Skeptics Stack Exchange
Skeptics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [biology]

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Use this tag for general biology questions, but also use more specific life science tags to accompany this one if applicable.

Biology

Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines. Among the most important topics are five unifying principles that can be said to be the fundamental axioms of modern biology:

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

Disciplines

Subdisciplines of biology are recognized on the basis of the scale at which organisms are studied and the methods used to study them: biochemistry examines the rudimentary chemistry of life; molecular biology studies the complex interactions of systems of biological molecules; cellular biology examines the basic building block of all life, the cell; physiology examines the physical and chemical functions of the tissues, organs, and organ systems of an organism; and ecology examines how various organisms interact and associate with their environment.

A more comprehensive list is the following:

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

The picture above is taken from a Telegram channel and the text in Russian goes as follows. Prey has got a horizontally shaped pupil to better scan the horizon and a predator's pupil has a vertical shape to better focus on a prey. Is this…
Yevgen
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Do studies show that viruses are contagious?

An acquaintance of mine has been very adamant that viruses can't be caught and continues to link me things like this Ickonic video, where Jaymie Icke interviews Dr. Andrew Kaufman M.D. who claims: I lived my whole life believing we can pass these…
TheXenocide
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Are human fetal cells used to produce Pepsi?

A friend just came over and apparently Pepsi is made from people. Or, more specifically: The aborted human fetal cell line is known as “HEK-293,” and it is used to see how the human palate will react to synthetic flavors. Since most of today’s…
Wayne Werner
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Do people need to drink 8 glasses of water a day?

Since I was a kid, I can't remember how many times I've heard that a healthy person needs to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day. There are definitely plenty of reasons to remain well-hydrated. However is there any scientific evidence of…
Monkey Tuesday
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Demonstrable and repeatable examples of evolution

Are there examples of evolution that can be demonstrated as proof that evolution occurs and is a useful mechanism for making predictions? Some examples that come to mind include: Animal husbandry (e.g. cattle, dogs, etc.); Bacteria that survive…
Brian M. Hunt
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Russian scientist injects himself with 3.5 million-year-old bacteria, says he is now stronger and hasn't gotten ill in 2 years

I have found several articles regarding a Russian scientist, Anatoli Brouchkov: Anatoli Brouchkov is a soft-spoken guy with silver hair, and when he lets out a reserved chuckle, his eyes light up like he was belly laughing. If you met him on the…
Jimmery
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Is the O-type blood used as a universal donor?

In biology classes at school I was taught that O can be a donor to all blood types (given matching Rh group and other details), and AB can receive transfusion from any type. Quick googling seems to suggest this is true, at least theoretically for…
user69715
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Is race a discredited scientific concept in biology?

I've heard lots of people say things like "race doesn't exist" and "race has no biological meaning." On the other hand, I've heard lots of disagreements too, from scientific popularizers like Steven Pinker & Razib Khan. The Wikipedia article on race…
Uticensis
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During pregnancy, do babies send stem cells to their mothers to repair organ damage?

This picture is floating around the facebooks with no attribution to an original source (not even a source of the image): The image says: During pregnancy, if a mother suffers organ damage, the baby in the womb sends stem cells to repair the…
IQAndreas
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Is watering plants under a hot sun bad?

A couple of people have told me that it's a bad for plants to be watered in the middle of a sunny day, i.e. it's not just that you waste more water due to evaporation, but that there are actually bad effects on the plants itself. I've heard this…
GS - Apologise to Monica
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Do colour-blind people see through certain kinds of camouflage?

I found this claim in Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins. This is the Google Books link to the relevant page. Nobody knows whether or how this benefits them, but it may be suggestive that bomber crews in the Second World War liked to…
Green Noob
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Can anything remove fingerprints from your fingers?

Here's where it gets interesting; I don't mean erase them from an object, I mean from your fingers directly. Some people claim there is a way to do it, some people claim it's impossible. I have a friend (no, really, she exists, I swear) who is…
Monkey Tuesday
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Do humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas?

It's widely claimed that we share 50% of our DNA with bananas. Does this have actual basis or is it a myth? Example claims The Mirror (UK), NHGRI
mintsponge
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Do men think about sex every 7 seconds?

I'm sure most of us have heard at least a variation of this myth. Unfortunately I failed to find the original source. Was there actually a study that claimed this? A lot of the sites debunking this myth point to the book "The Social Organization of…
Oliver_C
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Was superglue invented to seal bullet injuries in Vietnam?

I cut myself recently and used superglue to seal the wound. I thought it was normal but when I tell people that act like I'm crazy. Then I tell them this story: Superglue was invented during the Vietnam war to quickly seal bullet wounds without…
Coomie
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