Recent content by jamesv87

russ, I too have considered the idea that the perception of time may differ between organisms, and not only because of the size of the organism (and thus length of time it takes for neural impulses to travel through the body), but also the complexity of neural nets in the brain or CNS. I think...

Probably, but only at very early developmental stages. As far as I know this sort of technology is still in its infancy. Here's a neat talk that is sort of related to this question. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/craig_venter_is_on_the_verge_of_creating_synthetic_life.html The C. Venter...

I think you are right. I would say that metapopulation dynamics are essentially the same as island biogeography theory, except that dispersal is much more limited in the case of islands (depending on the species). However, I think the dynamics should be the same, with some isolated populations...

Viruses require the molecular machinery and building blocks of another organism to replicate (i.e. enzymes, nucleotides, amino acids). They provide their own DNA or RNA. To address the original question, almost by definition "bacteria" would have to have existed before any phage (a bacterial...

I think the most logical explanation for this comes from theories of senescense. Male baldness, originally a fluke mutation in some regulatory gene, is genetically inherited and comes about as a consequence of aging. Now, because this trait usually doesn't appear in an individual until AFTER he...

Indeed. There are some species of mussel where mtDNA can be transmitted through the paternal line. There is also a type of algae (genus Chlamydomonas) with two genders, + and -, where both gametes contribute chloroplasts (and chloroplast DNA) to the zygote, which is usually only inherited...

Hey everyone, I'm working on my undergraduate thesis in biology and am having problems analyzing the data from my experiments. I'm wondering if anyone knows how to compare multiple independent groups when the measurements are proportions. The problem is that many of my values are 1 and 0 with...