Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [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. Use this tag for general biology questions, but also use more specific life science tags to accompany this one if applicable.

Biology

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:

  1. Cells are the basic unit of life
  2. New species and inherited traits are the product of evolution
  3. Genes are the basic unit of heredity
  4. An organism regulates its internal environment to maintain a stable and constant condition
  5. Living organisms consume and transform energy.

Disciplines

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.

A more comprehensive list is the following:

  • Anatomy
  • Arachnology
  • Astrobiology
  • Botany
  • Biochemistry
  • Biogeography
  • Bioinformatics
  • Biophysics
  • Cell biology
  • Cytology
  • Dendrology
  • Developmental biology
  • Ecology
  • Entomology
  • Ethology
  • Evolutionary biology
  • Embryology
  • Genetics / Genomics
  • Herpetology
  • Histology
  • Human biology / Anthropology / Primatology
  • Ichthyology
  • Limnology
  • Malacology
  • Mammalogy
  • Marine biology
  • Microbiology / Bacteriology
  • Molecular biology
  • Mycology / Lichenology
  • Nematology
  • Neurobiology / Neuroscience
  • Ornithology
  • Parasitology
  • Palaeontology
  • Phycology
  • Phylogenetics
  • Physiology
  • Plant pathology
  • Taxonomy
  • Virology
  • Zoology
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Do predators tend to have vertical slit pupils versus horizontal for prey animals?

The picture above is taken from a Telegram channel and the text in Russian goes as follows. Prey has got a horizontally shaped pupil to better scan the horizon and a predator's pupil has a vertical shape to better focus on a prey. Is this…
Yevgen
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Can an air-bubble in a syringe kill the patient?

I have heard of stories where, while giving injection to patient, a doctor forgot to remove all the air from the syringe. The patient died when the air reached to brain. Can injecting air into a vein with a syringe cause death?
Santosh Kumar
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Do we have 10 times more microbes than human cells in our body?

An article in the NY times about microbes and their interaction with our bodies contained the following statement: We have over 10 times more microbes than human cells in our bodies I'm a bit skeptical about that statement. It compares microbes to…
Vincent Malgrat
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Can scientists create a life-form yet?

Evil Bible quotes a 2002 Science paper detailing the artificial synthesis of a virus from its DNA. When I was in school, I heard that the most humans can do is to create a bunch of amino acid. Which one is right?
user4951
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Does "stripping the skin's oils" with soap or shampoo cause the skin to produce more oil than normal?

A dubious Wikipedia article makes this claim, which I've seen numerous times before, in various forms: Using shampoo every day removes sebum, the oil produced by the scalp. This causes the sebaceous glands to produce oil at a higher rate to…
endolith
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Is yawning contagious across species?

The Mythbusters have "confirmed" the contagiousness of yawning between humans and this study concludes it may be part of a neural network involved in empathy. This hypothesis is supported by another study that found that children under the age…
Oliver_C
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Does Alexandria's Genesis exist?

Supposedly, it's a mutation that gives you purple eyes at puberty, no hair, and for women, fertility without menstruations. Source
Dante
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Do trees die of cursing in Solomon Islands?

From http://wingedwizard.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/solomon-island-tree-curse/ According to some reports in the Solomon Islands of the pacific the islanders practice a special form of curse magic. If a tree needs to be cut down and it is too big to…
user3459110
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Is the inside of a field cucumber 20 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than its surroundings?

I've heard this claim before, but every time I dig deeper I am unable to find a reason for why cucumbers would be significantly colder than their surroundings. Is there any validity to this claim? If so, why does this phenomenon occur? Example:…
user1787270
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Will swallowed gum stay in your stomach for 7 years?

There is a commonly believed "old wives tale" that states that "if you swallow gum, it will stay in your stomach for seven years." Is there any scientific backing to this? Is your stomach really unable to digest gum? Will undigested food really stay…
Ephraim
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Does the average two-year-old pillow contain 17 different species of fungus?

In the New York City subway, I noticed a series of advertisements from a bedding company called Brooklinen. One advertisement had a surprising claim, which I found again on their website: The average 2-year-old pillow contains 17 species of…
HDE 226868
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Can you remember specific things you learn in the womb?

From the Hindu religious epic, the Mahabharata, says one of the warriors learns a battle tactic hearing his father speaking, while he is still in the womb. Keeping the religious aspect out of this, my question is whether such detailed learning is…
JoseK
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Is being able to talk evidence that you can breathe?

In discussions and articles about the death of Eric Garner I encountered several people denying that he was actually choked and couldn't breathe. The essence of that argument most often was that "if you can talk, you can breathe", claiming that…
Mad Scientist
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Determining your ancestry through the shape of your feet?

This picture makes its rounds around blogs & forums recently: Does it have any scientific backing?
sashkello
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Are pigs man-eaters?

This BBC news article reports that a farmer was eaten by his pig: Authorities are investigating how a farmer in the US state of Oregon was devoured by his pigs. Terry Vance Garner, 69, went to feed his animals last Wednesday on his farm by the…
Barath Bushan
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