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Why are alcoholic drinks better if they are 'shaken and not stirred' (the way James Bond likes them)? Actually, the popular quote has it wrong way round, and it was the fault of the scriptwriters for the first Bond movie. Traditionally, martinis are supposed to be stirred rather than shaken, because shaking "bruises" the gin, and it's generally agreed that it makes the martini taste too sharp. In fact, a martini which is shaken rather than stirred does change its taste, and its...

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What/who do you think you were in the past life? An anonymous Romanian peasant farmer who died at age 48 from overwork and malnutrition. Isn't it funny how every* average schmuck today seems to be the reincarnation of someone royal, or one of the Knights of the Round Table or such? And what's most amazing is how these remarkable characters from history managed to have reincarnated as at least several people at once, now. But...

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At what age should a cat be declawed? Are there alternatives to declawing (I can't be at home 24/7 to catch her and train her not to claw the furniture)? I'm going to join the chorus of "Don't declaw!" It's a really horrible thing to do to them. It involves the amputation of the ends of the toes. Not every cat has a problem with it, but some sure do -- and there is no way to undo it. What is worse, though, is the fact that as some cats age, because there is nothing there where tendons would normally attach some of...

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How long do domestic cats live on average? Actually, it depends on *where* they live. Feral cat -- 3 years. Outdoor only domestic (owned and cared for) cat -- average 5 years. Indoor/outdoor cat -- average 11 years. Indoor only cat -- average 16 years. An indoor-only cat CAN live more than 25 years.

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I have heard that if one's dominant hand is seriously damaged, their handedness can change. Is this possible without losing a limb? If someone can't use their dominant hand for some weeks, for example if their arm were badly broken and had to be immobilised, then they can (and usually will) learn to use their off-hand to do a lot they ordinarily wouldn't use it for -- and this can include writing. The younger someone is when this happens, the easier it is for them to learn this. Having said that, hand...

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I have a pair of black pants with subtle grey pinstripes. Does the shirt need to be a solid color or can I wear one with a pattern? Go with a solid color. It is very, very easy to go wrong, mixing patterns.

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When do babies/fetuses get a conscience? (is that how u spell it?) Do you perhaps mean "consciousness" --as in, awareness and self-awareness -- rather than "conscience", the ability to understand moral judgements? If you mean consciousness, then there is some debate over that, as well. Brain waves first become detectable at around 16 weeks development, so a fetus cannot possibly have consciousness before then.* However, it is unlikely...

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Could lipid chains act in the same way as a cellular membrane? Q: Can you use a piece of string as a blanket? A: Only if you weave it together with a lot of other pieces of string. It's the difference between a line and a plane....

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Is there a rating website for companies that is similar to RateMyProfessor.com? There is something almost similar, goodnightvienna.com: http://www.goodnightvienna.com/display/index.php This allows people to make entries on companies they have dealt with.

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How does cholesterol help to stiffen membranes? I'm not sure that I would say it "stiffens" membranes, since the presence of cholesterol can actually make membranes less rigid and more fluid. It depends on the rest of the membrane composition. Cholesterol has a very small polar (charged) "head", in relation to the length and width of its uncharged, hydrophobic "tail". The top part of the hydrophobic...

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How does absorbance relate to amylase activity? Absorbance is generally proportional to amylase activity (a broadly straight-line relationship), after you subtract the "blank absorbance" of the supernatant.

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What would a daughter cell look like if cytokinesis did not occur after mitosis? It would be shrunken and potentially devoid of vital organelles such as mitochondria and the microbodies, which replicate separately from the nuclear DNA. All of these things need to be shared between parent and daughter cell, and this can only be done by the cytosol being shared.

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What does the "G"stand for in G1 and G2 during mitosis? It stands for "gap" -- nothing exciting. It refers to a pause in activity.

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At what point during human life does mitosis occur the quickest? Short answer is, during embryological development.

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How can a single cell organism evolve when they lack the competition and 'fitness' of which Darwin speaks? Godfather Part II covered a lot of the relevant points, but the short answer is that your premise is wrong. There is competition for chemical resources from the very start, not all single celled organisms are identical, and as they are competing for resources, some will do better than others at getting them. Therefore, there is differential reproduction according to "fitness". ...

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What organelle controls what enters and leaves the cell? Carmella is right, the cell membrane controls what enters and leaves the cell. Technically, the cell membrane is not an organelle, though. Control of what passes into and out of the cell is an active, not a passive process, and often depends on the types of proteins embedded in or attached to the lipid bilayer of the membrane. In this respect, it is under the control of the cell's...

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What attributes can you choose when creating "designer babies?" In theory, it is just becoming possible to select for some of those traits -- body hair and eye color, for instance -- but not all of those are controlled by characterised genes, so no-one would be able to select for left- or right-handedness or bone-density on the grounds that no-one is sure of the genetic complements which control these. And no-one could select for height, weight or...

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What will happen if gravitation stopped? All the large, spinning bodies -- planets, stars, moons -- would immediately lose cohesion and begin to spin apart, and shortly the universe would consist of a nearly uniform thin, drifting, lifeless soup of debris.

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What contributions has physics brought to biology? To name just a few: Pretty much any kind of medical-imaging scanner -- X-rays, MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), PET (Positron Emission Tomography), CAT (Computed Axial Tomography), OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography), to name just a few; as well as electron microscopy, flourescence microscopy, and mass spectroscopy and spectrometry and gas chromatography, which play vital roles in the...

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Why could the development of living organisms not have occurred on Earth without liquid water? Water has some unique solvent properties, which make it absolutely vital in the chemical processes which power life. It stores a fair amount of heat energy in the bonds between its own atoms, as well. Water, as you probably know, is two atoms of hydrogen sharing electrons with one atom of oxygen. What makes this arrangement important is that it is not equal sharing; the oxygen atom tends...

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My male rabbit has recently started picking off his fur underneath his chin. Why is he doing this, and should I call the vet? Rabbits get allergies too; it could be an itchy allergic reaction to something. Alternatively, it could be he is itchy because of parasites, or because his skin is too greasy, or it could be a nervous habit because he is feeling stressed and unhappy. It's difficult to tell from the amount of information one can put into these questions. Yes, if you can, take him to see a vet; the vet...

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A friend said a breeder told her that dogs shouldn't be vaccinated every year as it can weaken their immune system, and the first series of shots they get when they are pups should last them for years, is this true? Vets seem to recommend annual shot The breeder isn't entirely incorrect, although overvaccination is more likely to provoke allergic reaction and autoimmune disease than to weaken the immune system. Overvaccination has been recognised as an issue as understanding of duration of immunity has increased. Annual vaccinations certainly used to be recommended, but now a lot of vets are aware that an every-year-every-component...

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I am 14 weeks pregnant, but when I have sex I get a sharp pain on the right side of my lower stomach, like my partner is hitting something. Could he break what is holding the fluids or harm the fetus? Not if your cervix if functioning normally, no. However, if what you are doing hurts, it may be worth trying alternative sexual techniques purely for that reason.

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How long do robins live? See the bit on robins at the University of Michigan Animal Diversity web: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Turdus_migratorius.html, for a start, and the robin FAQ at http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/robin/FAQGenInfo.html . A lot of robins have been banded, and their lifespans recorded from banding records, so this is one question which can be answered from...

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I have terrible pain in side if my man penetrates me to deep. I never had this problem could it be that I am pregnant...seeing as I am four days late with my cycle? Pregnancy is a possibility, but not the only one or even necessarily the main one. It is also possible that your uterus has tipped -- come out of its normal position and fallen over to one side. It could also be a symptom of developing endometriosis, which is when a fragment of the lining of the uterus escapes from the uterus and implants itself elsewhere in the abdomen. The problem is...

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Do lizards creak or make any other sound? Many lizards hiss when they are afraid or angry (it's a "warning: back off!" noise), and some make clicking sounds to talk to each other with, but those clicks are generally right on the edge of human hearing. I've never run into one that "creaked", but some may.

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Has someone really developed a perfume that smells like Play-Doh, the modeling clay, to celebrate its 50th "birthday"? Yes: see http://www.hasbro.com/playdoh/default.cfm?page=50thbday and http://www.toymania.com/news/messages/8137.shtml . Got to hit that nostalgia market somehow....

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How long does the Western Blot test take? It depends on what protein the blot is being used to detect, and the protocol being used. Minimum time is 4-5 hours, including materials preparation and stripping the blot afterwards. Some protocols strip the blot overnight, however. (This step is necessary to make the tagged proteins visible in isolation.) To a large degree it also depends on the availability of the antibody which is...

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Has the Time Cube theory really been left unchallenged by scientists? I would say, no-one has attempted Gene Ray's "$10,000 challenge" because the so-called "theory" was constructed completely without reference to any physical evidence, and takes no account of physical evidence -- therefore, any attempt to disprove it using physical evidence is likely to be ignored by Ray. Also, most scientists have had adequate experience to know that...

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If, as the Genesis account describes, there were "waters above" and presumably these fell to earth during the flood, how might this "canopy" of water have affected radiation of the earth and, in turn, carbon dating? Any "canopy" of water sufficient to contribute to a 40-foot deep layer of water over the whole surface of the earth would have blocked out virtually all the sunlight, leaving the surface of the planet in constant darkness, or else it would have required an atmosphere which extended over 40,000 miles into space. Not to mention the havoc it would have played with atmospheric pressure....

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I need help!! What are some interesting topics on education during the Renaissance in Florence? The resurgance of interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts; the birth of humanism and the humanist philosophy of learning. Florence is counted as the birthplace of the Renaissance, and part of that was the "studia humanitatis", which counted itself separate from theology and natural science (although in reality there was a lot of overlap with the natural sciences in the quadrivium)....

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How can you tell whether a lobster is male or female? In a male the first pair of swimmerets ("swimming legs") are hard and bony, and in a female they are feathery and soft. The female's tail is wider, and the female has a rectangular plate between her second pair of walking legs which the males lack. There is a labelled diagram which points out swimmerets at...

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Is it true that there are genes "running free" in the human body and wherever they settle is where cancer begins? Actually, you are probably thinking of "retrotransposons". These are small sections of DNA which simply copy themselves, over and over and over; they are not "functional genes" which code for proteins, the only thing they code for is more of themselves. They are essentially parasites, parasitic sequences which use our DNA replication mechanisms to continue their...

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If pigeons make milk, is it possible to make pigeon cheese? Bob Blaylock has the right of it, here; pigeon milk or crop milk is partially-digested food, from whatever the pigeon has been eating. It's generally high in fat and protein, and it's already semi-solid, but...you certainly wouldn't be able to treat it like you would a dairy product. And eating it yourself??? Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, bleagh.....

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Does size matter when you are getting in a fight? Size matters. The longer a bone is, the more surface there is for muscle to attach to, and the more of a strength advantage that person has. There is also an issue of, are you within his arm's reach without him being in yours? Longer limbs == longer reach, after all. This is not to say that someone bigger will automatically win. Far from it. The smaller person can still be...

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In biology witch on of the following parts by itself can carry on infromation? A)Genome B) Chromosome C)Codon D)Nucleotide Kind of a weird question, since all of these carry different levels of information. Maybe visit http://www.agresearch.co.nz/scied/search/molecular/dnabackground.htm and go through the pages and movies to see if you can figure out what you are really after.

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I twitch when I'm falling asleep, and also when I'm lightly sleeping. Sometimes I spasm violently. I also snore. Is it related? I take a few medications but I'm not sure when this started (before or after). What's going on? The twitch when you're falling asleep or in a light sleep is called "hypnic myoclonia". It isn't necessarily related to snoring at all. Snoring occurs because of flaccid tissue in the soft palate, which can be caused or exacerbated by any number of things. Hypnic myoclonia specifically has to do with how the brain behaves in light, Stage 1 sleep. The first stage of...

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What good do fleas do? They don't. They are purely parasites, and irritating at best or harmful at worst to the unlucky host. They can carry disease, they can kill small animals through simple blood loss, they confer no particular immunities to the host, and they do not function as a significant food source for anything but a few smaller mites and some nematodes. I suppose the nematodes might like 'em....

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I need to know what to feed my baby squirrel next. she has been on fromula and is doing well,but it is time consuming Seriously -- your best bet is to find a wildlife rehabilitator. Best for you AND for the squirrel. Squirrel babies nurse for up to four months, although you can start them on some solids after two months. It is horrendously easy to feed them the wrong kind of milk or solids, though, and either end up with a sickly/deformed squirrel, or a dead one. For information, and help locating a...

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Why are tortoiseshell cats usually female? There are several genes which control cat coat color, and they interact in a phenomenon called "epistasis". One of the main determinants for color is the gene for Orange, which has two possible alleles (forms): XO, orange, or Xo, non-orange. XO, orange, is the dominant gene; that is, if the cat has O, then it will be orange, period. And these genes are written with a preceding X...

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Can rabbits get vicious, or are all rabbits friendly? Oh, rabbits can definitely get vicious and aggressive. It has much to do with their personality, and how they've been socialised, and what experiences they've had with humans. I have personally had the misfortune to deal with some very aggressive rabbits. A full grown rabbit can take a domestic cat in a fight, too.

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Why don't seals get the bends? Decompression sickness (the bends) happens when gases bubble out of the blood, which happens when there is a too-fast change in pressure. For that to happen, more than the usual amount of gas needs to be in the blood in the first place. The situation that causes the bends is set up in the initial dive, for most mammals. As a scuba diver, you probably know this bit. However, for purposes...

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Why were bomb sniffing dogs ordered to be removed 5 days before 9/11 and who gave the order? They weren't. I'm afraid this is another allegation unsupported by evidence. There HAD been increased security around the WTC in August, which had been returned to normal by early September. However, there were still bomb-sniffing dogs on duty; one of them (Sirius) was killed. http://www.portauthoritypolicememorial.org/Sirius%20press_clipping.htm

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To say "0000": Can you say "four-time zero"? or is it only "four times zero"? You could also say "quadruple zeroes".

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How long can an octopus survive out of water? It's "octopuses" rather than octopii -- the Latin plural form doesn't really apply -- and most can survive easily for about a half an hour. There have been unconfirmed reports of them hanging on, in a half-dead and asphyxiated way, for up to an hour. As a side note, part of the facility where I work includes a marine lab. They have famously taken to closing the tanks...

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No office furniture or equipment was found to be in one piece in the debris of WTC. Everything was discovered in pieces or blown away as the buildings blew apart. Why has not anyone tested for thermite residue in the debris? See the Wikipedia article on the collapse of the towers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center) and the NIST FAQ (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm) and final report (.pdf -- http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1CollapseofTowers.pdf ). The towers collapsed almost straight down, blowing what wasn't simply crushed out through the sides of the...

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Observing photo and video of fallen buildings that have caught fire, the core of the building is always intact. What happened to the cores of WTC? The buildings exploded, they did not pancake as they do in a normal demolition. The Wiki article on this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center) is good. A brief summary -- it was a combination of things. First, there was the simple kinetic energy of the planes impacting the towers. The towers were built to withstand an impact from the largest plane at the time, a 707; however, the impact from a 767 was several times the magnitude. That...

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What book would you recommend to someone who is very lonely? I would recommend "Intimate Worlds: How families thrive and why they fail" by Maggie Scarf (published 1997). It is actually about family dynamics, and how patterns of behavior get passed down from one generation to the next, and how these patterns of interaction can sabotage you without your recognising what's going on. The book doesn't have all the answers -- no one...

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Is it possible for my cockatiel's egg to be fertile if the only other bird in the cage is a male Amazon bird? It's not likely. If by "Amazon bird" you mean an Amazon parrot, then the two birds aren't just different species, they are different genera entirely. I would be _very_ surprised if any mating outside the same genus was fertile, ever; I've never heard of that working.

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Female rats and mice can store sperm and therefore give birth to more litters without the presence of a male. Are rabbits the same? Yes; rabbits and hares can store sperm for up to six months after mating.

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You see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant, and the animal can't live without the plant. What do you do? Shoo the animal away long enough to take a cutting of the plant, so that the plant can be propagated. Yeah, yeah, I know it's a boring answer. You asked, I answered, don't whine about it.

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What are prions? How can they be destroyed? Prions are indeed abnormally-folded proteins, which have created stable internal bonds such that they are extremely resistant to heat, acids or bases, or other causes of denaturation. How to destroy them -- since they are very resistant to the usual methods, you just have to keep hammering on them. Autoclaving isn't sufficient by itself, nor is bleach or most detergents; however, a...

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Are we cool people or what? "What".

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Can someone tell me something, anything? The boredom is starting to take over. A significant fraction of your body weight is bacteria, and you have mites living in the pores of your face. Everyone does. And taking showers doesn't make them go away, either. There, now, feel better? Did you really want to know that?

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I heard it's possible to boil someone's blood with sound. Is this true? You CAN cause nitrogen to bubble out of the blood by using sound waves, on some sonar frequencies (10- to 50-kilocycle acoustical frequency range, but I don't know the precise frequencies which have this effect) and if the sound waves are sufficiently loud. This causes symptoms like decompression sickness or "the bends", such as scuba divers get when they come up too quickly....

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Will there ever be a total cure for cancer? If so, how long do you think it will be? Not very likely, but not because of any conspiracy by drug companies or to maintain population control; the unfortunate fact is, cancer is not a single disease. Cancer is actually a whole range of diseases, with a wide range of causes, which all result in a similar effect (uncontrolled cell growth) but for lots of different reasons. Because there are so many different kinds of damage which...

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What is trysomy 21 Trisomy 21 is commonly known as Down's Syndrome; it is what happens when someone inherits an extra 21st chromosome in the egg or sperm, so that they get two of that chromosome from one parent and one from the other parent for a total of three. What is *supposed* to happen is that you get one chromosome from each parent for a total of two, for each of the 23 chromosomes. It sometimes...

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Is it normal to have a blind spot in the middle of your field of vision? It's detectable only at night. It is not normal to have a _noticeable_ blind spot in your field of vision, anywhere. A blind spot in the center of your field of vision often means something is going wrong with the macula, the part of the retina which deals with tight-focus; you need to go to your ophthalmologist (not just an optician) to be checked for macular degeneration. This can also be a symptom of diabetes.

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I found blood in my guinea pig's cage. It looks like she has given birth but there is no baby and she wasn't fat before. There is a white shrimp-like thing in the cage and it's about 2 inches long. Was she maybe pregnant but then lost the b It is possible that your guinea pig was pregnant and had a spontaneous abortion or miscarriage, yes. Clean the cage thoroughly, and take the guinea pig to a vet to be checked over thoroughly, because it would be very unusual for a pregnancy to have involved only one pup, and she may need help if there are dead pups still inside her.

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If you place plastic jugs filled with water around the perimeter of your yard, will that keep dogs from coming into your yard to do their business? Nope. Doesn't work at all. Dogs really don't care. Makes a good, persistant urban myth, though. Unfortunately, there is no tried-and-true method of keeping all dogs off a lawn except for a fence. There are a number of odor-aversion products out there that are supposed to keep dogs away from lawns because they smell bad, but for some dogs that just encourages them to pee on the...

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Why do we die? There is a simple engineering rule: the more complicated something is, then the more likelihood there is that something, somewhere, will go wrong. Life (in the purely biological sense, not the philosophical sense) is incredibly complicated. It also accumulates wear and tear, as any other material component of the universe does, over time. As damage accumulates, repair mechanisms get less...

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Does anyone know of a quick way to drop 15 lbs.? I'm 5'6" and weigh 135 lbs. I hate to say it, but if you lose weight fast, it will come back fast. If you starve yourself or speed up your metabolism to shed weight, your body responds as if it were subject to real famine -- and the next time it gets calories, it stores as many of them as it can in fat cells, just in case it gets starved again (bodies kind of have a mind of their own that way). Cutting sugar out of...

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Why shouldn't I just end it? Because cutting off all future possibilities to escape from current pain doesn't actually gain you anything. There are an awful lot of good things in life, and even if you are at a stage now where you don't /feel/ like there are (or feel like you can appreciate them), that doesn't mean it will always be like that. It's worth looking for help and answers; counselling to...

