists to do real research?
Has science fiction ever caused scientists to do real research?
Science fiction here means fiction that tries to explain things in the world rather than speculate about the future or unexplorable ...
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When did people realize that the eye was a lens?
All in the title:
When did scientists realize that our eye functions like a lens/magnifying glass?
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Who helped Watson and Crick discover DNA?
I remember learning in school that Watson and Crick were attributed with discovering DNA, but also that there was a woman who helped a lot with the experiments who is rarely mentioned.
Who is this ...
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Was it a major cultural event when Van Leeuwenhoek discovered unseen animals under the microscope?
In the 17e century van Leeuwenhoek discovered with his microscope new kind of animals and cells. How was this discovery of van Leeuwenhoek received by the ordinary people when there seemed to be more ...
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Who used "Tabellenstatistik" as a derogatory term in the history of biogeography?
I recently read the book "The secular ark" by Janet Browne on the history of plant geographical studies.
In the chapter "A Science of Patterns", a subsection entitled "Tabellenstatistik" is included, ...
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How was Mendel's work rediscovered after being forgotten for 45 years?
According to Melanie Mitchell's book, Complexity: A Guided Tour [PDF], Mendel's model
[...] was published in a rather obscure journal and was not appreciated as being of great importance until 1900, ...
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Has Alphonse Pyramus de Candolle's "Géographie botanique raisonné" ever been translated into German or English?
Alphones Pyramus de Candolle (1806-1893), the son of Augustin-Pyrame de Candolle (1778-1841), has been an important figure (as was his father) in the development of plant geography.
The younger ...
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Where and how did scientists of the 18th and 19th century learn foreign languages?
I'm always amazed by the the apparent amount of foreign languages that scientists in the 18th and 19th centuries seem to have possessed. With the end of Latin as the main scholarly language, ...
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How important were reprints of scientific articles in scientific practice and communications before the copier, the computer and the internet?
Reprints of articles from scientific journals seem to have been an important part of scientific practice before the copying machine and the internet. Authors of articles were given a number of those ...
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Who first suggested, contra the central dogma, that "junk" DNA may perform epigenetic functions?
There were in last several years papers in Science regarding DNA that does not code for any protein ("junk" DNA) as having epigenetic aspects, namely, switching on and off other genes and thus ...
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What insight of Watson and Crick was missed by Franklin?
Their papers were published on the same issue of Nature back to back. Moreover, helix was also mentioned in Franklin's paper. So, what important insight or contribution of Watson and Crick was missed ...
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Francis Crick and the usefulness of "genes" as compared to molecular biochemistry
In lecture 12 of Professor John R. Searle's U.C. Berkeley class, "Philosophy of Mind", he remarks [18m22s]:
We no longer talk mysteriously about how heredity works. We can actually identify ...
Mr. Kennedy
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Most known teachers of specific branch of Science
After acquainting myself with the works of Richard Feynman in Physics: " The Feynman Lectures on Physics" and partially with the works of Donald Knuth in Programming: "The Art of Computer Programming",...
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Raymond Cattell and History of Personality Traits Prior 1947
I find that papers reference Raymond Cattell suggesting 16 or 22, etc, traits, by factor analysis (basically regression), including all five of the modern reproducible traits (openness to experience, ...
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Why was brood parasitism known about in the middle ages?
The Wikipedia article on Cuckold indicates that the biological phenomenon of brood parasitism was known in the middle ages. (I suspect it may have been known in other cultures as well, but I can't say ...
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