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
472 questions
33
votes
2 answers

Can ants lift 50 times their weight?

I've encountered this one many times over the years, mostly in those "useless facts" books and sites such as the one here. In fact, it's been one of those bits of trivia I seem to have unconsciously taken for granted as true, probably due to the…
Monkey Tuesday
  • 24,456
  • 19
  • 109
  • 136
33
votes
4 answers

Is warm water more effective than cold water for washing one's hands?

When washing my hands, I was always told to use warm soapy water. However, is there any chemical or biological reason why warm soapy water is more effective to cold soapy water when trying to sanitise your hands? For example, a reason given for…
Richard Stelling
  • 5,694
  • 8
  • 48
  • 93
33
votes
3 answers

Are humans incapable of digesting gluten?

Recently this I09 article about wheat made the rounds and there was a part in it that stood out to me: According to Alessio Fasano, the Medical Director for The University of Maryland's Center for Celiac Research, no one can properly digest …
Melissa
  • 871
  • 1
  • 8
  • 13
32
votes
2 answers

Is the Daddy Long Legs spider the world's most venomous?

The claim is the Daddy Long Legs (Pholcus phalangioides) spider is the most venomous spider in the world, but that its fangs are too small to be able to penetrate human skin. The wikipedia article calls it an urban myth and links through to some…
going
  • 18,069
  • 18
  • 86
  • 151
32
votes
6 answers

Do other animals have non-reproductive sex?

At about the 11:40 point in the class day 2009 lecture by Robert Sapolsky the claim is made that humans are the only species that engage in non-reproductive sex. Is there solid evidence for or against the idea that only humans have non-reproductive…
Russell Steen
  • 12,872
  • 1
  • 64
  • 86
32
votes
1 answer

Are (wild) elephants afraid of mice?

Source I have heard from people working in zoos that the myth of elephants being afraid of mice is not true. Here is a short video of a zoo elephant clearly not caring about a mouse. I don't find it surprising that such a domesticated elephant has…
Oliver_C
  • 47,851
  • 18
  • 213
  • 208
32
votes
1 answer

How does deja vu work?

If you've ever had that fleeting, mysterious sense that something new -- a city or person you’re seeing for the first time -- is somehow familiar, that you’ve been there or known them before, then you can count yourself among those who…
Monkey Tuesday
  • 24,456
  • 19
  • 109
  • 136
32
votes
2 answers

Do we have 10 times more microbes than human cells in our body?

An article in the NY times about microbes and their interaction with our bodies contained the following statement: We have over 10 times more microbes than human cells in our bodies I'm a bit skeptical about that statement. It compares microbes to…
Vincent Malgrat
  • 421
  • 4
  • 7
32
votes
1 answer

Are all the atoms in our bodies replaced on a regular basis?

In a related question, Are all cells of the human body completely replaced every seven to ten years?, it is explained that there are cells in the human body, like neurons, that are never replaced. However, are the atoms within those neurons…
endolith
  • 3,289
  • 5
  • 32
  • 38
32
votes
2 answers

Do cats and dogs only see in grayscale?

Ask most anybody about dogs or cats, and they will repeat the claim that these animals are colorblind. To most, it means greyscale. Is it true that cats (ref 2) and dogs (ref 2, ref 3) only see in grayscale? I've noticed that my cats somehow don't…
shaftpolls
  • 423
  • 4
  • 7
31
votes
2 answers

Does science define life as "beginning at conception"?

The following link makes such a claim https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html The following references illustrate the fact that a new human embryo, the starting point for a human life, comes into existence with the formation…
Jacob Blaustein
  • 1,927
  • 15
  • 18
31
votes
3 answers

Do lemmings commit suicide by jumping off cliffs?

Lemmings have become widely known for their supposed tendency to run en masse off of cliffs to their deaths. The term "lemming" has even become a commonly used metaphor to describe the behavior of those who would mindlessly follow the crowd,…
Monkey Tuesday
  • 24,456
  • 19
  • 109
  • 136
30
votes
2 answers

Is there a deep, hot biosphere?

Thomas Gold claims that oil is not aging vegetal or animal matter, but rather made continously from bacteria deep in the Earth's mantle (a 'deep hot biosphere') so that we would effectively never have to worry about running out. Gold's theory is…
Joseph Weissman
  • 2,100
  • 2
  • 21
  • 26
29
votes
5 answers

Is some level of radiation "good for you"?

"With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer." This is a…
Monkey Tuesday
  • 24,456
  • 19
  • 109
  • 136
29
votes
1 answer

Does wearing a scarf help a sore throat?

Today, my wife has shocked me by telling me that a scarf does not and cannot help a sore throat. I could swear that it works wonders for me! Pretty much the entire knowledgable Internet seems to agree with my wife (a scarf does not help), but at the…
Andrey Tarantsov
  • 390
  • 1
  • 3
  • 6
1 2 3
…
31 32