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What do i do when i accidentaly swallowed catipillar eggs? Appreciate the fact that, hey, it's extra protein in your diet. Seriously, what do you think is going to happen? They are unlikely to be poisonous. You'll digest them. Trust me, if you've ever eaten cheap hot dogs, then you've ingested worse things than a few insect eggs.

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How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? According to Ponder Stibbons, 16. The wizards of Discworld's Unseen University counted them. Terry Pratchett said so.

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What is a good example of a recent biological observation that demonstrated evolution in practice? One such example would be the speciation of the mosquito Culex pipiens, into the new species of Culex molestus. About 100 years ago, when London's Underground system was first built, a population of C. pipiens followed the workers into the tunnels. Less than a century later, the populations of mosquito living underground are genetically distinct and there is no evidence of any current...

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Has evolution stopped? If not, what can humans expect to look like in say, 1000 years? Human evolution hasn't stopped, but we have shifted much of our ability to adapt to changing conditions to products of our intelligence, rather than having to deal with these conditions by changes in our bodies. Culture, language and technology all change in response to changing conditions, and culture and technology, especially, allow us to adapt /without/ making huge changes to our...

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What are the 50 most intelligent animials on earth? Although exact locations on the ranking are generally disputed, according to standard assessments of problem-solving abilities, social complexity and self-awareness the most intelligent species would be: humans chimps (Pan troglodytes) bonobos (Pan paniscus) gorillas (Gorilla beringei and Gorilla gorilla) Orangutans (Pongo abelii and Pongo pygmaeus) baboons (including Papio hamadryas,...

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Is it true that mules are very sure footed and good at mountain trails because their eyes are located so as to see all four hoofs at the same time? No. A mule's eyesight is precisely the same as a horse's eyesight, but mules are nevertheless generally more surefooted than horses. They inherit surefootedness from their donkey ancestor, and it does not have to do with where their eyes are, but with their psychology and how their hooves and bodies are shaped. A shorter, boxy straight-up-and-down hoof shape (as opposed to a...

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Which animal has the least ability to think? If you are only looking for a multicellular animal with a nervous system, and disregarding single-celled creatures or colony creatures like sponges, with no central nervous system at all -- then any number of nematodes (flatworms) might qualify. The biological "model organism" Caenorhabditis elegans always has precisely 959 cells in its body (except where damaged or mutated), 302 of...

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Is the crow the most intelligent animal in the world? Depends on whether or not you consider humans "animals". As humans ARE animals according to scientific classification, in that way, clearly no. If you exclude humans from the equations, then certain problem-solving and self-awareness tests (such as, being able to figure out a puzzle to get to food inside a container; learning how to open a container not from personal...

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What is the scientific community's best estimate of human life expectancy 50 years from now? According to the paper "Broken Limits to Life Expectancy" by Jim Oeppen and James W. Vaupel (Science, 10 May 2002: Vol. 296. no. 5570, pp. 1029 - 1031), which is a definitive survey of trends and expectations and which seems to be the paper which _everyone_ now refers back to, 50 years from now the average human life expectency should be about 100 years.

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I just started my first pack of birth control. How long should I wait before having unprotected sex? One week minimum, to ten days if you're worried.

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Can my boyfriend actually ejaculate inside of me while I am on birth control? Yes; if you are taking the pill properly, then the whole point is that you can have normal sex without getting pregnant.

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While taking the placebo pills, how can those "fake" pills protect you in the same way as the "active" pills can? They don't; but if you have taken the hormone pills on schedule the way you are supposed to, then you will not ovulate during that week. The placebo pills are just there to keep you in the habit of taking a pill a day.

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Why are there placebo pills during the last week of the 28 day pill pack? Just to keep you in the habit of taking a pill a day. You can take them out and throw them away if you want, it makes no difference.

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How big is the largest rat? The largest rats in the world are the African giant pouched rats. In general, they have a mass of 1 to 1.47 kg (2.2 to 3.23 lbs), and grow to a length of 65 to 91 cm (25.39 to 35.83 in). Most people are familiar with Norway rats; they generally weigh between 10 and 18 ounces and can grow up to 18 inches (a 2-ft. Norway rat, or domestic rat, would be a monster!). The biggest Norway rat ever...

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How did foxes originate? Are they related to dogs? Foxes, wolves and dogs are all part of family Canidae; see http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/classification/Canidae.html#Canidae . However, foxes are very close to the ancestral canid form, and are recognizeably close to the ancient split between canids and felids. One of the oldest recogniseably "canid" fossils that we have is Hesperocyon gregarius, and this...

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Do pigs have hamstrings? Absolutely. "Hamstrings" acquired the name because people used to use those tendons as a handy bit of strong tissue to hang up hams (the pig's leg up to the hip).

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What is the slowest-growing bacterium? The best candidates that I know of are the cyanobacteria that inhabit the porous sandstone of Antarctica's dry valleys, including at least one species of Chroococcidiopsis. In a landmark paper of 1991 ("Photosynthetic Carbon Incorporation and Turnover in Antarctic Cryptoendolithic Microbial Communities: Are They the Slowest-Growing Communities on Earth?", Appl Environ Microbiol....

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Why can't viruses infect humans through the skin? The topmost layer of skin (the "stratum corneum" of the epidermis) is composed of dry, flattened, glued-together cells where the normal fluids which compose the inside of most cells have been replaced by the relatively hard protein "keratin", in masses of tiny fibers. These cells also do not have nuclei, and do not have the chromosomes or protein production machineries of...

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My Chihuahua has hot spots on his lower back. How can I get rid of them? Try changing his diet; "hot spots" are frequently a symptom of a food allergy, believe it or not.

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My dog has painful, itchless, bloody lesions from her neck down to the top of her tail. What could be the cause? If it's not itchy it suggests a hormonal imbalance/disease, although it could also be bacterial infection. I hope you took your dog to the vet rather than just asking here!!!

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What was tetrafluoroethylene gas used for before it started being polymerized into Teflon? It wasn't being used for anything that I can find a record of; it was being investigated as a possible non-toxic (or at least less-toxic) refrigerant gas, however. (From Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science, by Royston M. Roberts; John Wiley and Sons; New York; 1989.)

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How old was the oldest surviving Civil War veteran and when did he die? From http://www.nycivilwar.us/jahard.html, I believe it was James A. Hard, who died March 12, 1953, at the age of 111. He was not the *last* Civil War veteran to die -- that was probably Albert Woolson, who died August 2,1956 -- but Woolson was "only" 109 when he died.

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Is it true that it is impossible to burst a bubble from the inside? No, it isn't true, but it is somewhat more difficult. Are you worried about a fish being trapped in a bubble? You shouldn't be; gravity will take care of most problems (an air bubble will rise, the fish generally won't, and will generally just go through the bottom of the bubble).

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According to evolution, are monkeys smarter than dolphins? Evolution addresses how intelligence could appear, but doesn't directly address whether one species is more intelligent than another. Whether monkeys are smarter than dolphins is a question for ethologists, behaviorists, and probably anatomists; evolution's role is simply one of explaining how behavior and anatomy originated and what purpose they serve(d) in that organism's...

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What would be considered the smartest insect? Bees are a good candidate, actually. Hive-living, cooperative insects in general have larger brains relative to body mass, and more complex behaviors, than solitary insects. At 100,000+ neurons, the honeybee brain is just about the biggest insect brain in existance, and bees have demonstrated a remarkable ability for navigation, memory, and communication with other bees. For more of a...

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Is it possible for an insect to become resistant to DDT (inseticide) by eating it? jalex137 is right, not by eating it, but by already having less susceptibility and that resistance being selected for and strengthened, a population of resistant insects can build up. Can, and has. DDT is still used in the developing world for the control of malarial mosquitos, but it is not universally effective because at least four strains of malarial mosquito now exist which are not...

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Is it possible for an insect to become resistant to DDT (inseticide) by eating it? jalex137 is right, not by eating it, but by already having less susceptibility and that resistance being selected for and strengthened, a population of resistant insects can build up. Can, and has. DDT is still used in the developing world for the control of malarial mosquitos, but it is not universally effective because at least four strains of malarial mosquito now exist which are not...

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Where do bees go when night falls? Do they sleep? Actually, though yes, they do return to the hive, there is a question about whether they "sleep". Insects have periods of dormancy in which their physical and nervous activity "ramps down", which is exactly analogous to sleep in more complex creatures. As diurnal creatures, many bees will go into such dormancy at night.

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What are genetic algorithms? Oh, genetic algorithms are FANTASTIC. I suppose you want more of an answer than that, though. In brief, genetic algorithms are a way of posing a problem, any problem, as a "fitness solution", with a random set of possible solutions, or elements of possible solutions, being your "genome pool". These solutions then cycle through a set number of generations, being filtered...

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Why does my cat run out of the litter box if she's in it when I walk by? Your cat is in a vulnerable position position when "doing its business" and perhaps he/she doesn't trust people enough to have people in proximity when this is happening.

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Why does my cat like to be kissed? She showers me with licking and purring when I kiss her head My guess would be that she has identified your kissing her as the human version of "grooming", or else that she has simply correctly identified kissing as something you do out of affection, and she is quite happy with the affection and attention.

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Does the exterior color of a refrigerator have any effect on its efficiency? If it is a dark-colored fridge and you sit it in the sun, then it is more likely to absorb heat from the sunlight, which would make it work harder to stay cool and somewhat less efficient. Otherwise, no, I have never seen an efficiency rating change due to color, and there is no immediately obvious credible mechanism by which it could affect efficiency.

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Two of my dogs have died with similar mysterious symptoms after my neighbor complained that the dogs didn't let him sleep. Is there anything I can do legally against this neighbor? The dogs need to be autopsied and tox screened for evidence of poison. If the vet can produce evidence of poisoning, then you can go to the police with this and ask for an investigation, and mention your suspicions of your neighbor. The ASPCA might also offer suggestions or resources in the case of suspected poisonings. A legal case usually hinges on method, motive, and opportunity. The...

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What could cause a change in the pH of the egg yolk or egg white? The two possibilities I thought of straight off are, age, or infection by a strain of bacteria. As an egg ages, water and CO2 diffuse out through pores in the shell, which raises the pH (it becomes more alkaline). The pH of the white of a freshly-laid egg is between 7.6 and 7.9, but that is largely due to the presence of CO2, which is slightly acidic. As the CO2 is lost, the more alkaline...

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How did claws evolve into nails, assuming that they did? About 53-54 million years ago, at the beginning of the Eocene epoch, primates appeared in the fossil record for the first time. Around the time that primates became arboreal and developed prehensile hands and feet, with opposing thumbs and toes, their claws also became nails. This being the case, it was probable that having nails instead of claws was somehow tied in with finger dexterity and...

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Is organised religion considered to be an evolutionary development? Most people like to think of organised religion as being "special", inspired by some transcendent spiritual awareness or experience rather than by any evolutionary process. However, many biologists have explored the ways in which social organisation in general and moral imperatives specifically are rooted in our evolutionary history, and there are some intriguing ideas out there. ...

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Which evolved first, the opposable thumb, the capacity for speech or walking upright? Given that many lines of primates, including Old World monkeys, great apes, and humans, have an opposable thumb, this was almost certainly the first of these three things to appear, and would have appeared in whatever was the common ancestor of all these lines. A permanent upright posture appeared toward the base of the human family tree, about 6 million years ago by our best estimate (see...

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Is it likely that the basic human cell evolved from just one animal, or is it a combination of animals that once lived together in symbiosis? All animals' cells contain mitochondria, which we believe were once free-living prokaryotes. Now they are fully integrated into our cells, to the point that we could not live or function without each other. The biologist Lynn Margulis managed to bring this "outsider theory" into orthodoxy by the sheer weight of her evidence for it, so that model is currently well accepted. ...

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How far will human intestines actually stretch? The average human intestine is usually between 20-28 feet long, naturally (it is often roughly ~12x the length of the torso from neck to crotch). It is somewhat elastic, however, so if you pin down one end and deliberately *try* to stretch it out you may add a few more feet to its length. I recommend against this experiment, however.

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Why don't people build levees out of stronger material, such as steel and concrete, to stop floods? The levees around New Orleans *were* built out of steel and concrete -- however, they were poorly anchored in places, and when the dirt underneath them washed away they collapsed.

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Earth is presently in the process of a magnetic pole switch. Could global changes be the result of these magnetic poles flipping? This is an interesting question. Depends on what "global changes" you mean. Some weather disruption? Entirely possible, but to be honest, weather does not depend *directly* on the earth's magnetic field, but only indirectly, which complicates matters. Changes to the weather would be most likely to occur because, during the period of the actual pole switch, the earth's...

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It disheartens me to know that brain cells are never replaced when they die. What can we do to make brain cells regenerate? First of all, it is not universally true that brain cells are never replaced when they die. That used to be what we thought, but about 7 years ago we started seeing evidence of cell replacement when we looked carefully at the areas of the brain involved in the formation of memory and control of emotions, especially the hypothalamus. This is ongoing throughout life, although how fast and how...

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What would it take for a pill to be invented that makes our bodies grow taller? Depends on if you are talking about a pill to be taken during infancy or childhood, or a pill that adults can take. A pill that could be taken during infancy or childhood would need to contain either a retrovirus capable of replacing the genes which control the on/off of the bone growth of the long bones, or it would need to contain something which affected the genes already there, to...

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When I do Pilates I sometimes pass gas. Is this common? Any exercise which involves tightening abdomenal muscles and squishing your intestines can make you pass gas.

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Can Pilates help to lengthen your bones and make you grow taller? Not once you are fully adult, no, and it's dubious if it could help all that much even if you were a child or teen -- mostly bone length depends on a combination of genetics and adequate dietary protein and mineral supply. As you age, some of your smaller bones grow together and fuse, and softer bones harden. Although bone is a living tissue which constantly renews itself, as the...

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If we are all born with no knowledge, why do some people have higher IQs than others? IQ isn't about "knowledge", it is about the ability to acquire and retain knowledge, as well as the ability to figure out and solve problems. In that sense, we do not all start out on a level playing field; some people have a better ability to analyse problems and apply techniques to break them down and solve them from the get-go, as well as a better ability to grasp abstract...

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My ankles and knees pop repeatedly when I walk, and my wrists pop continuously. What causes this, and is it harmful? It just means you have "loose" joints, where the bone separates slightly from the socket as you move, creating a gap which may allow nitrogen bubbles from the fluid around the joint to move in and then be "popped" out. It isn't harmful, and has never been linked to any increased tendency to develop arthritis or any other "joint ills" -- although you may want...

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After taking anti-osteoporosis medication, I've improved my bone density. What impact will this have on my body weight? Your body weight should increase with increasing bone density, even though you wouldn't see an increase in clothing size.

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If you donated blood at a blood drive, and you didn't know you were HIV positive, would the organization let you know? Yes, they would -- but it's a bad idea to use blood donation as an opportunity to get a test. For one thing, their screening is not 100% accurate; it is possible that you carry the HIV virus but do not yet have enough antibodies in your blood to show up positive on the test that's used to screen blood, in which case your blood would be used and could infect someone else. There are...

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If blood banks are so desperate for donations, and there is a quick and easy way to test blood samples for HIV, why can't people in "high risk" groups give blood? Because no screening method is 100% accurate. There may be only one false negative out of 10,000, but that would still be one too many. Even though risk can never be completely eliminated -- even people in low-risk groups may carry the virus without realising -- the policies are designed to minimise that chance.

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When I lay my head down on a hard surface, or if I hang my head upside down, I hear a cracking and/or crackling sound in my head. What causes this? It's probably the tendons in your neck that you are hearing. These tendons are often quite tense, essentially under high pressure, and have multiple points of connection to the skull and the bones in your neck and shoulders. A change in position and pressure can sort of "pop" them across the bumps of the cervical vertebrae, which results in a cracking or crackling sound....

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Why won't a human limb grow back if it's cut off? In all mammals, limbs development from the "limb bud" is controlled by a series of genes which are only active during embryological development. At the point that the complete limb is present, these genes are shut off, and a new series of genes take over which controls cell division in a slightly different way, to expand and lengthen the areas of differentiated cells which are...

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My daughter is wants to write a book. How can she find information about publishers who may be interested in her story? Every year a large book called the Writer's Market (2004 Writer's Market, 2005 Writer's Market, etc.) is published, which has a reasonably complete listing of book publishers and what they look for, along with submission guidelines and helpful hints for query letters, etc. That is the best resource to start with, and you should be able to get it in any big bookstore. Rule of...

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What are some good replacements words to use, in place of swear words, when writing pieces for young people? One of my favorites is "Oh..._bugs_." Now that I've been living in the UK for a while, I'm also starting to use "Bloomin' heck!" -- but that might not work everywhere.

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What is in the Depo-Provera injection that causes weight gain? Estrogen binds to specific receptors on the surface of adipocytes (fat cells) which tells them to grow and divide, so you end up with more fat cells in response to a heavy-duty burst of estrogen.

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Why don't gynecologists pre-warm a speculum before it is used? Every female gynecologist I have ever had has held the speculum under a lamp briefly to warm it right before using it. Male gynecologists haven't. I suspect it is simply a matter of sympathy, and thinking about what it feels like. There is certainly no medical reason why it shouldn't be. :-/

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I haven't had my period for several months, and when I finally got it, the blood was more on the blackish-reddish side, and would not come out on its own. I had to push it out. What could be wrong? It is also possible (if you had had any sxual activity) that you were pregnant, and your "period" was an early-term spontaneous abortion. It happens.

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My period started back in mid January. It's now March and I still have it. Why? Also, although this is more rare, ovarian cysts can mess with your hormones and prevent a period from ending.

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Can a kidney or bladder infection cause a late period? It's possible. Any form of ill health can cause a late period, if it is severe enough. Stress and immune response can change your hormone balance.

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How many planets are there currently known to exist in our solar system? That depends on who you ask...currently 2003 UB313, otherwise known as "Xena", is being fiercely fought over. It has not been officially accepted as a planet yet, but it cannot be easily dismissed as one since it is significantly larger than Pluto. See http://www.telescopes.com/new-planet/index.php for the perspective of some people who definitely think it qualifies as a planet,...

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What is the possibility of someone having all dominant genes? Considering that humans have roughly 25,000 protein-coding genes, slim, even given that not all of these genes are dominant-recessive pairs. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm going to answer this somewhere between "no chance" and "the question is meaningless". The reasons are these: People are often taught in high school that genes act independently of...

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Which is the colour loci of corn? There isn't just one, there are at least 6 and possibly more since not all the candidate genes in maize have been identified yet. And since at least two of the loci with influence on color are transposable elements, they are highly mobile around the genome (although one of them (Ds) is generally associated with chromosome 9). However, two other important color loci (Bz/bz and C/c) are...

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I just got my cat declawed, and now she is biting her toes. Why is she doing this, and what should I do? Declawing involves removal of the last bones of the toes. It can be extremely painful for the cat. From the way that some cats act, there is also reason to believe that some have a similar reaction to human amputees which feel they have a "phantom limb" and describe the missing piece of themselves as burning, itching or "buzzing", a result of nerves misfiring or the part...

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Can housecats be herded? Why, sure -- according to EDS! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4057591681481453187

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We have a 8 year old, spayed female calico cat. Would she get along with a new kitten, or should we get an adult cat? That ultimately depends entirely on the personalities of the cats involved, but in general an adult cat is far more likely to accept a kitten than another adult.

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What can be done to cure flaky skin around the corners of the mouth and chin area? Try a light, hypoallergenic face moisturizer on those areas, and especially put some on every night before bed.

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Is there any way to get freckles, if you're not born with them? Oh, certainly; pale-skinned people tend to freckle in the sun.

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When I recently started a new pack of birth control pills, I missed taking the first pill so I took 2 pills the next day. Could I get pregnant because I was late taking the first pill of the new pack? It is possible but not likely.

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I have been taking birth control for about a year and a half now, but just switched to a higher dosage a month ago. How long does it take to go into effect, and what risk is there if the condom breaks? It only takes about a week for the dosage to take effect. There shouldn't be that much risk.

