artificial

Astrobiology

...errestrial life . It also includes the concept of artificial life , since any life form that might naturally evolve elsewhere could conceivably be created in a laboratory using a future technology. It might be difficult to tell whether a truly strange life form had in fact arisen in space, or was designed much...

Virus

...f viruses are alive then the prospect of creating artificial life is enhanced or at least the standards required to call something artificially alive are reduced. Study and applications of viruses Viruses as tools for exploring basic cellular processes Viruses are important to the study of molecular ...

Systems biology

... such as cancer, diabetes and AIDS. See also artificial life Biomedical cybernetics computer simulation gene regulatory network model signalomics Important publications in systems biology Bibliography Gregory Bock and Jamie A. Goode (eds), (2002) "In Silico" Simulation of Biologi...

Species

... renewed attention, particularly by proponents of artificial selection . Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace provided what scientists now consider the most powerful and compelling theory of evolution . Basically, Darwin argued that it is populations that evolve, not individuals. His argument relies on a ra...

Sociobiology

... of 'dividing' environment and heredity in such an artificial way. Here's how scientific sociobiology usually proceeds: A social behaviour is first explained as a sociobiological hypothesis by finding an evolutionarily stable strategy that matches the observed behaviour. Stability can be difficult to pr...

Reproduction

... Others reproduce quickly, but unless raised in an artificial environment, most offspring do not survive to adults . A rabbit (mature after 8 months) produces 10 - 30 offspring per year, a Nile Crocodile (15 years) produces 50, and a fruit fly (10-14 days) produces up to 900. Both strategies can be favou...

Restriction enzyme

... or chromosome . Meanwhile, the sequences of some artificial plasmids include a " linker " that contains dozens of restriction enzyme recognition sequences within a very short segment of DNA. So no matter the context in which a gene naturally appears, there is probably a pair of restriction enzymes that can ...

Plasmid

...in or even antibiotics. See also Bacterial artificial chromosome...

Polymerase chain reaction

...etermined by selecting primers. Primers are short, artificial DNA strands--not more than fifty (usually 18-25 bp) nucleotides that exactly match the beginning and end of the DNA fragment to be amplified. They anneal (adhere) to the DNA template at these starting and ending points, where the DNA-Polymerase b...

Natural selection

...ection . Natural selection is distinguished from artificial selection by humans . Other mechanisms of evolu... thought that prevailed in Europe. See also artificial selection directional selection disruptive selection ecological selection evolution ...

Microsatellite

...quence. See miniaturized satellites for orbiting artificial satellites with a mass of less than 100Kg. A microsatellite is a short, noncoding DNA sequence (a Tandemly Repetitive DNA sequence) that is repeated many times within the genome of an organism.Many repeats tend to be concentrated at the sa...

Marine biology

...ich has given rise to the human ability to create artificial reefs . Currently much attention in marine biology is focused on coral reefs and the El Nio weather phenomenon. In the 1998 coral reefs experienced a "once in a thousand years" bleaching event, which killed off vast expanses of reefs across the ...

Life

...ity of extraterrestrial life , or the concept of artificial life , it becomes clear that the question is funda...to possess oceans of liquid water. See also artificial life biological life cycle origin of life (disambiguation) References Kauffman, Stuar...

Human

...als , and could be used of a mythical being , an artificial intelligence , or an extraterrestrial . An important question in theology and the philosophy of religion concerns whether God is a person. (See also Great ape personhood .) In Latin , humanus is the adjectival form of the noun homo , t...

Homunculus

... In many Role-playing games , a Homunculus is a artificial creature that can be made by magical means to assi.... Both are blue creatures, blue being the color of artificial creation and illusion, among other things. In the Enix RPG, Valkyrie Profile, the alchemist Lezard ...

Homeostasis

...tay at a certain level of stress, often generating artificial stresses if the "natural" level of stress is not enough. Examples Thermal regulation : The skeletal muscles can shiver to produce heat if the body temperature is too low. Non-shivering thermogenesis involves the decomposition of fat t...

Har Gobind Khorana

...gs of nucleotides. These custom designed pieces of artificial genes are widely used in biology labs for sequencing, cloning and engineering new plants and animals.Dr.khorana's invention of oligonucleotides has become indispensable tools in biotechnology. This invention of DrKhorana has become mechanized and com...

Extinction

...e wild, and are maintained only in zoos or other artificial environments. Some of these species are functionally extinct. When possible, modern zoological institutions attempt to maintain a viable population for species preservation and possible future reintroduction to the wild through use of carefully...

Evolution

...ans, e.g. for agriculture or as pets, is called artificial selection . Baldwinian evolution refers to the way human beings, as cultured animals capable of symbolic (extrasomatic) learning, can change their environment, or the environment of any species, in such a way as to result in new selective for...

Eugenics

...type of heredity), and that just as one could use artificial selection to exaggerate traits in animals, one could expect similar results applying such models to humans. As he put it in the introduction to Hereditary Genius : I propose to show in this book that a man's natural abilities are derived by inhe...

Dialysis

...sable tubing and filters. The filters (the actual artificial kidneys) are cylindrical, clear plastic outside with the filter materiel visible inside (looks like thick paper). They are perhaps 15-18 inches long, and 2-3 inches thick. They have tubing connectors at both ends. The technician or nurse will se...

Charles Darwin

...of the fittest") and Galton's eugenics (to apply artificial selection procedures to society in order to encourage the "fit" to breed and discourage the "unfit" from breeding) were two interpretations of what Darwin's views meant for society in his time, neither of which he fully agreed with or outright oppose...

Cartilage

... "scaffolding" material and cultured cells to grow artificial cartilage. See also Biomechanics connective tissue Endochondral ossification Chondroplasty External links University of Kansas Medical Center Cartilage tutorial public domain text from Gray's anatomy dated 1918, ...

Brain

...itivity. More recent work in both neuroscience and artificial intelligence models the brain using the mathematic...trated; brain implants have been used to generate artificial hearing and (crude and experimental) artificial vision for deaf and blind people, and brain pacemake...

Biotechnology

...gyptians and Romans used selective breeding ( artificial selection ) practices to improve livestock . 6000BC Brewing beer , fermenting wine , baking bread with help of yeast 4000BC Chinese made yoghurt and cheese with lactic-acid-producing bacteria 1500 Plant collecting around the worl...

Barr body

...chromosomes are present. The provision of an extra artificial Xic in early embryogenisis can induce inactivation of the single X found in male cells. The roles of Xist and Tsix appear to be antagonistic. The loss of Tsix expression on the future inactive X chromosome results in an increase in levels of...

Reproduction

... Others reproduce quickly, but unless raised in an artificial environment, most offspring do not survive to adults . A rabbit (mature after 8 months) produces 10 - 30 offspring per year, a Nile Crocodile (15 years) produces 50, and a fruit fly (10-14 days) produces up to 900. Both strategies can be favou...

Artificial life

... Nature of the field Although the study of artificial life does have some significant overlap with the study of artificial intelligence (AI), the two fields are very distinct in their history and approach. Organized AI re...

Affinity chromatography

...ification. That is to say that the molecule has an artificial trait imposed upon it by genetic modification which allows it to be selected for affinity binding (if the molecule is a protein these are called fusion proteins ). Such tags include six His tags (six Histidine residues added to one or both ends ...