Tropical rain recycling Water must be along with oxygen amongst the most important provision to life. Useable water is essential. Water movements on earth are central to climate and life. The process is a little like the chicken and egg but if one starts with water evaporation from oceans, accumulates in the atmosphere, followed by…
Read moreDespite their highly dissimilar flavours, garlic, horseradish and cinnamon each can have a fiery taste. . This pungency has been attributed to chemicals that activate a specific ion-channel protein, known as transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1). Activated TRPA1 facilitates the flow of ions into the endings of specialized neurons in the mouth and skin.…
Read moreSleep is an essential part of life . We spend a third of our life asleep. It is believed that growth takes place during sleep. As a thought do the developing adult obese grown fat during sleep.Much is known about sleep intensity and levels of sleep eg REM ( Rapid eye movement ) Phase.According to…
Read moreSize rules biology to a great.extent. . When things get bigger, their length increases linearly but their surface area increases by the square and their volume by the cube. So when the proportions, properties and performances of organisms, such as body shape, life span or speed of movement, are plotted against size or weight in…
Read moreThe mammalian central nervous system is a very complicated system, with an array of different cell types each with its singular morphology , connections and function. The phenotypic properties of each cell are the product of combinations of expressed gene products peculiar to that cell type. The Allen brain atlas project ( http://www.brain-map.org is studying…
Read moreFor many of us in the Western, more privileged world It is possible that we have had the best of everything.We are now to pay the cost of this life style.We are the reason for that best of worlds to disappear or be severely modified.
Read moreMarine life and nitrogen cycle fixI live by an estuary and this stretch of water is inhabited by lots of fish who have seals as predators. The local fishermen dislike the seals and would rather they left.In the last month their wishes have come true and a pod of killer whales has appeared on the…
Read moreEarth eating or geophagia has been practised for thousands of years. There are recordings of this practice from ancient Sumeria, Egypt and China.Some nutritionists sympathise with the value of this supplement to the diet , usually a clay as there is a rich provision of silicon, aluminium and traces of iron, calcium and zinc. However…
Read moreIn 1913, RA Fisher, an evolutionary biologist and pioneer of modern statistics, published a paper on the genetic causes of disease that brought together two rival factions.1. Geneticists who proposed a theory that diseases worked like Mendel’s pea plants, with just one or two genes responsible for each condition.2. Biometricians, however, advocated a continuous distribution…
Read moreSeeds and the preservation of seed lines is an important silent part of nutrition. We assume as constancy in our vegetables and fruit. Changes in this forms part of our unease over GM crops. Are they as good as we have preciously experienced and enjoyed.There are some 1.5 million different crop strains. These are always…
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