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If you get pregnant while on the pill but don't know it, will it hurt the baby if you continue taking the pill until you miss your period? If it's only for a couple of weeks, probably not, although it's not that good for the embryo either.

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I am on Alesse. If I miss a pill by an hour could I get pregnant? If it's just by an hour, then chances are very, very slim.

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I might be pregnant. Should I stop taking the pill until I know? Yes; hormones can have a powerful effect on a developing embryo. Use another method of birth control until your next cycle.

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I am on the pill and have been for almost 10 years. How long should I be off the pill before trying to get pregnant? At least one month, and three months is usually recommended. You _can_ get pregnant right away, but giving it a few months gives the body's hormones a chance to normalize, which is better for the embryo.

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I am a UK citizen planning to marry a French citizen next May (2006). How long does he have to be in the UK for before the wedding? That depends on the visa he comes in with. If he applies for a fiance visa before coming to the UK, then he will not be allowed to work while on that visa, but you can get married immediately and you MUST marry within 6 months. Once married he can apply for a marriage visa, which gives him full working privileges. See http://www.workpermit.com/uk/fiance.htm .

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My husband only has 2 million viable sperm per ejaculate. Since 20 million is normal, would it still be possible for me to get pregnant? Less likely, but certainly still possible. You may just have to try for longer.

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I am two weeks late on my period, but I had my tubes tied eight years ago. Is it possible for me to get pregnant? If the tubal ligation was incomplete, then yes. It is _extremely_ rare, but it happens. However, you will be at very high risk for an ectopic pregnancy if this is the case. Your period can also be delayed by illness, stress, extreme physical exertion or hormonal imbalance. However, if there is any doubt, take a pregnancy test and/or go see a doctor.

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How soon after ovulating can one get pregnant? Immediately. Even though it takes some time for the egg to move through the fallopian tube into the uterus, sperm can find it long before that point, and sperm can live in the body for up to three days once they have passed through the cervix.

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How can I relieve the itching caused by a wasp bite? Cut a fresh clove of garlic in half and rub garlic juice on the sting or bite. I have dealt with wasp stings very successfully that way; it brings the swelling right down and stops the itching. Garlic contains some good anti-inflammatories.

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What are some home remedies to get rid of flatulence? Peppermint tea just after you eat. Crystallised ginger, anytime. And it helps to avoid foods with a lot of sulfur compounds in them, like cabbage, eggs or onions, or which have been preserved with sulfur, like many dried fruits. Some people are also made very gassy by dairy -- it depends on the person.

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Will a tapeworm crawl up your throat if you have a glass of water by your mouth? Nope. Tapeworm only comes out one end, and it ain't the mouth. Tapeworm will not "crawl out", either. There are urban legends about getting tapeworms to "crawl out" by tempting them with steak or other goodies, but tapeworms have very limited perception (think about where they live!) and no digestive capability of their own, so they are not interested in being...

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If Batman is so well known in Gotham city, why do so many generic non-super badguys choose to operate there? Because Batman is looking after Gotham, but it's Superman looking after the rest of the world...

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What is the most valuable comic book? According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it was Marvel Comics #1, sold for $350,000. According to the Overstreet Price Guide, it was Action Comics #1 at $350,000, followed by Detective Comics #27 (the first appearance of Batman in print), at $300,000.

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When was genealogy founded? About the same time that people started paying attention to the fact they had parents, most likely. Elaborate genealogies are kept by just about every human society in the world, regardless of whether or not there is a written language; some members of "primitive" tribes specialise in holding the memorized bloodlines of everyone around them, and they generally have a say in who is...

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What is my cousin's son's cousin's relation to me? Possibly first cousin, once removed. First cousin because your cousin's son's cousin could be the child of your cousin's sibling, who is himself also your cousin; "once removed" refers to the generational difference, the fact that he (or she) is your cousin's child. The ancestor you share in common is your grandfather, and this person's great-grandfather....

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What is my second cousin's daughter's relation to me? Your third cousin, same as your "grandfather's cousin's daughter". Third cousins share the same great-great-grandparent; second cousins share the same great-grandparent; first cousins share the same grandparent.

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What is my mom's cousin's relation to me? Your cousin, once removed.

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What is my grandfather's cousin's daughter's relation to me? Ah, of course -- Clark Cox is right. She's your third cousin *once removed*, if you share a common ancestor rather than being related by marriage. Count the generations back: Shared grandparents == cousin Shared great-grandparent(s) == 2nd cousin Shared great-great-grandparent(s) == 3rd cousin Presumably, your grandfather and his cousin had shared grandparents, which means that...

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How do I prove my lineage to a Scottish titled ancestor? Same as proving lineage for any family: through birth and marriage records. Ideally you would need to demonstrate direct descent from the titled ancestor in this way, but you would also potentially need to prove that any individuals named were the ones relevant to the family, as the Scots are unimaginative about names, and there may be 20 or 40 individuals named the same thing around the same...

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Say a college student gives birth at age 20 and wants to graduate by the time she is 23. What's the best way to manage course loads and raising a child to achieve this goal? Two things: go to a university which offers nursery or creche facilities for children of students (many do) so that you have someplace for your child during the day, and get together with a few other students who have children to make a sort of time-share childcare cooperative for afternoons and evenings. If you have to spend an afternoon/evening looking after one child, you might as well...

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To earn a doctorate, must one first earn a bachelors and a masters degree? A bachelors, yes, but not necessarilly a masters. Some schools and some countries incorporate the training one would usually get for a masters into the PhD programme, usually extending the PhD by about a year -- although how much time it takes ultimately depends on how much time you take for your final thesis. It just depends on if you can get accepted by such a programme.

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Is it true that GRE scores expire after 5 years? Yes, actually, it is true. According to ETS, the organization which designs, administers, manages and reports the GRE, test scores for most subjects are valid for 5 years, and for the TOEFL (English as a Foreign Language) only, 2 years. If you retake your GREs before 5 years is up, then all of your scores including the first set will be reported, but the scores from the first set of exams...

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What is the function of viral DNA? Viral DNA functions to co-opt the "machineries" of whatever cell the virus infects in order to reproduce, and it generally operates in two or three distinct stages. In the immediate-early or early stage, directly after the viral DNA has infected a permissive cell and moved into proximity with the cell's own DNA, it generally (not always, just generally) uses the cell's...

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How does the genius brain operate? This is a question that no-one really knows the definite answer to, although a lot of people are interested. On the physical level, our best guess so far is that it has to do with geniuses being able to make denser patterns of neural connection than the average person, and the patterns made being more "effective" somehow, since the brains of geniuses are no larger than the...

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Does the human brain really ever lose information? If it doesn't, what does it mean for us to forget something? Yes, the human brian can and does permanently lose information. Memory is stored in the patterns of neural connections; when those connections are lost through traumatic disruption or because of the death of too many of the neurons involved, the memories which had been stored are gone. This is why people who have suffered traumatic brain injury usually permanently lose at the least the period...

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If the brain is just a muscle, where do emotions come from? Chemicals! :-D Humor aside, the brain is not a muscle. The brain is composed of nerve cells called neurons and glia, and thought and memory both arise from the connections of neurons to each other, with the glia playing a strong supportive role. However, there are many chemicals, called neurotransmitters, which heavily influence how, when, and how much neurons talk to each other. Many of...

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Has anybody ever been revived from brain death? No; not that I have ever heard of or been able to find in any of the medical literature databases. Brain death is pretty much the definitive diagnosis of permanent death, and revival attempts after the cessation of brain activity are pointless, brain activity does not re-start after it has ceased being detectable. What is very difficult for relatives and friends of those who have gone into...

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Is formaldehyde poisonous when absorbed through the skin? The majority of effects come from either inhalation of vapors or ingestion, however in contact with skin it is both an irritant and an allergen, with prolonged or repeated exposure sometimes resulting in hypersensitivity allergies to multiple types of chemicals (multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome). Exposure to undiluted formaldehyde can result in burn-like blisters and deadening of the...

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Can the color of your bowel movement give you any indications about your health? In addition to Red John's absolutely accurate answer -- Yes, it can in some other diseases as well. Strange-colored stools can be indicative of parasites such as hookworm or more commonly Giardia. Bloody stools can also result from the parasites whipworm or Schistosomiasis. Blackened stools can also indicate bleeding elsewhere in the body, such as because of thrombocytopenia, a...

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Is it harmful to hold off a bowel movement for 3-5 days? If so, how? Aside from most people finding it very uncomfortable, yes, it is harmful. Between 40-60% by mass of what you poo out is not what you didn't use of your food, it is dead bacteria and the waste that the bacteria in your intestines produce. These are considered toxins, and keeping such toxins inside your body, in contact with the cells lining the bowel, for so long leads to cellular damage....

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Can cats eat pork? Certainly, although it should be well cooked -- cats can pick up parasites from undercooked pork, same as humans can. Don't feed too much processed ham or bacon, though, as these contain a lot of nitrites and salts which can strain the cat's kidneys.

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Is the theory of evolution the same as the theory of natural selection written by Charles Darwin? The theory of evolution encompasses natural selection, as one of the mechanisms by which evolution works; other such mechanisms include sexual selection, which Darwin also wrote extensively on, and things like lateral gene transfer and polyploidy, which Darwin knew nothing about.

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I am looking for information in support of evolutionary theory, but against the idea that humans evolved from monkeys. Is there any such information, and if so, where can I find it? Humans, by the best evidence available, did NOT evolve from "monkeys"; humans, apes and monkeys all evolved from a now-extinct proto-simian ancestor, but the line which led to apes and to us split from the lines which led to modern monkeys around 17 million - 23 million years ago, possibly with Proconsul. If you are looking for evidence that humans didn't evolve from primates,...

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Why or how can people trust the Theory of Evolution when there is no documention of anything that ever evolved nor has anything evolved since the theory was concocted? "No documentation"?? That claim is often made in Creationist websites. However, I'm afraid that this has no basis in fact. The evolution of microbes for resistance to antibiotics, the appearance of a brand-new bacterium (Dehalococcoides ethenogenes ) that biodegrades the industrial cleaning compound trichlorethylene (TCE), and the bacterium, Polaromonas naphthalenivorans...

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What are some good introductory biology textbooks? The best introductory text I've ever seen is "Life: The Science of Biology", by Purves, Sadava, Orians and Heller (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0716738759/qid=1142453718/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/104-3263763-8759925?s=books&v=glance&n=283155 ) The price is steep, but you will not get a better book. This will take you from the absolute basics to a good understanding, and...

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Is it possible that there are colors that we cannot see and imagine because our eyes evolved in such a way that they cannot pick up those wavelengths? There are many animals and insects which see in the infrared or ultraviolet parts of the light spectrum, which we cannot see. In all likelihood they are perceiving them as colors which we would not be able to put a name to. For instance, it has been demonstrated with flowers painted with "invisible" (to us) ultraviolet dyes, that bees see several ultraviolet wavelengths and are...

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How can I tell what sex my guinea pig is? If you hold the guinea pig up so that you can see the genital area, the usual thing to look for is a Y shape for a female or an i shape for a male. See http://www.guinealynx.info/sexing.html for examples. It's easiest to look at pictures to learn what to look for, since there can be variation, so also have a look at http://cavyspirit.com/sexing.htm (warning: lots of explicit guinea pig...

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Is it normal for a guinea pig to lose a tooth, and will it grow back? It is not normal for an adult guinea pig to lose a tooth; however, they are rodents, and rodents' teeth grow continuously -- that is why they need to have things to chew on, to keep their teeth worn down. This being the case, unless there has been a deeper jaw injury the tooth may well grow back. Keep an eye on the guinea pig, though, since the tooth opposite the one lost (on the upper...

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I found a baby mouse that escaped from my neighbor's snake. He is all white with red eyes and pink tail, ears and nose. What kind of mouse is this? That's a domestic mouse, the same kind used in labs and sold in pet stores. Almost all albino mice are domestics.

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Were any dinosaurs omnivorous? Based on the evidence of teeth and occasionally the fossilised contents of dinosaur poop, yes. Omnivorous dinosaurs or groups which included omnivorous members included Massospondylos, Ornithomimosaurs (sometimes also known as oviraptosaurs!), several diplodocids, basal ornithopods, heterodontosaurs, pachycephalosaurs, psittacosaurids, basal neoceratopsians and ceratopsids, and there is some...

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Were dinosaurs cold-blooded or warm-blooded? That one is still being fought over. It used to be assumed that dinosaurs were all cold-blooded, like modern reptiles. It is now thought that at least some were warm-blooded, on the basis of particular patterns that blood vessels leave on bones (which differ between warm-blooded and cold-blooded creatures in the modern world). For a fast summary of the debate, and links to pro and con...

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What did trilobites eat? Most trilobites had mouthparts similar to the mouthparts of modern crabs, so it is likely their diet was similar as well -- some were "particle feeders" who sifted through the gunk at the bottom of the water for diatoms, plankton and tiny invertebrates and any other organic detritus which could be found in sand or mud. Others had similar but stronger mouthparts, more designed for...

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Can birth control effect the results on your pregnancy test? Even though birth control tests do not measure estrogen or progesterone directly, it is possible depending on the quality of the test. With hormone-based contraceptives, then the hormones used can sometimes either mask a pregnancy or give a false positive, depending on the exact hormones used. You need to either go off the contraceptive for at least a week (possibly more), or get a proper...

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Will drinking an 8 oz. glass of milk every night burn fat? No. It will increase your calcium levels, which is all to the good, and it may help you sleep, but there is no physiological reason why it could or would "burn fat".

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How did the "butterfly" get its name? The Old English name is _buttorfleoge_, and there is a similar Dutch word; it is thought to come from a very old folk-belief that butterflies stole milk and butter. There is a possible alternative etymology in Britain that it simply refers to "butter colored fly", as the first English butterfly to appear in spring is the Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni), which has bright yellow wings....

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If you break two mirrors, is it double bad luck, or do they cancel each other out? According to British superstition, breaking one mirror is 7 years bad luck -- but breaking TWO mirrors is 7x7 years bad luck, or 49 years! They don't cancel each other out, or double, they square. Edit to add: People, please. I'm not saying **I** believe this. The question was about what the superstition is; I am answering what the British version of the superstition is,...

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What is the difference between vegetation and community? Vegetation = plants. Community = all the plants and animals which interact with each other in a locale. (Ecology = the community + the physical environment -- climate, terrain, etc.)

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If insects were bigger than us would they become a threat to us? Insects are already a threat to us in many cases, as crop pests and disease carriers. For example malaria, carried by mosquitos, kills about 3 million people a year according to the World Health Organization. That is 8,219 people per day. And, your question is moot on another count, as it asks an impossibility; because of their anatomy, individual insects cannot and will not ever be bigger...

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What makes certain elements have longer or shorter half-lives than others? It is a function of (a) how unstable the parent element is, and (b) whether it follows a gamma, alpha or beta decay path. Some unstable elements only have to throw off one particle to become stable, a one-step process. Some unstable elements have to throw off several particles in order to become fully stable, which will happen one particle at a time. Different unstable elements have to...

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Is there a reaction within an atom that causes quarks to push together, creating new quantum particles? Strong interactions (under the control of gluons, I believe, but I may be wrong about that part) cause quarks to stick together to form hadrons. Find out more about quarks and quark interactions at http://pdg.web.cern.ch/pdg/cpep/quarks.html .

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Will the southern Iraqi marshes be restored (Saddam Hussein drained them)? Full restoration is probably not possible, given the level of building, drying, and pollution that has occurred in some areas. A lot of the Marsh Arabs have given up their cultivation of rice and water buffalo to farm wheat, sheep, and cattle, as well, and they may not want to change back as they get a good return for those. However, there are several Iraqi teams under the enthusiastic...

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How have cows adapted to their diet? Cows have to build a tremendous amount of muscle mass (and the females have to fuel milk production) out of a diet which is heavy in insoluble and nutritionless cellulose. So to break down the cellulose and get the maximum nutrition possible out of what they eat, they have accumulated adaptations of the teeth, the digestive system, and their pattern of eating. Cows have a far different...

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If your child is pulling up to stand and falls back and hits his head, is it anything to worry about? Depends on how hard he hit his head, what he hit his head on, and how he acts afterward. If there is a very large or deep red bruise, or if the child seems "dozy", sluggish or nauseous afterward, or he starts stumbling a lot more and shows decreased coordination, or he seems to have difficulty focusing his eyes (or the eyes seem to be reacting to light abnormally), then yes, get your...

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Does breastfeeding make breasts sag sooner? You need to ask another question, too -- Does breast feeding have any beneficial effect for the breasts? The answer is yes -- breast feeding has a strongly protective effect against breast cancer.

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What are the best ways to ensure that your baby becomes an exceptionally smart child? To add to some of the other good answers here: Don't neglect nutrition! For a nursing baby, breast IS best; consider expressing rather than using formula where possible. The "traditional" balanced diet is a good one, once your baby starts taking solid foods -- as well as grains, red meat twice a week, fish once a week, 4-5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day, and milk...

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What is a tension Pneumothorax? This is when air enters the area around the lungs (the pleural space) but can't leave again; generally it is the result of some injury to the lung which results in the lung leaking air into the pleural space with each intaken breath, but there being tissue in the way which prevents the air leaking back out, through either the same or any other path (e.g. a flap of tissue acting as a...

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Has anyone ever worked on research in cardiology related to ECG analysis in the frequency spectrum? Frequency analysis? Looking at normal and abnormal heartbeats? Oh lord yes. Hundreds of papers. Thousands. There are decades' worth of analyses of fibrillation (triggers and patterns) and countershock effectiveness. Try visiting PubMed or Google Scholar: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/ or http://scholar.google.com/ .

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Would it be possible to get deep vein thrombosis during sleep? Yes, it is certainly possible. DVT can result from a clot forming because a vein is damaged, or when blood flow slows down too much, and the risk is the greatest during periods of restricted mobility or prolonged immobility. Primary risk factors for DVT: - age over 40 - obesity - previous clotting disorders - cancer and some cancer treatments - pregnancy and childbirth - prolonged use...

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What is an example of how the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution affects us in our daily lives? What age people get driving licenses or can get married. This differs from state to state, because regulation of people's lives in this fashion was not given to the federal government in the Constitution, nor has it ever been added to the Constitution by amendment. Originally there were no laws governing these things at all, so it devolved upon individuals to decide. However, as time...

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What is the 10th Amendment of the constitution? What does it mean? "Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. " You can find the whole Constitution, and all the Amendments, at http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.table.html . What it means is that the powers that the federal government should...

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What are the chances of pregnancy for a couple who used a condom that did not break? Actually, condoms are a very high density latex ("laced"? no...), and if they do not break, then you are probably safe. They are designed to be as effective barrier against viruses, which are about 10,000x smaller than sperm. The only exception would be if sperm somehow leaked out around the base of the condom.

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Is it possible to get pregnant within a week of having had a miscarriage? Short answer is yes. It is possible that your body responded to the miscarriage by ovulating again.

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Is it possible to get pregnant after a tubal ligation? Very, very, very, very, very rarely. Generally only if the tubal ligation was incomplete. Were the fallopian tubes severed and clamped, or just clamped, or just severed? It makes a difference.

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Why would my 17-day-old bird have a blister-like thing near its eye? An abcess, an infected scratch, or parasites are all possibilities. Check the bird, cage and nest carefully for signs of parasites, and if you find any, then clean everything with a pet-safe cleaner and try an appropriate parasite treatment first. If that doesn't work or you don't find parasites, then check with the vet; your bird may need antibiotics. (Note, antibiotics from...

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Can hamsters burp? No. They can neither burp nor vomit.

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Is it safe to feed tomatoes to hamsters? Yes, actually, hamsters _can_ eat tomatoes. However, give them very small (and I do mean *very* small) pieces to start with, since tomatoes are acidic and can upset their tummies if they aren't used to it. Supplementing your hamster's diet with fresh veg is good for it, but introduce things slowly so that it doesn't get the runs. Incidentally, Red John is right; hamsters...

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I have a male feeder mouse and a male fancy mouse in the same cage. I was assured they would get along, but the feeder mouse now has a wound on his lower back. Should I assume the mice fight and separate them? Probably you should. Two unrelated males are under no obligation to be friendly towards each other. Keep an eye on them, and if any new wounds appear, then definitely.

