Biology Stack Exchange
Biology Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [experimental]

Scientific procedure to test a hypothesis. The outcome of the experiment either confirms or denies the hypothesis.

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Death because of distilled water consumption

One of my friends said that I would die if I drank distilled water (we were using it in a chemistry experiment) I gave it a go and surprisingly did not die. I did a bit of Googling and found this It said that drinking only this kind of water could…
The-Ever-Kid
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Natural examples of XOR functions at the cellular level

We can often think of cells as a sort of circuit on macromolecules, and can show that they can accurately and robustly implement functions like $\text{MAJ}(x_1,...,x_n)$ (return $1$ if more than half of $x_1,...,x_n$ is $1$ and $0$ otherwise) under…
Artem Kaznatcheev
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Fish "coming back to life" after being frozen

I've encountered a clip on Youtube showing a goldfish thrown in liquid nitrogen and immediately after to normal water and swimming normally. In the explanation to the clip it says: For everyone that is worried about the goldfish, it survived and…
SIMEL
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Why is the number of PCR cycles limited?

I've been told that the maximum number of cycles in PCR is between 20 and 30. Is this true, and what are the reasons for this limitation?
tschoppi
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Why do grapes not pea shrink when placed in strong sugar solution?

I tried an experiment. First, I placed grapes in pure water(hypotonic solution). The grapes burst because of endosmosis. Then, I placed new set of grapes in strong sugar solution(fully saturated) but they did not shrink. And then when I placed it in…
Pranit Bauva
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What would cause proteins to get stuck in the stacking layer of a SDS-Page gel

Typically when proteins aggregate, they will get stuck at the top of the well. However, we're seeing some protein aggregate in the stacking layer even when we're treating the loading volume with DTT. One peculiar attribute of this experiment is that…
bobthejoe
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Why DMSO is used as a control?

Coming from a non-biology background, I've realised many academic papers on experiments use DMSO as like a control. This is an example: KN-93, a specific inhibitor of CaMKII inhibits human hepatic stellate cell proliferation in vitro What make…
SmallChess
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Modern reference for Kropotkin's lazy bees

I have been reading through Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution and he mentions a curious fact about bees (bolding by me for emphasis): predatory instincts and laziness continue to exist among the bees as well, and reappear each.…
Artem Kaznatcheev
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How long can a plant generate oxygen from its own carbon dioxide, produced during nighttime?

I recently bought one of these miracle fruit plants (Synsepalum dulcificum). Since they are of tropic origin, they need higher humidity and temperature as we have it here in Austria. So I decided to cover it in a transparent plastic bag, together…
AstronAUT
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How are the physiological properties of mitochondria measured?

this is my first question on BiologySE. I am a Physics and Mathematics student currently doing a project on cell growth simulation. I am doing literature survey and I have a question about cellular biology experimental methods. I understand that the…
Andrea
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How difficult is to renature a protein?

I know of Anfinsen's experiments and I'm aware that some denatured enzymes may regain their lost activity through the removal of the denaturant agent. What I'm unaware of is how rare is it for a protein to be able to renature? Can all proteins do…
Gabe
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Why are pharmacology studies so experimental?

I am a med student, and as far as I see from our pharmacology lectures, pharmacologists work almost completely experimental. Quite typically they take a substance (e.g., from nature), they add, change or remove some chemical groups, and then they…
user13196
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Productive turnover and generations in the fruit fly

I was reading about the Lenski experiments on the evolution of E. coli bacterium and Dr. Elders's experiments on the evolution of the guppy. These two experiments absolutely fascinated me, and seemed to happen relatively quickly by evolutionary…
ODP
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What is an 'ex vivo' experiment?

Simple terminology question: Is there a hard boundary between in vitro and ex vivo? Is there a hard boundary between in vivo and ex vivo? Suppose a sensory neuron is electrically recorded in the following settings: Surgically accessing through…
Memming
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Are there natural selection experiments that quantitatively agree with theoretical modeling?

Has anyone ever conducted an evolution experiment and quantitatively compared it to theory? For example, has anyone ever put bacteria in a million petri dishes filled with antibiotics and calculated the number of petri dishes that should develop…
ChickenGod
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