Recent content by Biophreak

Death never evolved. death- whether by predation, sickness, etc- acts to select for fit individuals. Death, along with reproduction, heridity of alleles, and variation among alleles is what drives life to thrive amid a changing environment. Without death natural selection comes to a screeching...

In an immortal population natural selection ceases and reproductive selection takes over, but even then, only to a small extent. Without death culling unfit genes from the gene pool adaptive mutations never have a chance to rise to dominance, eliminating the possibility of speciation since...

I didn't misrepresent anything moonbear...you just haven't read http://dels.nas.edu/ilar_n/ilarjournal/45_4/pdfs/v4504vandenbergh.pdf . Different article, not from a long time ago.

The causes of homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality are far from understood. As best we know, there seems to be an interplay between some genetic events and environmental factors which influence the orientation of an individual. A current hypothesis is that hormonal influences during...

This can be a confusing topic but here's the low-down :-P First off, you should read up on the difference between DNA replication and transcription. They are similar, however one is used for eventually making proteins, and one is purely maintaining genetic materials and preparing for a mitotic...

minor correction, light is light- regardless of whether or not our human eyes can see it. X-rays and Ultraviolet light are still light, albeit with different wavelength.

Your Gallium and Aluminum example is either a special case, or incorrect. This is because within a family (elements in the same column) atomic radius increases as you go down, and within a period (elements in the same row) atomic radius decreases. This can be explained by electron shielding...

The molarity of your acid/base is given. Molarity = Moles/Liter IS your concentration.

Natural gene mutation really is a random event. Polymerases, which make new strands of DNA and RNA, are not perfectly accurate molecules. RNA polymerase has an error rate of approximately 1/10^3bp, and DNA polymerase has an error rate of approximately 1/10^6 bp. It is this minute error rate...

In the colloquial sense of the word 'cloning', one is making an exact genetic copy of the full genome of a parent cell. Some reptiles and plants clone naturally, while in mammals cloning is not found in nature, neither is it beneficial. Genetic engineering techniques are widely used...

I don't know all of the specifics of how biochar works, but a major issue that I can see is that to even MAKE charcoal, lots of energy is required- charcoal forms when organic materials are submitted to very high temperatures and pressures. Finding a carbon neutral way of doing this seems to be...

As Vanesch stated, the problem with the plant method of removing CO2 from the atmosphere is that once the plant dies, it will decompose, which ITSELF releases CO2 into the air. Forests and oceans are the planet's two major CO2 sinks, but forests have trouble sequestering CO2 for much longer...

Henry's Law Explains Sylas' explanation. As temperature increases, solubility of permanent gases tends to decrease. The real concern with increased water temperature, however, is not that more CO2 is liberated- but that arctic underwater methane reserves are. Methane is a FAR more potent...

Root cells are affected by gravitropism the most- that is, they will grow towards a center of mass, namely the center of the earth. Stems are most strongly affected by phototropism, which is to grow in the direction of light, you can observe through time-lapse photography that a flower will...