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I have a guinea pig. Do I need to give him baths or do anything else to keep him clean? Under most circumstances, no. You should only need to bathe a guinea pig if it gets excessively soiled (has diarrhea, for instance, or gets splashed with something, or gets into something mucky in the garden). If you do need to bathe the guinea pig because it gets something nasty on it, then use shallow, lukewarm water and a very small dab of a pet shampoo or a baby shampoo (be careful not...

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Are any baby reptiles born like mammals? There are certain reptiles (mainly snakes) where the eggs are retained inside the mother's body and are hatched inside the mother's body, so that the young appear to be "live born". However, it doesn't work quite the same as mammals; while the young are developing, they are each still segregated inside an individual egg, dependent on the yolk of the egg for resources,...

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How does hydrogen peroxide kill bacteria? Through oxidative damage, primarily. Oxygen is very reactive; it tends to suck electrons away from other molecules, a process called "oxidation". When life scientists speak about "oxidative damage", they are generally referring to oxygen atoms pulling electrons away from other molecules, thus destabilising those molecules, to the point that they may change their shape...

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I have a knot under my skin between the crease of my leg and the lip of my vagina that enlarges and then goes down sometimes. It is painful. What could it be? This is most likely a swollen lymph node. If it is sore, it is probably because it has enlarged quickly -- generally a sign that you have some kind of infection started nearby. It is a common reaction to a yeast infection, for instance. You should get checked out if it stays enlarged, however.

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Can being overweight keep me from getting pregnant? Yes, possibly; abdominal fat, especially, can impact fertility. However, being *a little* overweight would not be a problem, only being *really* overweight.

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When is the safest period during a woman's cycle for her to have sex without using a condom? "Safe" for what? Sex without a condom will _never_ be "safe" in terms of STDs. In terms of pregnancy, then the first 3 days after the end of the period are, in general, for many women, most of the time, the time when one is least likely to be fertile -- but be aware that this is also no guarantee that you *won't* get pregnant, because you may ovulate at a...

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Do you need a pap smear if you have had a hysterectomy? No, you generally wouldn't; the cervix is the "neck" of the uterus protruding into the vagina, and as the uterus has been removed it is likely that the cervix is gone as well. If you are unhappy or in doubt about it, though, ask your doctor the next time you go for a checkup.

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Have there been any scientific studies into the reasons for the apparent accuracy of fortune telling methods? There have been plenty of psychological studies on why people perceive fortune telling methods to be accurate! See sweet_az_sugir's answer for http://www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/22153, or the answers to http://www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/36318. Psychics and fortune tellers make answers "accurate" through a combination of making vague statements which are true in many, many...

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Is cheesecake a pie or a cake? If it's in a pastry crust, then it's a pie.

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Why are people tired after eating large meals? Because digesting food tends to tie up your body's available resources, by channeling oxygenated red blood cells to the intestines. See http://www.answerbag.com/a_view.php/31675.

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Why aren't there more letters in the alphabet? Convention, basically, along with the general tendency to match common sounds to a single symbol (sounds like "sh" or "ch" represent exceptions to this -- in English, at least!). The standard Roman alphabet that English uses is drawn from the "Roman" Roman alphabet, with the addition of "J", "U", "W", and "Z" to represent...

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Are there any words in the English language that are spelled without using a vowel? TV. Arguably, also, words like "shhh", "tsk" or "mm-hm".

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Why is it we say an older person "had a fall," but a young person "fell over"? Which is correct? They are both correct, but "had a fall" reflects an implicit assumption of passivity -- we often see older people (especially those who fall!) as helpless, victims of circumstance. "Had a fall" makes them a passive recipient of the event, rather than an active participant who did something.

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How does one determine when to use "less than" or "fewer than"? "Less than" is appropriate for things you can't or wouldn't count -- e.g. salt or sugar (you would not count grains of salt), emotions like love or annoyance (not generally quantifiable as countable units), weather like wind or in some circumstances rain, snow or cold (although you *can* quantify rain, temperature or wind as countable units, you wouldn't necessarily do...

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Do rabbits normally bite people? Not normally, but they certainly can. It is a sign of either a poorly socialized, aggressive rabiit, or alternatively an animal which is ill or in pain, since that often makes them fearful and aggressive.

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What are prions? Prions are misfolded proteins, which have made internal molecular bonds such that their shape is compact, rigid, and inflexible. Since in proteins shape = function, this means that they cannot perform their original function, and in many cases actively interfere with the function of normal, properly folded proteins. Prions are "infectious" in that, through some intriguing and at...

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What do "zinc fingers" do? "Zinc fingers" are small, common protein motifs (that is, they are three-dimensional structures that show up as distinct parts of the full 3D shape of the proteins, part but not all of the full, final shape). For a standard, stylized picture, see the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_finger. They show up in a wide variety of proteins, and their function is pretty much the...

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What is the relationship between cross-breeding, genetic selection, and genetic modification? "Cross-breeding" is a form of genetic selection which relies on the phenotype (i.e. the visible characteristics of the organism), rather than the genotype (i.e. the full set of DNA carried by the organism), and depends on the natural functions of reproduction. What I mean is, animals or plants are bred on the basis of their physical characteristics; and there is always at least a...

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What are the chemical constituents, active principles, and their bioactivity of succulents? Literally too many to list. You are not asking a simple question, here, you are describing a full-semester or more graduate level research program. Yes, I *know* that doesn't answer you. Sorry, I don't think this one can be answered here.

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What would happen if the oxygen level of Earth rose above 21%? Most animals would probably feel more energetic, on the one hand, but may possibly (I'm guessing about this part!) age slightly faster due to higher rates of oxidative damage to cells. The photosynthesis/carbon fixation rate of C3 plants would slow. We would get bigger bugs, as insects (and some other arthropods) rely on osmosis and diffusion of gases rather than active closed-system...

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What mechanisms are responsible for the reproductive isolation of organisms in a population? Ooooh, *fantastic* question. What you are asking about is the beginning of what is called sympatric speciation, sympatric meaning (essentially) "in the same place". As soon as individuals are reproductively isolated away from the rest of a population, by whatever mechanism, they can start to "go their own direction", so to speak, and there is no guarantee that it is the...

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What prevents biological populations from getting too large? It depends on your definition of "too large", actually, as many populations do get "too large", and then are taken back to a lower level by mass fatalities. If a population outstrips its food source, many starve. As an example, this happens with lemmings and stoats -- lemmings are the main or only food source for stoats in several northern areas. When the lemming...

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What are "boom and bust" cycles? Myra is pretty much right -- when a population grows at exponential or near-exponential rates, then either outstrips its resources or the population density becomes so high that other limiting features kick in, such as endemic disease, or stress inhibiting breeding, at which point the death rate outstrips the birth rate and the population level crashes.

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Is it safe to leave baby rabbits in the same cage with females who aren't their mother? If the cage is large and the mother has a separated "nesting box" area. Where the rabbits are crowded and the babies are not separated away from the other adults, then whether the babies are safe is purely up to whether the other females are feeling particularly stressed or not.

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Will nine-day-old baby rabbits be okay if they are left outside in the cold with their mother in a hutch? Depends on how cold it is and how much insulation the hutch has. If it doesn't drop below freezing and the hutch has plenty of straw or similar bedding, they should be ok. Otherwise, move them inside.

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Can a female rabbit give birth to her babies over a period of several days? Yes, it is possible, although if she does it is generally indicative of something wrong -- something like an extra-large baby blocking the birth canal, or a torn uterus. It would be advisable to check the animal for signs of distress, and take her to a vet.

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Can rabbits change their sex? No. Mammals are pretty much whatever sex they are born, human sex-change operations and accidental hermaphrodites notwithstanding. Be aware that female rabbits can also display aggressive "mounting" behavior. However, they are still female and will not be able to make another female pregnant.

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Do identical twins have the same DNA? Actually, although two of the answers seem to say that mitochondrial DNA differ in identical twins, this DNA will only differ through mutation in the individual. Mitochondria are acquired solely from the mother, via the egg, and in the absence of unique mutation will be identical to all cells split from the same egg -- and identical to those of the mother. So, under most circumstances,...

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Why don't women have an Adam's apple (or why is it less visible)? Women have shorter vocal cords. That is also why women's voices are generally higher-pitched.

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What would be the consequences if our toes were as long as our fingers? We would end up with broken toes a lot -- and almost constant toe joint pain, as the pressure of taking a step is rolled onto the toes as we move forward.

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Biologically speaking, what is the purpose of the hymen? Actually, there is a posited biological purpose, although it has not been definitively proven experimentally. Some of the last cells to mature in the female body are the cells of the cervix. Before these cells have matured the cell membranes are particularly vulnerable to being breached by pathogens, and the cervix remains very vulnerable to infection. It has been hypothesized that the...

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What animal has the most powerful eyesight? How does the strength of the eyesight of this animal compare to that of humans? Actually, it would have to be a member of the raptors (hawks, falcons and eagles), although I am not familiar enough with birds of prey to tell you which one, exactly. However, I know that the standard bird of prey enjoys visual acuity roughly 8x that of humans. They have a far higher density of cones in the retina than any other animal, and they have a double fovea -- the fovea is a sort of...

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Can the placebo effect apply to animals? Actually, despite Blaylock's interesting reasoning, no, it can't. By definition, the placebo effect is a healing effect which cannot be explained through conventional medical mechanisms, but which is created *by the patient's own expectations*. By definition, the placebo effect arises within the patient himself. Since animals have no expectations of medicines, they do not...

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If a person simultaneously touched both terminals of a 12-volt car battery, would injury or death be likely? Whether or not you die actually depends on what part of its beat cycle your heart is in when you first get kicked with a charge; there is a point between beats where the heart is particularly sensitive to voltage, and you can derail your heartbeat into fibrillation. However, if you avoid that, it will still hurt like being savagely kicked, and it is likely that your hands would be badly...

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My studying routines work for everything except science. I study and try different things, but it does not stick. How can I make the material stick in my head? Don't just try to memorize details; you need to understand the concepts. If you can picture something in your head and "get" how it works, i.e. _why_ it does whatever it is doing, you will have no difficulty remembering it in the future. I find I sometimes need to repeat exposure to some things in a certain pattern: 1. read through to the end, making no notes 2. read...

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In the UK, which is higher, O levels or A levels, and what do these levels mean? To expand on idymae's answer, which is largely correct, "O" stands for Ordinary, and "A" stands for Advanced. An O-level is based around the student having a minimum, basic knowledge of the subject, and an A-level is based around the student having gone on to master more complex aspects of the subject. The fact that O-levels have now been phased out does not...

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What can we learn from studying a species that has remained relatively unevolved over long periods of time? Farino is right; a species which has not changed much over a long period of time is likely to have found some mechanism which means that it does not have to enter into the predator/prey arms race which drives a lot of evolution. For example, they may have found a reproductive strategy which means that enough population always survives, no matter what goes after them; they may have found the...

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Why do plants make caffeine? It is a pesticide. Caffeine acts as a substitute for an inhibitory neurotransmitter, in insects as well as in humans (it blocks "slow down" messages that nerve cells send to each other). Because we can metabolize it, that is, we have enzymes which break down caffeine relatively rapidly, it merely makes us alert (and jittery, if we drink too much). However, insects (as with many...

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What are the evolutionary advantages of naturally parthenocarpic plants (those that produce seedless fruit)? There are two: one as defense, and one as attraction. Few plants are naturally entirely parthenocarpic. Many fruit-bearing plants, however, do devote energy to a substantial proportion of parthenocarpic fruits, as opposed to normal, seeded fruits. The reasons why the fruit crop should be so mixed start to become clear when you look at the actual chemistry of the fruits themselves. The...

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Why is my partner so mean even though I bend over backwards for him? First rule of training any animal, and that includes human animals as well: "Behavior that is rewarded is repeated." Your partner has been mean to you, and obviously got what he wanted. In fact, you may have been extra nice to him, to try to get him to be nicer. So what was reinforced was that, if he is mean to you, you do what he wants. There is nothing there which will...

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Besides stripes, what's the difference between a zebra and a horse? There are considerable genetic differences between horses and zebras, and donkeys as well. Most of the DNA is extremely similar, however the chromosome number varies widely (due mostly to centromere repositioning); horses have 32 pairs of chromosomes, for a total number of 64 chromosomes, while zebras have 16 pairs of chromosomes, for a total number of 32 chromosomes. Just for comparison, the...

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How much weight can a 2 year old pony weighing 400 lbs carry on his back and pull on a cart? You should be careful loading a 2-year-old with weight; OKGhostrider is right, horses and ponies both do not complete their bone growth until age 4, and before then it is all too easy to permanently damage bones and joints (one more reason why I am against the 2-year-old races). As a rule of thumb -- but be aware that this depends heavily on the pony's overall condition, and the...

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Do some people eat rabbits that were used for track racing? Not unless they have a taste for metal. Live rabbits have not been used for track racing in a while. Artifical lures were sporadically used on greyhound tracks in the US and the UK from 1876, and mechanical lures became the standard for all tracks in 1933. Training or racing with live lures is illegal in 49 states and most countries, and any greyhound owner found doing so faces a lifetime...

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What are some superstitions from Victorian England? Another couple: Green is an unlucky color for a nursery, or for the stone on an engagement ring (i.e. no emeralds!). This superstition actually had a basis in fact; many green colors in fabrics and wallpapers used to be made with arsenical salts, and it was not unknown for people to absorb these arsenical salts through their skin and die. "Something old, something new, something...

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Twice, a hummingbird flew up and stared me in the face, two feet away. Is this a deceased family member trying to communicate? In all likelihood, it was a hummingbird who was pissed off because you were standing too close to his/her nest. They are extremely territorial, and don't care what size you are. Ok, in answer to your question: while in all honesty I can't tell you it is completely impossible, the probability approaches zero closely. My thought is that it, in the event that you believe in...

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Is it more ethical to buy organic bananas or fair trade ones? This is one of those situations where it is helpful to know the details. If you know the details, you can apply a logical analysis and decide what is more important to you. What are the benefits of fairtrade? The benefit is primarily to small farmers, who recieve some protection from competition by large plantations, as well as higher returns for their crops; and to laborers who are hired...

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Has there ever been a society in which rape was acceptable? In the modern day, according to the anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, the Yanomami of South America use rape as a punishment tool against women.

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What will result from the explosion of the sun? Will it be a new world generation? No, not really; it will probably eject a great deal of mass as nebular matter, which will probably be scooped up by another "stellar nursery" area, and thus some of it will indeed go on to form new suns and planets. However, the core of our sun will remain as a cool, dead "white dwarf" star.

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Why is the sun's gravity important to our solar system? Um, because without the sun's gravity there would _be_ no solar system. All the planets orbit the sun for a reason..... Gravity is dependent on mass. The sun is millions of times larger than even Jupiter. Planetary gravity is not is not enough to hold multiple planets together, and especially not at any reasonable distance. But going beyond that, if it were not for the sun's...

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If dogs can smell things better than humans why do they put their nose directly in fecal matter to smell it? Poo -- and rotting dead animals -- and garbage -- and many of the other things that humans think are disgusting -- simply do not smell _bad_ to dogs. Dogs actually do have much keener senses of smell, but they have very different preferences. They get a lot of information about the diet and general state of health of the other animal off of smelling poo. I suspect it just smells...

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After my dog has done his business outside, he scratches his feet across the floor in the house and flicks mud and grass everywhere. Why does he do this? Actually, it has nothing to do with covering his feces up, and everything to do with spreading its scent. It is a "territory marking" behavior, just like pissing on objects. Ordinarily he would do the foot-scraping, dirt-flicking thing around where he has done his business. He has been taught not to do his business inside, but he obviously considers the inside of the house...

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Why would my dog take each piece of food from her bowl to the middle of the living room to eat? Did your dog come from a home with a lot of other animals? The behavior you describe is actually very common in animals which have had to compete for room at the food bowl when they were young. "Grab a piece and go elsewhere" often worked better for them under the circumstances where they learned to eat solid food, and it may be a very difficult to break that habit.

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My dog went from loving everyone as a puppy to barking at almost anyone he sees. He's not neutered; could this be the reason, and what can I do to stop it? His not being neutered is definitely going to be contributing. When a dog hits sexual maturity and attains his full adult weight, he often starts to get territorial. If you don't want to breed him, I would suggest getting him neutered, as a start; this has other benefits, as well, as older males (especially those which aren't bred, or aren't bred frequently) are prone to...

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Why does a dog give its paw to people she knows over and over again? Even when you shake and acknowledge, she keeps doing it. First rule of training any animal: behavior that is rewarded is repeated. She's after attention; when she offers you her paw and you shake it, she gets what she wants. I'm afraid that shaking it a few times and then ignoring it won't break her of the habit of repeatedly offering it, though. Behavior that is *inconsistently* rewarded, after a certain point, actually gets...

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Why would my dog hunt spiders and eat spider webs? Maybe he just likes the taste of them. Spiders (and spiderwebs too, actually) are very high protein.

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What can I do to relieve puffy eyes? Laying fresh cucumber slices over your eyes for 10-15 minutes really does help. A cool mask over the eyes twice a day also helps, and I've also found that a very light moisturizer for sensitive skin, applied around the eyes at bedtime, helps.

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Can I be pregnant if I had my period? Actually...sorry, yes. Many women have periods for the first few months of a pregnancy, although it is generally lighter than normal, more spotty.

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After unprotected sex, my period came but it got light after the second day then stopped. Could I be pregnant? Yes, it is possible. Women can have light, spotty periods for the first few months of a pregnancy. The fact that you had some bleeding is not a guarantee that you are not pregnant.

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I have two male cats and one just had an operation. Now that he is home, the other one hisses at him constantly. What can I do to stop this? Separate them in a way that they can see or at least smell each other, but not interact too closely -- one of them in a room where there is a gap under the door is ideal -- and let them get reacquainted. When your cat went to the vet, he will have picked up the strange and frightening smells of the vet's office, and his own smell may have changed as a result of his operation. Your other...

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Are cougars social animals, living in prides like lions? My apologies, in my rating to Alatea's answer I noted that cougars only come together to mate, and that babies stay with their mother for < 1 year. I meant to put that babies stay with their mother < 2 years, but it won't let me change it. Cougar youngsters stay with their mother, on average, about 15-22 months, but that is the longest that any cougar will stay with others....

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How do cougars protect themselves from predators? The only real predators that cougars have are humans with dogs and guns; they deal with those by running and hiding, generally, and often take refuge high in trees. They may also come into conflict with wolves or bears, over prey; a cougar will generally back down from a bear, and would probably back down from a wolfpack as well.

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Why do you become sleepy after vomiting? Throwing up generally involves large numbers of muscles contracting, hard, all at once. Doing this tends to use a lot of available blood sugar. So, blood sugar drops, which does tend to leave us feeling tired. Additionally, our body tries to replenish fluids in the stomach after we vomit, which means that fluids are drawn from other tissues -- it is easy to get a bit dehydrated, and...

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Are there any home remedies to prevent ear mites in cats and dogs? Not necessarily to prevent, but to treat. Clean the ears out gently with a cotton swab soaked in mineral oil, two or three times a day for at least two weeks.

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What is a mustard plaster used for? It was traditionally laid over the chest or the chest and back, to loosen phlegm and ease coughs -- pretty much what we use Vics for today. Note that mustard plasters should *never* be used on babies or very young children, though; they'll burn the skin.

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I just adopted a stray kitten and have not yet had her vaccinated, spayed/neutered, or de-wormed. Would it be okay to keep her in the house with my other animals for a few days? It would be better to keep her in quarantine, in a room away from your other animals, until you've had a chance for the vet to check her over. Worms can be passed to other cats through grooming; ear mites and ringworm can be passed through even casual contact, and sometimes just from sleeping on the same furniture; and some diseases, such as Feline Leukemia, are actually highly contagious...

