The process through which a biological organism grows to maturity. In certain contexts it can mean the changes the organism goes through over its entire lifetime.
Questions tagged [development]
232 questions
111
votes
3 answers
Are male and female brains physically different from birth?
Male and female brains are wired differently according to this article:
Maps of neural circuitry showed that on average women's brains were highly connected across the left and right hemispheres, in contrast to men's brains, where the connections…
Pablo
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Can brain cells move?
I was discussing this with my brother. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they can move.
Thanks
EDIT: By movement I mean long distance migration (preferably within the brain only).
DLV
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How does a baby deer stand the day it's born?
I know most creatures take time to learn some things.
Birds take some time to fly.
Human beings take some time walk or stand.
But in the case of the deer species, it's different. It can stand the same day it's born. Why is this so?
user30021
38
votes
1 answer
Why does a coconut have exactly three "holes"?
Why do coconuts have exactly three "holes", as seen in this picture?
A theory says:
As coconut is a sibling of palm, somehow long time ago, three palms were in a same husk. Based on evolution theory, it's how the coconut was born in the world with…
imwenyz
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29
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How long before robin no longer needs the nest on my porch?
A robin has made a nest on my porch. Unfortunately, the nest is on my weed wacker which I might want to use at some point this summer. Currently, there are two eggs in the nest.
How long will it be before the robin is done needing the nest?…
Imprisoned Rhesus
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21
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Impact of Alan Turing's approach to morphogenesis
Shortly before his untimely passing, the computing pioneer Alan Turing published his most cited paper The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis (1952).
The central question for Turing was: how does a spherically symmetric embryo develop into a…
Artem Kaznatcheev
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21
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Why do plants fruit?
This is a two-part question:
What is the point of fruit if not to be eaten? It’s my understanding that organisms will adapt to survive and thrive. I understand that being eaten can spread seeds, but this just seems like too much of a risky tactic…
Srb1313711
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21
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What is the biological age of grafted plants?
Suppose you graft a piece of an existing 'old' plant onto a host plant. Will the graft continue to grow having the same biological age as its parent? In other words, would the graft die at the same time as its parent plant? Or would the process of…
AliceD
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3 answers
Are human bodies programmed to die?
Following from this question: What is the evolutionary advantage of death?:
Is there any evidence that human bodies have systemic self-destruction built into their developmental program? I'm not talking about the cell death response, which I know is…
Dave Gerrard
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17
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1 answer
Could a fetus properly develop in micro/zero-gravity?
I suppose another way of looking at the question is: how important is gravity for the development of mammal fetuses?
And if things would go wrong, what sort of things would they be, and what would be the result?
Chris Cooper
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17
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Do babies resemble their father?
An often heard theory is that newborns and babies resemble the father more than the mother, a theory apparently ignited by a Nature paper by Christenfeld and Hill (1995). Figure 1 shows one of the tests images. His subjects had to guess which…
AliceD
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16
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Is female the default sex in humans?
I was taught in school that female is the default sex in humans based on the following logic:
Development into a human male requires the activation of the SRY gene in the foetus. If that doesn't happen (because there is no Y chromosome, or for some…
user1205901 - Слава Україні
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15
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Fibonacci sequence in nature, truth or just wishful thinking?
I'm reading a bit on the Fibonacci sequence in nature, be it the golden ratio or the golden spiral forming over and over again in biological structures, and then I came across this online article by Donald E. Simanek, refuting a lot of these…
Ben
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14
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Do patella bones form in people born with the inability to walk?
The patella is a sesamoid bone that typically doesn't completely from and ossify until ~3-6 years of age (e.g., Source). My long-standing understanding (supported by a claim in Saladin's college A&P textbook1 sitting on my shelf) was that sesamoid…
theforestecologist
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14
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How do neurons find each other?
Neurons form complicated networks in brains, but their connections can't be random (at least not entirely). Brains function similarly among all members of individual species, and that functionality is largely dependent on neuron organization.…
CircleSquared
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