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At what point in evolution did primates become what we now consider humans? To add to Anonymous's answer, it is actually very difficult to know, if for no other reason than the fact that how we define "human" is complex. What defines human, as opposed to animal, or pre-human? Is it language? Bipedality? Fire? Tool use? Second-order (or above) tool use, meaning that we not only use tools, we use tools to create more refined tools, or use tools to...

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Does the US have more creationists than the UK? Speaking as a US citizen living in the UK, I would have to say, yes, beyond any doubt. There *are* creationists here, but aside from the fact that the population of the UK is (in absolute terms) much smaller than the population of the US, there is also not nearly as high a percentage of religious fundamentalists, nor quite the level of hostility towards science in general.

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What is an ecosystem? The basic definition is, a community of organisms and species, together with their physical environment, which functions as a unit. Note that this does not mean that this unit is ideal or functions perfectly; however, it is pretty inclusive. All the organisms which interact with each other and the environment of an area are part of an ecosystem, and the nature of the environment (i.e....

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What determines the maximum height to which vegetation can grow? The short answer is, ultimately, the limits on the ability to transport water. According to the "cohesion-tension theory", water transportation in plants occurs along a gradient of negative pressure in the tube-like cells of the xylem, driven by a combination of transpiration (the "pull" of water vapor through stomata, pores in the leaves), water adhesion to the cell...

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If an elephant's brain is bigger than a human's, how come they aren't as intelligent? It's down to, how much percentage of the body is brain, and how much body does the brain have to run. Absolute, as opposed to relative, brain size certainly has an effect -- you really need a basic minimum number of neurons -- but relatvie size has a real effect, since every creature needs to devote a minimum amount of brain power to control muscle motion and instinctive behavior and...

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Can exposure to black mold cause permanent damage to a young child? I wish I could say no, but yes. Black molds have a strong correlation with long-term respiratory illness and the onset of asthma. If you haven't done so already, do what you can to clean the area thoroughly and keep the mold from regrowing with a mold-spray, keeping in mind that with a young child you should keep them out of the room for at least a day while the anti-mold spray dries.

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My legs become swollen and hard where mosquitos bite me, and the bites enlarge around the affected area. What will bring down the swelling? Heat is likely to help; hold a hot cup of tea or coffee against the bite, or put a hot pack on the area, as hot as you can stand. This does two things: it speeds blodd flow to the area, which helps the body clear away the proteins you are reacting to, and it also helps denature those proteins -- they break down in heat. The other thing you can try is, cut open a fresh clove of garlic and...

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What is the law regarding carrying children in car seats? Is it legal to carry a toddler on your lap? It is NOT legal to carry a toddler in your lap, in ANY state or in Canada or the UK, and it is not safe! If there were an accident and you were thrown forward as the car came to a sudden stop, as often happens, the most likely thing to happen (assuming that you were wearing a seat belt) is that your skull would impact the child's skull -- resulting in death or brain damage to both of you....

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If my ancestry is 100% British, does this by itself mean that I am technically in line for the throne? No. In fact, there are Germans in closer line for the throne than you. (Heck, there are Germans in closer line for the throne than people whose families have inhabited Britain for the last 200 generations.) Family pedigree -- and the line of succession -- goes by connection to noble houses, not by simple nationality. (Why would I need to include the names of all the German successors to...

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Why would the leaves of a rubber tree in a southwest window droop? Needs more water? Rubber trees are perfectly capable of wilting, too...plus, the sunlight may be too strong for it there, they don't require strong sunlight.

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What is dust made of? Actually, there are three main components of dust: first, dead skin cells, second, the dried feces and dessicated corpses of dust mites (lovely thought, eh? When people develop a house-dust allergy, this is usually the component they are reacting to), and the last component by volume is tiny fibers shed by clothing -- cotton is bad for this, and jeans are the worst. This is for ordinary...

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Our female dog has a discharge accompanied by a strange odor from her vaginal area. My wife thinks this is a yeast infection. How should this be treated? Yeast infections are not common in dogs -- but bacterial infections are! Your dog could even have a uterine infection, and those can prove fatal. Take your dog to the vet before it gets worse -- at the very least, you are going to need to get the dog antibiotics.

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Are there any biological advantages to having phi ratios through-out the body? The only "phi ratios" which are of specific interest in biology are the phi-pi ratios which are used to describe the angles of linkages between monomers of polypeptides, since the angles so described depend on the specific chemical properties of the monomers and will thus tell you what the amino acids involved are. However, I get the impression that this is not what you are asking......

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How do cells know when they are becoming too large and need to divide? This is a fantastic question, and living, walking proof that some of the simplest questions to ask are the most complicated ones to answer. I'll put the short answer up now, but I've been writing up a more detailed one which is available on request. The short answer is, size isn't really the trigger. The control is all about DNA. Size certainly has limits. A cell needs...

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What is a "gene" patent? It's just what it sounds like: a patent held on a gene, a gene being a sequence of DNA which, when transcribed and translated, produces either a protein or an RNA "control sequence". In the modern day, patents are granted on genes which are not invented, but merely sequenced (or even just partially sequenced) by an individual or a team. However, the law governing it is...

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Why does Pepsi fizz when you add Equal to it? For the same reason you can trigger boiling in very hot water if you add salt or sugar: you are putting in tiny particles which create surfaces for gases in the liquid to stick to, and if those gases are on the brink of release from the liquid anyway, bubbles accrete around those "seeds" very quickly.

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How can I get rid of a serious Coca Cola addiction? It's more likely to be a sugar addiction than a caffeine addiction, given the relative amounts (yes, it is certainly possible to have a sugar addiction). Your best bet for that is simply to stop, and in fact stop as much sugar in your diet as is physically possible. I have to take myself off a sugar addiction every so often, and I find that quitting cold turkey, the cravings last 1-2...

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What are some differences between a normal pet dog and a wolf? Merry Walker sums a lot of it up, but I would just like to add one thing. Wolves and dogs are both intensely social creatures -- but wolves are superbly adapted to be social with other wolves, and dogs are superbly adapted to be social with humans. The two types of social are not at all the same. As an illustration, dogs have a primate trait that wolves do not -- it's called...

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What do rabbits like to do for fun? They also romp with each other -- chase each other and "play wrestle" -- although fully adult rabbits do this less frequently than kits or youngsters.

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What sounds does a rabbit make? Wild-type rabbits can also purr, not quite like cats although the effect is similar (I have never heard a domestic rabbit make this noise); and males and females can both hiss if they are enraged. They also scream if they take any serious injury.

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Why do rabbits hop? a) Because their hind legs are so much larger and stronger than their front legs, it's pretty much the only way they _can_ move -- walking with alternating left-front:right-hind:right-front:left-hind the way more "balanced" quadrupeds do would leave them with a remarkably awkward, lopsided, lurching, and remarkably inefficient gait. b) Because if you need one mad jink to get...

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How long should I use a backup method after missing three pills, and how should I make up the pills I missed? If you miss the pills at the beginning of your cycle, take one as soon as you remember and then the next on schedule, and use a backup method for a minimum of a week. If you miss those pills in the middle of your cycle, take one as soon as you remember and then the next on schedule (ignore the other two), and use a backup method for the rest of that cycle.

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Is this program medically accurate? The bits that overlap what I am familiar with have been, with the proviso that in a few situations they have speeded up the appearance of symptoms a bit. I haven't looked it up, but I assume they have used medical professionals either on staff or as a staff reference.

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What is the difference between Photosystem I and Photosystem II? Broadly.... Photosystem I: The reaction center contains the chlorophyll-a molecule P700, so named because it absorbs light maximally at 700 nm. Receives energy from photons, from associated accessory pigments in its antenna system, and from the electron transport chain from Photosystem II. Uses the energy from light to reduce NADP+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate) to NADPH +...

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What are the most important glycosides involved in plant poisonings? The ones I know about are: the cyanogenic glycosides -- generally alpha-hydroxynitrile type aglycone and a sugar, which is catabolysed down to hydrogen cyanide by a number of enzymes. the cardiac glycosides -- coumarins, digoxin and digotoxin, and the digitalis-like cardenolides, from plants like milkweed, foxglove, oleander(s), and lily-of-the-valley. However, I don't pretend...

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What is ethnobotany? It is the study of plants in the context of human usage, culture and traditional knowledge; generally applies to preliterate cultures. By studying the use of plants by people, and by drawing on both current and previously recorded "traditional" uses, a large number of pharmacologically active compounds have been isolated from plant sources, described and adapted for use in...

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What is a mudwog? The only "mudwog" I know of is in a Heavy Metal comic by Arthur Suydam. If there is an animal species called this, then it is a little-known colloquial name. Edit: hehe, I shoulda' known it was a trick question....

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Are there animals that we don't know about? Oh, absolutely. Recently there has been a project to map the world's oceans more completely than ever before, in the Census of Marine Life run by CORE (http://www.coreocean.org/). This has now been running for several years, and even though we still have not surveyed the majority of the world's oceans, tens of thousands of new species of animals have been identified, including...

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What is classical biological control? It generally means introducing a predator species which is supposed to prey on the invasive species causing a problem. It is using a "biological solution" to tackle a biological problem. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work, as illustrated in Hawaii's snail problem. Way back in 1936, when people basically weren't thinking about these things, gardeners in...

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When was the first ecology textbook written? The first textbook to cover ecology specifically and separate from general biology was "Fundamentals of Ecology", written by the late Dr. Eugene P. Odum over the period 1949-1951, and published in 1953. See http://www.edwardgoldsmith.com/page33.html for a brief biography of the man and a word or two on his book.

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Is cheese unhealthy? Lactose tolerance aside, cheese has calcium, and in that way can be good for you. Hard cheeses (especially "mature" ones) contain acids which actually work to leach calcium *out* of your bones, however, so the net addition of calcium is small if there is a net addition at all. Soft cheeses tend to have a high fat content, not so good for you. Unpasteurized soft or...

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What is the difference between C3, C4, and CAM photosynthesis? The difference occurs in the second part of photosynthesis, the Calvin-Benson cycle, which "fixes" CO2 into carbohydrates. The Calvin-Benson cycle (in "normal", C3 plants) consists of three processes: 1. The fixation of CO2 onto a 5-carbon "receptor" (ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate, better known as RuBP), which results in two 3-carbon molecules ( a sugar-phospate...

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What wavelength of light is most effective for photosynthesis? Actually, chlorophyll a has two peaks of best efficiency, one in the blue part of the spectrum (around 430 nm) and one in the red part of the spectrum (680 nm); however, there are "associated pigments" which take advantage of almost every part of the visible spectrum, and most of the energy absorbed is passed along a line of receptors (losing bits along the way, of course) until the...

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How does ozone affect the photosynthetic process of plants? Beyond the radiative effects of the loss of high level ozone (which increase the amount of damaging UV which makes it through the atmosphere, and which results in DNA damage to animals and plants both)....the addition of low-level ozone inhibits photosynthesis directly. Ozone is a highly reactive molecule, and it has several effects on photosynthetic cell components: Ozone damages the...

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Can we simulate photosynthesis? Not yet, but we're close. The first thing we needed to know was the exact structure of the chlorophyll molecules, in order to understand exactly what went on at an atomic level -- and although we knew the composition, we were only able to find out the exact shape and structure in 2001, with some extremely sophisticated X-ray crystallography techniques. Now that the exact structure of...

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How do plants produce oxygen? To make the answer a little more specific -- in the first step of normal photosynthesis, which occurs in a system called Photosystem II, a molecule of chlorophyll becomes energized to the point that one of its electrons gets "bounced" into such a high orbit that it is lost, grabbed by the electron acceptor ferredoxin, leaving the chlorophyll with a net positive charge. The...

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Is the coelecanth still considered by some to be an intermediary species between fish and amphibian? I've GOT to correct this, now that I have paid more attention to the answers presented. No. Or at least, not by any relevantly-qualified scientist. What they ARE considered to be (and have been, since found) is the sole remaining representative of a sub-group of the lobe-finned lineage known as crossopterygians. Lobe-finned fishes (class Actinistia) first appeared in the fossil...

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Do humans have more genetic defects than other organisms? No; about average, really, unless the individual in question works or lives somewhere which is extremely polluted, or the individual works with hazardous chemicals. However, even in a high-pollution situation humans are likely to have far fewer genetic defects than the pigeons and rats also often to be found in those environments. We just don't usually worry about the long-term health...

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Would it be painful to die from a slit throat? It depends on how it is slit.... If the throat is incompletely slit, then in all probability, yes. If the throat is slit "properly", which is a slash long enough and deep enough to cut both carotid arteries and the jugular vein, then if the person were standing when this was done blood would exit the head in a second or less, leading to practically instantaneous death -- there...

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Is it really worth it to get pet insurance for my cat? It was for for several people I know! If something goes seriously wrong, vet bills can stack up to hundreds or even thousands, and it is nice to have the option for treatment instead of having the animal put to sleep because you can't afford a surgery.

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My 4 year old cat had 5 babies at 1 year, then we spayed her. She's very heavy and her stomach is very hard. What causes a hard stomach? Infection, bowel blockage, or tumor are all possibilities. You should take her to a vet.

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How can I get rid of the earmites of a cat that cannot tolerate any chemicals because she sustained head trauma as a kitten and has severe equilibrium difficulities? Two or three times a day you need to clean the ear out gently with a cotton swab soaked in mineral oil. A couple of weeks of that may eliminate the earmites, but you will have to repeat the treatment periodically.

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Is it okay for hamsters to eat junk food like chocolate or chips? Chocolate is NOT good for them. It strains their heart because they cannot metabolize caffeine quickly enough, and yes, it is possible to kill them with it if they eat too much. (Humans are almost alone in being able to metabolize chocolate properly.) And as Red John says, the salt on chips isn't great for them either, though they generally like the tast of it. Nuts or fresh...

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If a hamster loses one of his front teeth, will this harm him in any way? Make sure that the remaining bottom front tooth (opposite the top one lost) is worn down correctly; otherwise it can continue to grow and pierce the roof of the hamster's mouth, making it impossible for the hamster to eat. If necessary, most vets can keep the tooth clipped for you.

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How far can feeder mice and fancy mice see? I have no exact figure for you, but they are reasonably short-sighted; probably 3-4 feet. Beyond that would be very blurry for them.

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Have all American astronauts been Caucasian? I'm glad to say, no. Dr. Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. was the first African-American in space; Dr. Mae C. Jemison was an African-American woman; Dr. Ellen Ochoa was Hispanic; and Lieutenant Colonel Ellison Shoji Onizuka was of Japanese descent.

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With a US high school diploma, if I want to move to London to study law, would I start out at a college or a university? University. Colleges in the UK are the equivalent of "technical colleges" or "community colleges" in the US, and most can only grant certificates, not degrees. Since you have finished secondary school (what they call high school, here), you will want to aim for the best program you can get into (and pay for, of course), and that means going to a university.

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Is the teaching of evolution really necessary to understand science or other academic subjects? You can certainly learn mathematics, physics or chemistry without learning anything about evolution, but it is not possible to make sense of biology without understanding it. Evolution is a fundamental "backbone" which makes biology hang together. The comment has been made that previous to evolution, biology truly was more like stamp collecting -- organisms and biological mechanisms...

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If bullying is such a problem, why don't schools include martial arts in the curriculum? Joe-Speedy is right, but also, some schools or school districts are unwilling or unable to cover insurance liability, in these days of increasingly popular litigation over every bump, bruise or scrape that a child comes home with, and increasing insurance premiums to go with it.

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Are public schools allowed to teach creationism? They are allowed to teach it, but not as part of a science class -- unless it is simply to mention that some people believe it. According to the US Supreme Court, ruling in the 1987 case Edwards vs. Aguillard, creationism is a religious belief and thus teaching it as "an objective truth" in a public school unacceptably violates the separation of church and state. This is _why_ the...

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All societal norms/evolutionary drives aside, what are the benefits of having children? Kids have a tremendous wonder about things, because everything is so new to them -- something a lot of adults lose, but being around children can let you see things "through their eyes" and get some of that sense of wonder and curiosity back. They also have very few inhibitions about having fun, which translates into a tremendous capacity for joy. (Of course, they have a tremendous...

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My 8 month old baby refuses to drink her formula or eat her iron fortified cereal. Is it alright to add vanilla or cinnamon to her cereal to encourage her to eat? At 8 months vanilla should be ok (just not loads of it!), but I would hold off on cinnamon until maybe a year.

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Are there any benefits of using milk-based formulas over soy-based? Yes; soy protein is not as good as milk protein for babies, and some elements in soy keep calcium from being absorbed nearly as well. Also, your baby may not get enough of the fats and minerals that he/she needs from soy. Soy is perfectly fine as a supplement, but should never be the sole food or source of protein. Although Asians do use soy more, they also breastfeed for longer, in general....

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My 6 month old girl weighs 13 lbs. I bottle-feed her 4 oz. soy formula with one scoop of cereal, but she isn't gaining weight. What should I do? Soy formula is not actually all that wonderful, for two reasons -- it may have too little fat and definitely isn't nutritionally ideal -- or babies can actually be allergic. Try a hypoallergenic formula like Nutramigen or Alimentum, and be aware that soy formula can be a good supplement, but should not be the only source of fats, minerals, and protein -- especially if you are not...

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Do women urinate more frequently than men if they drink same amount of water? Depends on the individual, and the state of the individual's anatomy. Male and female bladders are about the same size and same volume, but because women have to make room behind the bladder for the vagina and uterus, the bladder often ends up wrapped in a sort of U over the top of the pubic bone. Men don't have to fit in those extra organs, so their bladder sits further back and...

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What is the correct usage, "I done it yesterday" or "I did it yesterday"? "Done" is either a passive voice or a past participle. As a passive voice it points toward a passive object which receives action, and the sentence will have no active do-er. As a past participle it is used to indicate something that happened in relation to a definite time (the default reference time would be "now"), or to another event or action. Whether passive voice or...

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If "I choose that one" is correct, is "I choose those ones" also correct? Except (just to play the pedant) that "ones" is redundant, in the latter example, and to be discouraged in proper grammar. "I chose those" is grammatically correct and complete.

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What are some words that have multiple, opposite meanings? The type of word you're looking for is variously called contronyms, self-antonyms, autoantonyms, antagonyms, or "Janus words" (from the Roman god who looked in two directions at once). A few more examples, in no particular order: Fast: either moving speedily, or stuck down ("The crates were made fast to the deck as the storm picked up.") Cleave: either split...

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Using MLA format, what is the correct way to cite a piece of art taken from a website? From http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/humanities/list.html: Work of art Cite the artist's name, followed by the title of the artwork, usually underlined, and the institution and city in which the artwork can be found. If you want to indicate the work's date, include it after the title. For a work of art you viewed online, end your citation with your date of access and the URL. ...

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Why do some people say "warsh" instead of "wash"? Actually, I think it has to do with the strong easterly winds that blow over Boston; they blow all the "r"s out of the middle of words there, and then the "r"s get dropped into the midwest where the winds die away. (No, of course I'm not being serious. But still....)

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If a woman dies while her pregnancy is already in progress, can a baby survive to term, does it die along with her, or can the baby get saved by getting born immediately after death? It also depends on how far along the pregnancy is. A pregnancy in the first trimester has pretty much no chance, and I don't think many places would attempt to keep the woman on life support long enough for the pregnancy to mature. 2nd trimester, the woman would have to be kept on life support; the baby would not survive outside the womb. 3rd trimester the same, up until a minimum...

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Does the pill stop a woman from ovulating? In general, yes; it also affects the lining of the uterus, however, by keeping it from building up as much as it otherwise would and changing the acidity slightly, so that even if a woman does ovulate, a fertilized egg would not implant. However, the main effect is to prevent ovulation by blocking production of the hormones which "ripen" the egg and which tell the ovary to release...

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I have been feeling very depressed for about eight years and have begun feeling suicidal. I am tired of it and want to know if it will get better with help or should I just kill myself? KarmaKitty is right. Depression like yours doesn't just "go away" on its own; the brain gets stuck in its own little loop, on several levels, and it often needs a bit of outside help to get out of that loop. But help, well, helps. Generally, the most effective approach is a combination of antidepressants with counselling and cognitive therapy; the antidepressants interrupt...

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Is it true that if you go out in the cold with a wet head, you'll get a cold or pneumonia? Kim's answer is correct, however...the reason you "catch a cold" in your throat and sinuses is that the viruses which cause colds are temperature sensitive (that's also why your body produces a fever, to try to bake them out of you), and breathing cold air creates a nice, cool, hospitable environment there for them. Having a wet head tends to chill you down even more; and...

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Why doesn't cooking mad cow infected meat eradicate the disease? Prions are proteins which have folded improperly, and created rigid internal covalent bonds which make them extremely resistant to being denatured by heat or other chemicals. To give you an idea of just _how_ resistant, a typical protocol for cleaning lab equipment which has been used in prion research looks something like: 1) Thoroughly clean with detergent germicide. 2) Decontaminate...

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How can I find wolf adoption and care agencies? Google Is Your Friend. Searching on "wolf adoption rescue" I found: http://defendthewolves.org/ http://www.thegreywolf1.com/wolfdogrescuewolfdogadoptionwolfdog.html http://users.aol.com/wolflvr3/help/rescue.html (links at bottom of page) http://www.fiu.edu/~milesk/rescue.htm (links at bottom of page)

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Are the fumes from petrol/gas from vehicles dangerous for your body? In addition to Bob Blaylock's answer, I would add "benzene", from unburned petrol. You inhale benzene every time you fill up at the pump -- that is why most gas or petrol stations now put "hoods" over nozzles, to capture or redirect the vapor. And yes, benzene is very destructive to cells in living organisms, and it is both toxic in the short term and potentially...

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Since "fossil fuels" purportedly come from prehistoric plants and animals, is it possible that crude oil has DNA? After the millions of years of heat, pressure, and chemical recombination that go into making fossil remains into fossil fuels....no.

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Can a person function normally with only half a brain? No. *Survive*, possibly, and *function*, to a degree, if whatever injury deprives them of half their brain does so in childhood, while the developing brain is plastic enough to rewire itself; however, function *normally* is impossible. There is a particularly controversial neurologist here in the UK, named John Lorber, who has made claims that children who developed post-natal...

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How big a tsunami could an atomic bomb planted under the ocean floor create? Huge.

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If all plant life were to suddenly die out, how would this effect all other living things? Would the human race survive? If all plant life were to disappear, ultimately so would almost everything else -- not from lack of oxygen, since it would take decades for the oxygen already in the atmosphere to deplete -- but from starvation. We rely on energy coming into the system of earth's interlocking biospheres, to power our metabolisms. That energy capture happens with plants, which turn heat and light from...

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How the fuzzy logic theory can be applicable in isomorphism of kinematic links? Well, fuzzy logic was originally designed for set theory, to allow a data point to fall _partially_ within a set, rather than having to be assigned to a crisp "in/not in" dichotomy. The natural extension of fuzzy logic was then to use it to allow multivalued logic -- i.e. you have more options than just "true/false", "on/off" or whatever representation you choose...

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Why are we called Homo sapiens? The word "homo" can be used as a root from either Latin or Greek. In Greek, "homo" meant "same", and "homosexuality" is sexual attraction to those the same as you, taken to mean the same gender. In Latin, on the other hand, "homo" meant "man" or "human being". Taxonomic names are drawn from Latin, always. "Homo...

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At what point in canine evolution did a wolf become a dog? The current best estimate is between 12,000-14,500 years ago, and most likely somewhere in China or SE Asia; the change was marked by changes in the skull, in the shape of the braincase and a shortening of the jaw (with attendant "crowding" of the teeth), as well as some pretty significant behavioral changes. There is an excellent summary of recent research into the history of the...

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If dogs can die from consuming too much chocolate, does that mean wolves can too? Yes, they certainly could. They also lack the metabolizing enzymes which would allow them to break down the caffeine and theobromines in chocolate. Foxes and coyotes would be similarly affected, although in the unlikely event that wild animals encountered chocolate they might not even recognize it as "food".

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What is the oldest living organism? Ultimately, the winner has to be a few 250-million-year-old bacteria, B. permians, which were revived in a laboratory in New Mexico after having been found in a state of "suspended animation" in a salt deposit near Carlsbad, NM. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6806/full/407844a0_fs.html) 2nd prize goes to bacteria again, shared between 40-million-year-old B....

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Is a male brain bigger than a female brain? Male brains are bigger than female brains to the same extent that males are bigger than females. Brain size is generally proportional to body size, though with considerable variation from one person to another.

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Is the world eventually going to run out of gasoline and oil? Eventually, yes. We are using these resources up a great deal faster than they could possibly be renewed by natural processes. It took 65 million years to build up the reserves available to us, and we have depleted all the easily available ones in just a little over a century.

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I stare at a computer monitor all day. What can I do to reduce eye strain? Another thing that you can do to reduce eyestrain when reading from a monitor, is set the background of active windows and documents to be light grey rather than white. (Display Properties -- Appearance -- Advanced to set these properties for Windows.) It doesn't take long to get used to, but makes a real difference.

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I have repeatedly scratched an itch in my eye which causes the white of the eye to turn blood red. Am I just scratching too hard or is this a sign of a larger problem? There are very fine, delicate blood vessels supplying the sclera (the white of the eye), and you are probably bursting one or more of them. I suspect that the scratching is the problem.

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What would cause a lightning-type blue colored flash to be seen in the center visual field of the left eye of an otherwise healthy ten year old boy? Pertinent questions that need to be answered are: How persistent is the "flash"? (That is, is it something that happened once and disappeared? Is it something that happens occasionally or frequently, but is only a brief flash of light that comes and goes away? Or is it a persistent light which reappears whenever he pays attention?) And, if he moves his eye when it happens, does...

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What are some scientific proofs that the biblical story of Noah and the great flood never happened? Speaking from my own field, molecular biology and genetics can pinpoint population "bottlenecks" because such bottlenecks drastically decrease the number of alleles (different forms) of each gene which are retained by a species, and the amount of variation in certain noncoding areas of the genome, such as the satellite areas around the centromeres. A bottleneck which reduces a...

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could alains be real? By any chance, do you mean "aliens"? If you DO mean aliens, sure, although if you are specifically meaning the "grays" common in UFO literature I would consider that chance relatively small. If you simply mean "life forms which originate on other planets", without putting any specific description on them or making statements about the probability of their...

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Are there any other gaps in the evolutionary chain as large as the one between man and ape? The "gap" between humans and apes is only as large as it is because the intermediate species are all extinct, which is not uncommon at all when looking at modern species in any family. Having said that, the gap isn't actually all that large; the full sequencing of the chimp genome, completed in 2004 and fully compared to ours in 2005, demonstrates that although there are some...

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How long does it take for someone to die when submitted to lethal injection? Animals are "put to sleep" with a single large dose of barbiturates, but this is not how humans are executed. Execution by lethal injection is done with a complex mixture of compounds, generally sodium thiopental (a very short acting barbiturate), potassium chloride, and paralyzing agents which are no longer legal to use on animals because of the length of time they take and their...

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Why is it that you never hear of death row inmates donating their organs when they are executed? In many cases in the US, transplant programs would automatically reject organs offered from a death row inmate on health-risk grounds; there is too high a risk that the prisoner may be carrying a transmissable viral illness such as HIV or hepatitis, since prison populations have these diseases at far higher incidence than the general population, and none of the screens for these viruses are...

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Does sucrose or lactose take longer to be converted into glucose? Sucrose and lactose are both disaccharides; sucrose is glucose + fructose and lactose is glucose + galactose. In theory, breakdown of these molecules to the constituent monosaccharides occurs at a near-identical rate. In practice, the breakdown of lactose takes slightly longer simply because we depend on a specialized enzyme to process the galactose, and we don't have that enzyme at a...

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Why does diabetes cause sores on your feet? Diabetes contributes to impaired blood circulation and decreased nerve sensitivity, especially in the extremities, as well as being an endocrine disorder which disturbs the entire metabolism -- including the use and distribution of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in the body. Because of these things, you may not be aware of things like shoes pinching to cause a blister, or a small scratch...

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Cats land on all fours, and buttered toast always lands face down, just to annoy you. So what will happen if you tie a piece of buttered toast to a cat's back? This has been answered before: You get a perpetual motion machine as the toast-cat unit spins over the floor, and the Imp Of The Perverse gains dominion over the universe.

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If you were travelling at the speed of light and looked in a mirror you were holding, would you look the same as if you were stationary? You're right, you would look exactly the same as if you were stationary, because if you are holding the mirror it is travelling at precisely the same speed you are, and behaves the same way as it would if you and the mirror were both immobile or travelling at "normal" speeds. See the answer for the question about "headlights on a train travelling at light speed", at...

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The time/space continuum is dependent on time. If time is an illusion of the human mind, in theory shouldn't any equation including time be irrelevant? To borrow from one of my other answers: First you need to understand, time and space are simply different aspects of the same system. Think of it like this: Time = change. The simple fact that things change, from one moment to the next, "creates" time; if things did not change, at all, then...well, the whole concept of time would be meaningless, wouldn't it. A completely...

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The Laws of Physics says matter cannot be created or destroyed, but surely everytime a baby is born matter is created? Nope; it is merely redistributed. The initial matter for the development of the embryo is drawn from the mother's body and the food that she takes in; after the baby is born, all that added mass has to come from the food and liquids that the baby takes in. The baby's growing body breaks down the molecules in food and either uses those very same atoms to build up the material of its...

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I read somewhere that when creases form in the ear lobes, that's evidence of the presence of some disease. About the time the creases appeared, my earlobes also began to itch. Anybody know what the disease is, or where I can check this out? Unless you are a middle-aged white male, I wouldn't consider creased earlobes a reliable indicator of any disease...it is more likely to be dehydration and/or age and dry skin. Try drinking more plain water, and use a light hypoallergenic skin moisturizer. In white males, creased earlobes go along with hairy ears (especially in the ear canals rather than along the outside of the ear)...

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What is so special about plants in the family Araucariaceae? The three genera in that family, Agathis, Araucaria and Wollemia, are the only survivals of the trees that grew on Antarctica before the poles were covered with ice, and represent some of the most ancient types of trees in existance. They became extinct in the northern hemisphere at the end of the Cretaceous, along with the dinosaurs, and the survivors in the southern hemisphere probably...

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How can something be harder than steel and fragile at the same time? Edit: Sorry I hit the wrong button I meant to add this to the question about petrified wood Hardness and flexibility are two different things, and both contribute to "strength". A substance can be hard, but brittle, which would mean that despite its hardness it could shatter easily. Flexibility is a measure of the "give" between the molecules of the substance which allows it to deform in response to shock or pressure, without losing the basic bond formation of...

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How long does it take for wood to petrify? How long wood takes to petrify depends on the conditions. First, the wood needs to be sealed away from oxygen so that it petrifies at all, rather than decays; petrification can only take place under anoxic conditions where the organisms which contribute to decay can't live. However, if that condition is met it turns into a "how long is a piece of string" question. ...

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Is it possible to synthesize spider webs in large enough quantities to create a structure such as a building? No. At the current time, I don't know of any successful methods of synthesizing spider webs at all. In 2000-2002, genetically modified goats were bred which produced spider-silk proteins in their milk glands, with the idea that the silk could be purified from their milk and spun into numerous products, including Kevlar-type bullet-proof body armor for the military. However, this...

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Are exoskeletal organisms better suited for living in a weightless enviroment than endoskeletal organisims ? In one respect it would seem so: while we have abundant evidence that living in a weightless environment leads to the loss of skeletal calcification in endoskeletal creatures (including humans), there is no indication that exoskeletal creatures suffer a similar degradation of their support structure, possibly due to the fact that mineralisation rarely plays a part in the proteins of the...

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How do whales move up and down in the ocean? "How" is pretty simple: they use their muscular tails for propulsion, and may use flippers and the angle of the body for direction. They don't need to "breathe out" to dive or anything like that.

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When a new species of animal is discovered, does the person who discovered it get to name it? If so, can they name it anything they like? To add to Daniel Mortensen's answer, the genus may be assigned on the basis of similarity to existing species (and the higher-order taxa will definitely be assigned that way), and the final part of the name must include the names of those who described the species first, but within the structure of the existing taxonomic system and the requirement for latinization, then yes, you can get...

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Do wild animals get cancer? Just to add to Chet Mac's excellent answer, when wildlife is being monitored through the use of infrared photography, tumors in or near the skin often show up as distinctive "hot spots". Tumors in humans have the same infrared signature, so we can take this as being an indication of cancerous tumors in the animals.

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How do the animals in the polar regions tolerate the cold? Some animals, for example teleost fishes (like the rock cod Pagothenia borchgrevinki) and some insect species, produce proteins which act as natural antifreezes and metabolic enzymes which actually function best at very low temperatures. See, for example, the specialist book on fish antifreeze proteins by Kathryn Ewart at http://www.worldscibooks.com/lifesci/4917.html.

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Which animal species is most prone to illness? In modern times, lab mice, followed closely by domestic or lab rats -- because we have bred them to be vulnerable to or simply prone to just about every ailment we know of, and we continuously breed KO mice with different genes "knocked out" just to see what it does to them.

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Is it required that certain types of life forms evolve more quickly than others in order to persist? The short answer is, yes. Evolution is often driven by change in the environment, including the environment provided by other species. Where the environment does not change much, there is not much requirement for the organism to adapt, and evolution is very slow -- which is why you can get ancient-type horseshoe crabs in the shallow sea environments which have not changed much in 500...

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What weighs more, all the world's elephants or all the world's ants? The ants. By a lot. According to an estimate by E.O. Wilson (one of the world's most famous entomologists), ants comprise roughly half the insect biomass in the world and are roughly equal in weight to the weight of all the humans in the world. (If you want to find out more about ants, you can start with Wilson's and Holldobler's book, "Journey to the Ants",...

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When a person is cremated their ashes only weigh a few pounds. What has happened to the "missing" weight? Does it still exist anywhere? More than 70% of the human body is simply H2O. Obviously all that goes away. Of the remaining compounds, most are broken down by combustion into hydrogen, oxygen and other gaseous molecules. Cremation is done at a high temperature precisely so that it leaves behind almost nothing but pure carbon -- and that is precisely what is left behind, almost pure carbon, with a few mineral elements...

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Do hydrocarbons occur naturally in any substance other than crude oil? Yes, tens of thousands. Hydrocarbons are part of crude oil because crude oil is the detritus of what were once living organisms; many of the molecules involved in life are hydrocarbons. In addition, hydrocarbons form abiotically under a wide variety of conditions, including in clouds of dust, gases and ice in space. Hydrocarbons are found almost everywhere.

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How would scientists engineer a locust to devour all the hop plants it can find? The simplest way is to use active selection in a captive breeding population. If you start with a locust population in a plot with mixed plants, and allow the locusts to move freely from plant to plant according to preference; and if you only allow the locusts which eat the hops plants to mate and reproduce; and if you continue to selectively focus over the next few generations on those...

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Should parrots eat seeds? Parrots generally love seeds, but seeds can be full of fat and oils, and your bird can get unhealthily overweight -- especially if it isn't let loose to fly often. That's the main reason to restrict the amount of seed in a bird's diet. Incidentally, "good oil and good fat" is not the issue; the issue is simply that oil and fat provide an awful lot of calories, and...

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What safe toys can I make my parrot using things you would find around the house? Parrots are so expert at shredding things, this is a difficult question to answer. One suggestion I might make is using cotton rags -- don't use synthetic fibers, generally, they shred differently and also aren't that good for the bird if it eats them. Tie long rags together and braid them as tightly as you can to make "ropes" that your bird can climb or swing on....

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How can I train my 2 month old love birds not to bite fingers? Birds tend to love attention. If they bite, just say "No!" or "No bite!" firmly and immediately put them down onto their perch and walk away. Be sure to ignore them totally for at least 5 minutes. It may take a few days to a few weeks, depending on the temperament of the bird, but as long as you are absolutely consistent in this, they get the hint.

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Do some parrots display a tendency to favor a particular side of their body when they walk, climb, or grab things with their talons? Yes, absolutely. Some are strongly "handed" on one side or another, while others are more "ambidextrous" -- it just depends on the bird.

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Is shame a learned response? I think the other answers are right about shame being a learned response, in that what we become ashamed about and why is definitely learned, if you look at the differences between families and between cultures. However, I would argue that the *capacity* to be ashamed is inborn. Some people will never learn shame, no matter what conditioning they are given; but the vast majority of the...

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What is the approximate expected life span of a healthy indoor cat? An entirely indoor cat *can* live over 20 years, although most will only reach their late teens. I have personally known two cats who lived to age 26 and 24, respectively, although they were both quite feeble towards the end. However, they were unusual.

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Is it safe to pick up a kitten or cat by the back of his neck like his mother used to? Kittens, generally, but full-grown cats, no. Even a 6-month old kitten is really too big to do so safely. Once they get heavier, although you can keep hold of them by the scruff of the neck for control, they also need some support under them for their weight. Otherwise the skin can tear, or they can simply have the skin pulled so tight around their necks that they strangle. Weight makes a...

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What are some effective, gentle ways to help an extremely defensive person learn that constructive criticism is a valuable and necessary part of personal growth? In terms of "how to" suggestions: I would suggest, if you are actually the one trying to offer constructive criticism, don't ever start critical statements to this person with "You...". "You do..." or "you don't..." or especially "you are..." type statements almost automatically trigger a defensive reaction. Instead, approach the...

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What is the black and white crow-like bird seen in many Windex commercials? I believe it is an African Pied Crow: http://www.kenyabirds.org.uk/crow.htm

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Where is the legendary island of Avalon supposed to be, and what is it's significance? wvwoman is right in that "Avalon" is generally supposed to be Glastonbury Tor; however, this is a hill in the middle of Somerset, England, which used to be an island simply because much of western and northern Somerset used to be underwater. What wasn't just shallow sea was deep swamp; land was first reclaimed from this when sea defences and drainage systems were put in under...

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Why do human taste buds favor unhealthy foods? Fats, sugars, and salt were all scarce in the "natural" and largely vegetable diet of our most distant ancestors. When humans spread out across the planet to all sorts of different environments, the areas where the diets were primarily meat were also the areas where there was the highest requirement for calories (like Siberia, Nepal, and above the Arctic Circle, for instance). The...

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Is it true that evolution isn't taught in science lessons in the USA? No, but almost yes. At the level of the public schools, although there is certainly no law against it, many science teachers refrain from going into the subject in any depth for fear of offending school board members or the parents in the school district. Unfortunately, this has been going on for decades, and since each generation fails to learn about the subject effectively, a false doubt is...

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Is it true that plants will not grow if watered with microwaved water? No, it is not true. If you water plants with water that is too hot you can damage the roots, but that is a function of heat, not whether or not the water has been specifically exposed to microwaves. Microwaves do not change the structure or composition of water; all they do is add energy, same as boiling on a stove. Assuming you let the water cool, it behaves like any water.

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What are societal causes of the hikikomori (hermit) phenomena in Japan? Why is it particular to that country? I don't think there is a simple answer to this. Parents tend to take a "softly, softly" approach when children (especially eldest sons!) show troubled behavior -- much more than anyone would do in the West -- and there is a widespread cultural perception even now that it is a "private, family matter" rather than a problem that the police, doctors or social services...

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Does Japan have laws protecting freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc.? These rights are protected in the Japanese Constitution which was put in place after WWII. They are outlined in the section of the constitution called "The rights and duties of citizens". Article 20 guarantees both freedom of religion and the separation of religion from government: "Freedom of religion is guaranteed to every person. Any religious organization must not...

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What is a geisha girl? The word "Geisha" simply means "artist" or "performer". The skills of a Geisha need to include flawless appearance, the ability to play an instrument and sing, sometimes skill at dance, the ability to converse on subjects of culture and philosophy, and absolutely impeccable etiquette, including the training to host a full formal tea ceremony. Traditionally,...

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How does your body fat percentage affect your production of estrogen? The more fat, the more estrogen, is a broad and general rule-of-thumb. There is actually a sort of cycle; fat cells (adipose tissue or "adipocytes") actually store estrogen (they act as a "hormone reservoir"), and they also contain an enzyme which converts several other steroid hormones to estrogen. And estrogen makes it difficult to lose fat, as well; estrogen binds with...

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Are there any species closely related to humans that a human could produce offspring with? It is possible (an outside chance) that humans and chimps or bonobos could hybridize. The genomes are very similar, but there are some long sequence reversals and a few sequence insertions which might be enough to scupper successful cell division. (In this particular case, differing chromosome numbers don't matter; the human chromosome 2 represents a fusion of ape chromosomes 2-3, but...

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does gravity make actual time go slower. if u seperated twins,1 on the earth & the other in space,would 1 age more? Time runs at the same speed for the individuals at each locality; however, *relative* speeds for different locales are different where gravity is different, yes, and gravity "slows" time. First you need to understand, time and space are different aspects of the same system. Think of it like this: Time = change. The simple fact that things change, from one moment to the next,...

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Why do some four-legged animals sleep while standing? The animals which sleep standing up are all grazers, and the reason they sleep standing up has a lot to do with simple anatomy. Grazing quadrupeds do not have a full diaphragm like we do, that separates their guts entirely from their lungs -- and they have an awful lot of gut, because you need that length of gut to break down the insoluble cellulose in what they eat. So this gigantic bag of...

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Since there are animals that lay eggs isn't this enough evidence that a supreme creator had to have created the animals first to produce the eggs? Um, no. There are very primitive, ocean-dwelling organisms -- including, for example, jellyfish -- which release eggs into the ocean to be fertilised by other jellyfish. These eggs are almost unmodified gametes -- simple sex cells, protected only by a minor variation on the standard cell membrane. They are almost exactly like every other cell of a jellyfish's "body", except...

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What is the largest insect? In addition to Kim's excellent list, the Malaysian Jungle Nymph stick insect (Heteropterix dilatata) is one of the largest insects in the world, at 16-18 cm long and weighing up to 70 grams. There are a couple of good photos on this page: http://praying-mantids.co.uk/mantids/stickinsects.html and one here: http://www.nwsource.com/travel/scr/tf_story.cfm?st=44969 The stick insect...

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What kind of insect develops from the larva that decimates the Catalpa (C.speciosa) tree? If by "decimates" you mean "strips all the leaves off", then a good candidate is the catalpa sphinx moth (Ceratomia catalpae). There is an info page, including photos of the caterpillar and the moth, here: http://www.ag.auburn.edu/enpl/bulletins/catalpasphinx/catalpasphinx.htm

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What is the difference between "endangered" species and "threatened" species? "Threatened" is a blanket category, containing the classifications "Vulnerable", "Endangered", and "Critically Endangered". These assessments are based on calculated probabilities of extinction. The full criteria for assessment are too long to list here, but can be found at http://www.redlist.org/info/categories_criteria2001.html -- just keep scrolling...

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Which animal has the shortest lifespan? Depends on whether you consider bacteria to be "animals". If you do, then you will have to consider a wide variety of bacterial species with a life cycle of 15-20 minutes. If you don't, then a case can alternatively be made for the male of the mite Acarophenax tribolii -- which develops inside the body of its mother, fertilises its female siblings, and then dies before it is...

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Are there any foods or nutrients that help raise levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol? Oily fish, such as sardines or mackeral; cod liver oil (don't overdo it, though); onions and olives; and wine in moderation (no more than a glass a day).

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Is a woman with an irregular period as likely to get pregnant as one who has a regular period? Actually, it depends. An irregular period can be symptomatic of deeper problem, such as ovarian cysts or endometriosis, which are associated with infertility or lessened fertility.

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I got my period and it started off normal, but then turned brownish. I am on the pill, is there a chance I am pregnant? While it is possible, it is not all that likely. It is actually more probable that it is a result of the pill itself. The pill often modifies how much blood is layered onto the endometrium (the inner lining of the uterus), and also seems to degrade the older layers more than they would be otherwise (as blood ages, the red pigmentation breaks down and it turns brown).

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Do sympathy pains exist? (e.g. if you are around someone who suffers from certain physical symptoms can you start to suffer from them too?) Actually -- yes! Welcome to the wonderful world of mirror neurones. Mirror neurones are a layer of brain cells which act as a reflection, both of our own actions and moods, and of actions and moods which we observe. If we reach out a hand to pick up an apple, then the neuronal connections involved in the formation of intention and the motor neurons involved in conveying orders to our...

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Is there a facial expression that signifies envy? Actually, yes; if there were no facial expression for envy, we would not be able to identify envy in the way that people look at each other, and we can. Although it is a subtle expression, it is usually typified by a tightening of the muscles under the eyes and around the mouth, resulting in slightly narrowed eyes and "thinner" lips.

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What US document grants us the "freedom to speak anything we want to, freedom for anyone to possess and use guns, the right to keep our government and religion apart"? Actually, there is no document which specifically grants "Freedom to speak anything we want to, freedom for anyone to possess and use guns". For example, libel, slander, and incitement to riot or treason are all quite specifically criminal, and are not protected; you cannot speak "anything you want to", or at least, you cannot do so without facing legal consequences. Also,...

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Is there any scientific merit to the theory of intelligent design? Speaking as a practicing scientist, and specifically as a biologist, the short answer is simply, no. The long answer involves objections on three fronts: the lack of any evidence *for* ID, the fact that ID cannot contribute usefully to research, and the fact that ID violates some of the basic tenets of science by requiring the supernatural and proposing the untestable. "Intelligent...

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What is the difference between creationism, intelligent design, and evolution? Creationism is an idea about the origin of modern organisms which is generally overt about drawing conclusions directly from a religious text, although some proponents may try to find "scientific support" for their conclusion, or claim that there is such support. "Intelligent Design" is a proposed explanation for the forms and processes we see see in modern organisms...

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My brother and I are both significantly taller than our parents. My mother thinks this is because of growth hormones added to our milk supply when we were growing up. Is this true, or even possible? It is remotely possible, but it is far more likely that it is simply a result of nutrition -- not least, the amount of nutrition your mother got while you were a developing fetus, as opposed to how much your mother's mother got when your mother was a developing fetus, because this has been demonstrated to have a relatively big effect on the child's ultimate height. Also, the amount...

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Do the elderly need less sleep? Correct. In general, as people age they sleep less; by the time someone is 70 they will usually be sleeping 2-3 hours less per night than when they were 20. Also, more of the sleep will be shallow and disturbed, and less time is spent dreaming. There are a number of hypotheses as to why, but I don't think anyone knows for sure yet.

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Sometimes I wake up with slightly swollen hands. What could be causing this? Poor circulation and blood pooling in the extremities (something you notice much more in your fingers than in your toes), as a result of your blood pressure getting much lower as you sleep. I often have that myself. Unless your hands swell to the point that rings are cutting into your flesh, or your skin is going a funny color, then it is not dangerous.

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What can I do to speed up my reaction time? Exercise your "fast twitch" muscles (yes, there is a type of muscle tissue called this) by, for example, doing a weights workout which uses low weight and high repetition -- a typical exercise of this type is using a dumbbell well within your comfort range for weight and seeing how many times you can lift it in a one-minute timed period (without damaging yourself, obviously). Find...

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About how many different Neanderthal fossils have been found? Collating from various different sites and papers, I have counted: 2 from Belgium and Gibralter from before "Neanderthals" were identified as not being H. sapiens 7 from the Neanderthal "type site" in Germany 2 from Grotto of Spy d'Orneau in Belgium between 24 - 36 individuals from Croatia (remains are fragmentary) 1 near-complete skeleton from...

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Is the "evolution theory" a scientific fact? Evolution is both fact *and* theory. See: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/18430

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Why did our ancestors eventually lose their body hair? This is actually quite a big question in hominin evolution. Since body hair is not one of those things that fossilises well, we aren't even sure *when* human ancestors started losing their fur, so we can't know what the environmental pressures were at the time. Hypotheses that have been put forward include: heat regulation in a very warm climate; less water resistance and a...

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What is the most recent and widely accepted "family tree" for modern man? There are gaps and people argue over the details of it, but one widely-accepted and representative "family tree" is available here: http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html It already needs revision to include the side branch of Homo floresiensis.

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How long ago were Homo Floresiensis discovered? The cave where they were found, Liang Bua, started to be excavated around 1998, and hominin remains started to be found a couple of years after that. Most of the finds were highly fragmentary and difficult to classify until the find of LB1 in September 2003. The researchers spent some time on verification and accurate description before they published.

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On average, how much brain capacity do we use compared to the Homo erectus? All living organisms use as much brain capacity as they have; brains are metabolically expensive organs, and we only support that kind of expense if there is a benefit. I'm guessing that this question stems from the popular myth that we "only use 10% of our brain's capacity" -- see http://www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=fa/brain-myth for further debunking of that. ...

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Of the known types of amino acids, which ones are required to make a protein? Additionally, there is a 21st amino acid now known to be part of some proteins, mainly enzymes, although it is not part of most proteins. This is selenocysteine, and is almost identical to cysteine, except that it has an atom of selenium taking the place of a sulfur: HSe-CH2-CH(NH2)-COOH instead of HS-CH2-CH(NH2)-COOH

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Why does a banana freeze so much harder and therefore cause so much more damage to my blender's blades then, say, a block of ice? When water freezes, it crystallises into a highly ordered structure which is actually more "open" (and less dense) than liquid water -- this is why it expands when it freezes. When a banana freezes, it is only partially water, and the rest is starches, sugars, other carbohydrates, a few proteins, and a few vitamins -- many of which are molecules which actually *compact* when they...

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What exactly are salts of fatty acids? A "salt", in chemistry, is the result of an acid-base neutralisation. A fatty acid is a long chain of hydrocarbons, terminated with a carboxylic acid group; a typical one would be: CH3-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-CH2-COOH Acids are chemicals which act as hydrogen donors in solution; the carboxylic acid group above (COOH) can donate the terminal hydrogen. The acid is...

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Why do some people get more mosquito bites than others? Everyone has a very individual smell, mostly based around their individual populations of skin bacteria (everybody has 'em, no matter how much you bathe, but the type and concentrations of species are different for everyone), and the "Major Histamine Complex", which are proteins individual to each person's immune system and which you are born with. For some reason, and I...

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What habitats do mosquitoes live in? Anywhere at all that there is stagnant water. They also breed in the water that collects in old tires, or any other stagnant, persistant puddle.

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Is there a home-made natural mosquito repellant? Avon Skin-So-Soft bath oil. Best mosquito repellant in the world. The bad part is, you have to sort of slather it on, and you pick up dirt like nobody's business. Also works against blackfly, chiggers and no-see-ums, though. Edit to add: When I was using this in Maine (in June, the height of blackfly season) I applied it once in the morning and again right after lunch, and it...

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If mosquitos became extinct, would there be any disadvantages? The idea that "the earth would recover pretty quickly" is just a bit overly optimistic. Mosquitos are a mainstay prey for numerous species, and given that many species are now restricted in both their range and their foodsources by how humans have changed the landscape, it is not certain that all those species would be able to reshuffle things to use a new food source. Austin,...

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Why do some people's mosquito bites not itch? For some reason, some people's immune systems also do not recognise the mosquito's foreign proteins as "threatening", and they do not provoke an immune response. This is also highly personal, because there is a wide range of variation in individual's immune systems. But yes, as the other answer stated, if the person is already taking an anti-inflammatory or...

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Why do mosquito bites itch? When a mosquito bites you, she injects her own saliva, because it contains anticoagulants which will keep your blood flowing instead of clotting. Unfortunately, along with those anticoagulants she also unavoidably injects some of her own body's proteins, and these happen to produce an allergic effect in us. A class of chemicals called histamines binds to these foreign proteins, which...

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What was the deal with Jimmy Carter and the killer rabbit? Is there a photograph around? In Carter's defense, the story is plausible; there are "dominant" wild rabbits which *can* actually be very aggressive, and yes, they do hiss, rather like cats. I can attest to this from personal experience.

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What's the difference between a hare and a rabbit? Rabbits are slightly shorter legged, and are happy living in groups. Rabbits also burrow, and in the wild will live below ground when they are not feeding, and they have their litters below ground. Hares are solitary creatures unless breeding, and rely on running rather than burrowing for protection. They have very long and strong hind legs, more so than rabbits. They make shallow...

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My 16 year old cat lost her brother recently, and her behavior has changed. She won't stop cleaning and biting herself. Is there anything I can do? Endlessly cleaning, licking and biting herself is a sign of anxiety and/or depression; grooming is a "comfort" thing for cats. Your vet might try to break her of the habit by putting on a cone collar for a while so that she can't, but this does not always work. The best thing you can do is try to distract her, and spend plenty of time and attention to her. Sometimes cats...

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About eight months ago, my cat stopped cleaning herself. Why is this? A behavior change as drastic as not washing herself is actually pretty serious. She could be suffering from an illness, anything from hypothyroidism to impaired kidney function to a brain tumor. Not grooming is never a good sign for a cat. Please take her to a vet! Edit: Or, of course, she may just need to lose weight so she can reach herself..... ;- /

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How can I tone down my kitten's aggressiveness? When the kitten becomes too agressive, say "No!" firmly, and then just get up and leave for a while and refuse to interact at all. Punishing the kitten will likely make it confused or even more agressive; spraying with water works for some cats but not others. Saying "no" when it does something you don't like and then taking away interaction is something it will...

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I have two male cats. One is 1 1/2 and the other is 6 months old. I just got the younger one fixed and now the older cat is mean to him. What should I do? Is this normal? The younger cat's smell may have changed as a result of being at the vet's. The best thing to do is separate them for a few days in a way that will allow them to see and smell each other, but not interact much; a room with enough clearance under the door to paw at each other is perfect. Letting them get reacquainted that way should help.

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My cat loves to be with me and be held, but sometimes she'll fold her ears back and growl and scratch for me to let her go. Why does she change her mood so suddenly? Welcome to the weirdness of cat brains. In a cat's brain (I'm quite serious about this, by the way) the center which deals with agitation, aggression and hostility lies side-by-side with the center which deals with "pleasure" signals, in the limbic system. It seems that, in some cats at least, when there is too much signal intensity on the pleasure side, it sort of...

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I want to plant some herbs in the spring and wondering if there is any way to keep my cats out of the herb garden? Any herbs that they don't like? One thing that I have tried with remarkable success is lion dung. Seriously. There is a company in the UK which markets a product called "Silent Roar", which is dried pellets of lion poo; put a few of them around a garden and cats won't go near it. I am not sure what's available in the US, but you might also try writing to a zoo -- who knows, they might be willing to ship...

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How is morality related to evolution? In a way, chales is right -- evolution is not a comment on morality any more than Maxwell's Theory of Electromagnetism is. It is simply a description of processes at work in the natural world. Those who look to religion as the only possible source of morality seem to be able to extrapolate from these processes a conclusion that (a) if you accept evolution, you must stop believing in God,...

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Why can't microwave ovens "brown" food? Microwaves interact most efficiently (that is, more energy is transferred) with water molecules rather than the "solid" molecules. When you cook food in a microwave, you are actually cooking it by heating or boiling the water molecules inside it. The solid particles at the surface of food are usually dry compared to the interior, as they lose water to the atmosphere -- so...

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What do physics and biology have in common? Electrons. And thermodynamics. The laws of thermodynamics are important for how biological processes work; biology depends on a constant source of energy from outside (in the case of Earth, that comes to us mostly as heat and light from the sun, and a little bit as heat from the radioactive decay of materials in the center of the planet) -- and that energy is captured in a way that allows...

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What is science? To add to some other good answers here, in the modern world science also works from certain assumptions: that physical phenomena both can be and should be explained in terms of physical causes, and that the fields of science should be attempting to explain the natural world without reference to the supernatural or spiritual. Note that this does NOT mean that the supernatural and/or spiritual...

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How can I train myself to be able to control other peoples' minds and bodies telepathically? If there were a real answer to this question, why on earth would anyone be nuts enough to tell you?? I cannot think of any good or legitimate reason why you would want to!

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What are zombies? In the Caribbean, "zombies" are people who have supposedly had their spirit removed from their body, leaving the body living but without motivation or higher thought processes, and thus perfect for slaves. It's been theorized that real "zombies" have been created by treating people with drugs that kill off or at least interfere with higher thought and speech, as well...

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I get weird sensations when in specific parts of the building that I work at. What could explain this? A couple of possibilities are also standing waves, or subsonics. Either of these can be created by things as mundane as air conditioning + the exact locations of walls, or machinery. Humans are able to consciously detect sounds in the region of 20-20000 Hz, sometimes written as 20 Hz - 20kHz. However, even though we cannot usually *consciously* detect sounds outside that range, sound is a...

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What is the Ken and Barbie gene? The "ken and barbie gene" was so named because, in studies of Drosophila fruit flies, mutations in that gene resulted in the genitalia being retained inside the body and no genitalia being externally visible at all. (Yes, geneticists do have a sense of humor -- kind of a twisted one, sometimes, but a sense of humor.) As far as I am aware, that particular gene does not have a close...

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How does evolution explain the differences in appearance of humans? Astaroth's answer is generally right, but there were some very specific issues he didn't mention. The reason that skin is different shades is as a result of the need for just-so-much-and-no-more amounts of UV light. Ultraviolet light spurs the production of Vitamin D in the skin, and this is actually where most people got Vitamin D, since there aren't that many foods...

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Can a parakeet and a cockatiel mate and have babies? No, not likely; they are not only different species, they are different genera and families. Parakeets are part of family Psittacidae, genus Pyrrhura (usually -- although there are other genera in this family also called parakeets). Cockatiels are part of family Cacatuidae, genus Nymphicus. There is just too much genetic difference and distance for a viable hybrid. They might try to mate,...

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What species of birds are affected by imprinting? Most species where parental care is given after the babies leave the nest. The smaller species which are pretty much on their own from the moment they can fly, and don't leave the nest until they are ready (or almost ready) to fly, don't imprint. Species where the offspring will either follow the parent around, like ducks or swans, or stay with their parents for supplementary...

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Is it normal for a dove to molt in October, with many dark spots on her head, neck and under her wings? Not usually; most molts occur earlier in the year. She may be reacting to chemical contaminants in the area, or to parasites or a skin condition.

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Can salamanders regenerate all lost limbs? Yes, they can regenerate both tails and limbs. Moreover, they can regenerate them repeatedly, and they can regenerate parts of their heart or parts of their eyes. They have a quite robust regenerative system. Unfortunately for them, this tends to mean that many of them spend their lives in tanks in laboratories across the world, getting bits chopped off of them while biologists try to figure...

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What do physics, chemistry and biology have in common? Chemical properties are derived from the number and the location of the electrons in various orbits around the atomic nucleus; in other words, chemical properties derive from an aspect of particle physics. Biology is based on a set of processes which essentially occur in an area of organic chemistry (that is, chemistry which involves both the elements hydrogen and carbon); or as Mike Adams...

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The Synthetic Theory of Evolution explains how variations arise, what is Darwin's explanation for this? Darwin did not attempt to explain how variation arose, he merely noted as a fact of observation that offspring were generally not identical to their parents, and held that variation must somehow be implicit in reproduction.

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How do scientists decide whether to name fossils Australopithecus or Homo? Two diagnostic features are brain size and (more importantly) shape, and the flatness of the face. Australopithecines have been found with brain sizes between roughly 380 - 550 cc; Homo habilis have brain sizes of 500 cc at the low end, overlapping the high end of the australopithecines, but this smaller brain size was combined with a flatter, more upright face, smaller brow ridges, smaller...

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Did human emotions arise as an evolutionary trait as a means for us to survive longer than other animals? "Human" emotions are observable in other primates, as happiness, affection, anger, grief, frustration, friendship, and anxiety. They all seem to be part and parcel of dealing with each other in a highly social setting, and it can be argued that many such tendencies are found across the animal kingdom. I strongly recommend books by Frans De Waal, a primate ethologist working at the...

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Is the modern monkey or ape similar to Australopithecus? Australopithecines had brain sizes a bit larger than chimps. Their faces were somewhat apelike. However, they were fully erect and bipedal, not knucklewalkers, and their hands and arms were far more "human" than "ape", and their teeth were closer to human than ape. Aside from full bipedality, some of the specific points of comparison are the proportions of upper to...

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Is there agreement in the scientific community concerning the origins of man? The general agreement on human origins can be summarised thus: The hominid lineage arose in Africa. We are primates, and our closest living relatives are chimps and bonobos. Sahelanthropus tchadensis, found in Chad, is one of the earliest ancestors known, very close to the split between the chimp and human lineages. For a picture of a skull and a description, see here:...

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Is there an evolutionary theory which is accepted by all evolutionists? The Theory of Evolution actually includes a number of mechanisms which biologists all love to fight about. One specific mechanism which is universally accepted as important is natural selection; *how* important it is in *every* situation is argued over, but not that it is one of the most significant and powerful mechanisms. Other mechanisms of evolution which may have more effect than natural...

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Why are the australopithecus, neanderthal etc. not regarded as the intermediate human evolutionary forms? Australopithecines *are* regarded as intermediate forms, just not all of them are regarded as being direct ancestors -- the early hominid family tree was more like a bush. It's just like your great-great-grandfather's brother was not likely to be a direct ancestor of yours, but was still probably representative of his generation. Neanderthals are our cousins. They were...

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Is our behavior determined by our genes, and have there been any tests on identical twins raised in different environments to determine this? This is a fiendishly difficult question to answer, and it is in fact not possible to give any hard-and-fast answer like "30% of our preferences are genetic" or "80% of our personality is genetic". The fact is, there is no such beast as "nature OR nurture"; we are all products of nature AND nurture, and teasing out the influence of each is a full-time industry for...

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What leads anthropologists to believe that ape-like skeletons that are found are humans' direct ancestors? Physical anthropologists have only some involvement in hominid ancestry, and archaeologists very little; the field really belongs to paleontologists and biologists. The determinations are made on the basis of skeletal similarities; there are certain features of the skull, jaw, pelvic girdle and limb joints, and hands and feet, which are diagnostic of hominid ancestry, and not shared by any...

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If humans have been around for the last 120,000 years, why the extreme technological development during only the last 2,000 years? There are a lot of good answers here, but one more thing is simply the issue of how many minds there are working on any given problem, and what the baseline is of where they start. 10,000 years ago, there were somewhere between 1,000,000-10,000,000 people in the world, and to our knowledge there were no systems of writing -- no way to transmit ideas other than one person to another,...

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Lemmings don't really throw themselves off cliffs, do they? No, they don't, and in this case Disney has a lot to answer for. Lemmings do periodically go through population boom-and-crash cycles. Lemmings also occasionally fall off cliffs. Somehow Disney got hold of the wrong end of the stick on that, decided that they leapt off cliffs do their deaths during population booms; and because wild animals are notoriously uncooperative when it...

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Why do wolves have a lifetime partner, and dogs do not? Wolves have two parallel pack heirarchies -- a male one and a female one. Only the dominant wolves breed, or in good years where there is plenty of game the dominant pair and the next pair down, the beta wolves. This keeps the population relatively stable. The non-dominant wolves actually have both their fertility and desire for sex suppressed by the hormonal results of getting beat up on a...

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Are there wild bears in Africa? Not any more. The only bears to live in Africa were Ursus arctos, brown bears -- the same kind as in North America. Even these only lived in North African countries, and were never recorded anywhere south of the Sahara. Unless there are undiscovered remnant populations in the Atlas Mountains of NW Africa, however, they have all now been killed off.

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Can life exist without a body of salt water? Life in similar forms to how we know it could not exist without water, because water is too vital as a solvent for biologically active molecules. However, there is no requirement that water for life contain salts, that is merely how it happened here. Furthermore, life as we *don't* know it could conceivably exist anywhere that potential energy can be kept separate from and in...

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What constitutes mental health? Mental health boils down to an ability to deal with external reality with a maximum effectiveness, and minimum discomfort both for yourself and the people around you. Conflict, disappointment, frustration, anger, etc. are all inevitable parts of life, but mental health manifests in the ability to deal with these, and with triumphs as well, in a manner which does not leave anyone badly damaged.

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People tell me that in the course of a conversation, I stop, swallow hard, and then talk about something totally unrelated. I have no memory of doing this. What could be wrong? One possibility is that you are having petit mal epileptic seizures. These can last less than a second, and it may not be at all obvious to the person you are talking to that it is a seizure, but in effect it blitzes and reboots your brain very quickly. You should speak to your doctor about being evaluated for these; although you can live with petit mal seizures for a long time without...

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Is there a scientific explanation for why nails scratching a chalkboard is so irritating? It has been noted that nails across a blackboard hits exactly the same frequency range as the screeches that many species of primates use to signal "Danger! Predator!" We could be tapping into a very deepseated instinctive response to this range of sound, to jump up and look around for danger.

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Does everything that goes up eventually have to come down? Not if it goes up fast enough to escape the planet's gravity well, and manages to avoid anything with enough gravity to capture it after that. It's all a matter of velocity and trajectory....

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Where did the expression 'If it walks like a duck...,' come from? It probably originated with the "Hoosier poet" James Whitcomb Riley, sometime around 1883-1885, with the quote: "When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck." You can get a brief biography of Riley at Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Whitcomb_Riley And you can access his work at the...

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Why do cats in America say "meow," but cats in Japan say "yawh?" Regional accent, obviously. :) Seriously, every different language has a different name for the noises animals make.

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Can I use Advantage/Frontline flea medication for dogs on my cat? It's not a good idea. I don't know the ingredients of the product in particular, but a lot of products which are suitable for dogs contain ingredients which act as nerve poisons in cats. Get a cat-specific product, otherwise you can end up making your cat very ill. If the product for cats is weaker, it is for a reason; cats are also more sensitive to some products, some simply...

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My stepchildren have cats at their mother's house. Is it possible for them to bring cat allergens into my house to trigger my allergies? If their clothes are covered with cat hair and dander, then yes. A few stray cat hairs aren't likely to affect you (as well as the fact they are inevitable) -- only if the clothes are seriously covered with scurf from the cat are they likely to pose a danger to you. The easiest way to get around it is simply ask that their clothes be laundered right before they come home, if they stay at...

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How can I stop a male cat from spraying indoors? It ought to be several more weeks, at least, before your kitten is old enough to want to spray. At the first sign of spraying, or at about 4 1/2-5 months, whichever comes first, you should speak to your vet about getting the kitten neutered. If you neuter the kitten before he starts to spray he should never develop the habit.

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Are cats highly allergic to chocolate and if so, what happens if they eat it? They are not allergic, but they cannot metabolize it. Chocolate has caffeine and theobromine in it -- two bioactive chemicals which we have no difficulty metabolizing because we have liver enzymes which break them down fairly rapidly. Dogs don't have very much of these enzymes, however, and cats have none at all, which means that the molecules don't get broken down and rendered...

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Can I get my cat spayed while she is in heat? And how long do cats stay in heat? Cats usually stay in heat for about a week, although it can be for as little as 4 days or (rarely) as long as 10. And it is a bad idea to spay them while they are in heat; it really messes with their hormones, and even though she lacks ovaries you may end up with a cat who acts like she is in heat for the rest of her life.

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My cat just had kittens four days ago. I don't want her to have anymore, so how soon can I have her spayed? As soon as possible after the kittens are weaned. As soon as you have her spayed her milk will dry up, so it's not a good idea to do so before a safe weaning age (4 weeks minimum, better if the kittens are 6 weeks old). However, she may go into heat again very quickly after they wean, so you have a narrow window.

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I was told my cat was a boy but we figured it was a girl since she had nipples and no male parts. However today we noticed near her anus, toward her stomach, a small hole that had a very small red thing sticking out. So is it a male or female? You've got a boy, and you saw what you thought you saw. The testicles don't always become apparent until several months of age (and in some animals they don't "drop" properly and are retained inside the body -- that's something for your vet to check if the cat is more than 4 months old), and males have nipples too.

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Where does oxygen come from? Free oxygen is created in the oceans, but it is created by phytoplankton, microscopic single-celled algae. Millions of tons of phytoplankton "bloom" across the world's oceans every year, and this accounts for about 50% of atmospheric oxygen. The other 50% comes from plants on land. Without plants, there are no processes which would keep the atmosphere full of oxygen;...

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When your body is donated to medical science, what do they do with you when they are finished? It largely depends on what medical science decided to do with you before they finished. There is a possibility that part of you might end up preserved and on display at a medical school, if you had sufficiently medically significant features. The majority of remains will eventually be cremated, however.

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Does it seem likely that every one of the more recent and supposedly more advanced “links” between apelike creatures and modern man should have become extinct, but not the lower apes? The hominid ancestors left the forests for the savannahs and plains, and all the descendents ended up inhabiting pretty much the same areas, and most inhabited the same ecological niches. They were thus in competition against each other for resources. We have not been competing against apes for resources, however; we do not inhabit the same ecological niches or need the same things, and thus...

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Why is the “inferior” ape family still in existence, but not a single one of the presumed intermediate forms, which were supposed to be more advanced in evolution? Asking "if humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes" is very similar to asking "if my ancestors came from England, why are there still English?" One lineage, or population, splits from an ancestral population or species, in order to colonise a new "niche" or geographic area; that does not mean that the original population or species needs to disappear,...

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Is the "evolution theory" a scientific fact? Facts, laws and theories are three different things, in science, and one cannot turn into another. Facts are simply "things that happen" or "things that are", established by observation. Laws are consistent rules of behavior, derived from observation. Theories are the explanatory framework for facts, which tackle the questions of *how* and *why* the facts are as they...

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Why do I sneeze throughout the day after I sleep over 9 hours? There's no guarantee that this is right, but the idea that comes to my mind is that you have a subclinical sensitivity to something like dust mites or the kind of mold spores which are often to be found in pillows and mattresses that are more than a few years old. If you lie on the mattress for eight hours or less, perhaps that is simply not enough exposure in one go to set you off -- but...

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When a species goes extinct, are other species always affected? In general, yes, but how severely depends on the species and the context. Some species exist in a narrow range, and are not either the sole predator for any other species, nor the sole prey for any other species. If species like these disappear, then other species simply move in to eat what they would have eaten, and the things which would have eaten them simply turn to a new food source --...

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How many different types of amino acids are there? Edited with apologies: according to the Practical Handbook of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (1989 edition) there are over 300 known amino acids. The majority of these are either quite rare or are simply manufactured in labs. Some are not even usually found on earth, but have only been found in carbonaceous chondritic meteors, such as ones mentioned in this article: ...

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How can large herbivores sustain so much body mass by eating only vegetation? Don't they need protein? Most of a herbivore's body mass actually turns out to be guts. Much longer intestines are needed in a herbivore than in a carnivore, in order to break down the insoluble cellulose which encases the proteins and starches of plant nutrition. Even amongst herbivores, the length and the complexity of the gut varies with the quality of their food; fruit and nut eaters, which get a diet high...

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Why does a female hyena have a pseudo (false) penis? The "false penis", which is actually a fusion of the clitoris and labia of the vagina, seems to be used in dominance displays and to indicate aggression and willingness to fight. Female hyenas dominate over males in many cases, and they behave in the way that male wolves do when establishing pack heirarchy: they often "mount" subordinate animals, and an...

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If we continue to cut down forests, will we eventually reduce the oxygen content in the air equivalent to levels at the top of Mt. Everest? Unlikely; leaving questions of physics and air pressure entirely aside, oxygen production includes the oceans. The majority of *terrestrially produced* oxygen comes from rainforests, and all the plants on land, including forests, produce about 50% of earth's oxygen. The other 50% of the world's oxygen is produced by phytoplankton, microscopic single-celled algae which bloom in...

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How did the superstition about 1 raven for sorrow and 2 for joy etc. come about? It is a very, very old tradition from England, and used to be magpies (in England, it still is). It quite possibly goes back to the Saxons and Angles, but the real origins of it are lost. It is undoubtedly related to a number of other "animal auguries" used traditionally in the British Isles. The rhyme I know from England is: One for sorrow, two for joy, Three for a girl,...

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Do animals commit suicide? Animals have been known to starve themselves to death, usually when grieving for a companion. This is known only through anecdotal evidence, but reports are not uncommon.

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Is there some significance to cedar trees in cemeteries? Yes. Many of the cedar trees found in North America were mistakenly classed cypresses, and cypress has been associated with grieving since the times of the ancient Greeks. There was a legend that the Greek Cyparissus accidentally killed a stag which had been his friend and companion, and prayed to Apollo that he might grieve forever, and was turned into the tree. Aside from that, because of...

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What is the flattest US state? Kansas. Kansas is not only the flattest state, it is officially flatter than a pancake; this was worked out according to precise topographical measurements. http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i3/kansas.html --Never let it be said that geographers have no sense of humor.

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What is the relationship between height and shoe size? There is a closer relationship between shoe size and limb size than there is between shoe size and overall height. Unless something has interrupted normal patterns of growth, then the length of the foot from heel to tip of the big toe is exactly the length of the forearm between the inside of the elbow and the bend of the wrist. This has to do with how limb growth is genetically...

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Is aluminum found naturally in the body? Only what is absorbed from food or the environment. Too much has very detrimental effects, mostly on proteins found in the brain.

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Is it possible to clone a baby to be born with exactly the same personality and characteristics as the person they got DNA and genes from? No. Personality doesn't just come from genes; it comes from experience, environment, and memory. A clone will not share these with its "parent"; as soon as it comes into existance, and long before it is even born, its environment will start to differ -- the nutrition it receives in the womb, and the hormonal and chemical environment that filters through from the mother, are all...

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In terms of evolution, are humans related to any of the other (relatively) hairless mammals, such as pigs and elephants? If so, how? We are only related in that we are all placental mammals. Hair is lost as the result of a number of selective pressures; in pigs, it was lost as the result of selective breeding by humans, and wild pigs are hairy. If you want an idea of animal classification, distance of relationship and diversity, visit the University of Michigan's Animal Diversity Web, at...

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Of the possible arrangements of DNA, how many would result in an organism capable of reproducing? Millions of billions, at least. Look how many *actual* arrangements of DNA there are already, and consider how many there have been in the past!

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Are stick insects harmful to humans? A very few stick insects have very mild toxins which they can spray if they are handled, such as the Florida stick insect, Anisomorpha buprestoides -- this spray can sting and be very unpleasant if you get it in your eyes, but it washes off skin with soap and water and won't do any permanent damage. Other stick insects, such as Pink Winged stick insects (Sipyloidea sipylus), secrete...

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Do fish fart? Yes. But it gets weirder; herring actually use farts to communicate with each other. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1110_031110_herringfarts.html

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Is it possible to design and assemble DNA to make an organism from inorganic materials? Do you mean, is it possible to make an organism from abiotic or prebiotic (nonbiological) materials? It is not possible, at least so far as we know, to make any organism from only "inorganic" materials, because we cannot make a functioning organism without both hydrogen and carbon, the two elements which define "organic". Those two types of atoms have reactive properties...

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How can organic molecules survive in a reducing atmosphere? Many organic chemicals are not only stable in a reducing atmosphere, they are aided in their formation in such. Remember, a "reduction" is accomplished by the addition of electrons, which contribute a negative charge; however, electrons cannot be forced upon an atom which has no appropriate orbital slots open. Adding electrons to an atom with open orbital slots can allow it to...

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How do you clip a parrot's wings? This is not something you should have described to you over the internet as a guide. This is something you should actually have shown to you, either by someone with a lot of experience with parrots or by a vet qualified to handle birds. If you accidentally clip a blood feather, your parrot can bleed severely; larger birds may survive although they would be ill for a time, but something as...

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Can your eyelashes fall out naturally? Yes, and they do. As well as being subject to the same sort of growth cycle as all one's hair, eyelash follicles are also inhabited by microscopic mites, Demodex folliculorum. You can find pictures of some here: http://www.sciencephoto.com/search/searchLogic.html?subtype=feature&searchstring=Eyelash+Mites&featureid=758 These mites can cause eyelashes to fall out through sheer...

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Is it possible for organic molecules to form in an oxygen-free atmosphere? Yes, it is perfectly possible for organic molecules to form under a wide variety of conditions, including in an oxygen-free atmosphere. There is a good article here: http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=14 about the organic chemistry currently going on in the oxygen-free atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan.

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Can macrocytosis be caused from carbon monoxide poisoning? No. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a result of the fact that CO binds to hemoglobin preferentially; where O2 will be released by the molecule, CO generally isn't, and if there is CO in the environment hemoglobin will grab it before it grabs O2. Essentially the person suffers from a deprivation of oxygen simply because not enough hemoglobin is available for oxygen transport. However,...

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If we feel pain to stop us from doing something that may cause us death or injury and we are meant to procreate in order to keep the human race going, why is giving birth so painful? Giving birth is a lot more painful for humans than it is for many mammals (not all, just many). The reason is that we operate just on the limit of what is physically feasible. The baby's brain, and thus skull, is the biggest thing to have to fit through the pelvic opening. The brain being smaller at birth would mean even more development to be done after the birth, and an even more...

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Why do we tend to feel sleepy after a good meal? The two most biologically "expensive" organs to run are, in order, the brain and the intestines. When you are digesting a large meal, a lot of the body's blood supply is diverted to around the intestines, both to carry the necessary oxygen to the tissues, and to pick up nutrients passed through into the body. This leaves your limbs feeling a bit heavy, and your brain (without...

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What are the arguments against the Theory of Evolution? There are no real arguments against evolution in the field of science. All the arguments I have seen are based on misunderstandings of or deliberate misstatements of what is known by science, rely on the listener's ignorance of the real details of science, and are generally restatements of the same arguments as have been used since the time of William Paley (1743-1805; biography here:...

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In an amino acid structure how would each side chain react in a protein? That depends on the structure of the side chain! It is the differing chemical properties of the side chains which make amino acids different from each other, and which give proteins their shape and function. Some amino acid side chains are stable and relatively nonreactive, and behave hydrophobically; these often pull into a cluster in the center of a protein, giving the protein a...

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Have any experiments ever successfully transformed inorganic materials into a living cell? From "inorganic" materials, no. Actually, these experiments must begin with organic materials -- the definition of organic being, in chemistry, that the molecules must contain at least one carbon and one hydrogen atom. Prebiotic or abiotic organic molecules (that is, molecules which contain both carbon and hydrogen) are actually quite common, however, and form under a variety of...

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Is it possible for organic molecules to form in an oxygen-free atmosphere? The short answer is "yes", and in fact one does not need atmosphere at all. The definition of organic is simply that the molecule must include both at least one carbon and one hydrogen atom; and hydrocarbons (that is, organic molecules) have been been detected on the surfaces and the surroundings of comets as well as in the drifting dust clouds of the interstellar medium. See for...

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What color would blood be in space if there is no oxygen? Oxygenated blood is a bright, rich cherry-red; deoxygenated blood is a very, very dark red. The color is derived from the iron (heme) carrying hemoglobin molecules of red blood cells. However, deoxygenated blood tends to absorb slightly more in the red end of the spectrum than oxygenated blood, and when combined with how long vs. short wavelengths are scattered when penetrating tissue,...

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Why do most living creatures have their anus at the back and between the legs? When the first multicellular creatures arose, nutrients were processed through a very simple tube, that just went from one side of the creature to the other. This basic design has persisted in all that simple creature's descendents; our digestive systems are still just basically a tube from one side of us to the other. Now we have merely made that tube more complex. It made sense for...

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What damage could be caused to the kidneys if adrenaline leaks onto them? I'm not sure this is a meaningful question; when adrenalin is secreted, it circulates throughout the body, and that includes through the kidneys. Adrenalin impacts a number of functions, including cell respiration, vascular dilation and fluid retention. This makes it likely that if adrenalin were circulating in the body for too long, it might impact kidney function by preventing the...

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How is our very first heartbeat triggered? Heartbeats arise in the myocardium itself, that is, the muscular portion of the heart. The ability of the cells that make up the myocardium to beat is intrinsic; if these cells are removed from the heart and cultured in a petri dish each cell will "beat" individually until they grow enough to touch each other. As soon as the cells touch, they knit together and establish "gap...

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