What are /r/biology's favorite Products & Services?

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Honeybee scouts, in the days leading up to a swarm, will hold what are essentially debates when selecting a new home. Scouts will fly up to several miles away from the hive (individually) and search for a proper dwelling; inspect them once found, and return to the hive to tell the others where and what they’ve found. Only until the majority of the other scouts have themselves flown to, inspected, and agreed upon that site does the swarm pick up and travel together to start a new colony. These discussions can go on for several days.

See: Honeybee Democracy by Thomas Seeley https://www.amazon.com/Honeybee-Democracy-Thomas-D-Seeley/dp/0691147213/ref=nodl_

It appears to be some form of Heart Urchin. For all I know it could be, but the tentacles seem to be underdeveloped, thus assuming it is a young one.

I recognized the shape from Biology lab last semester, when we made a Sand Dollar zygote. It is in the same phylum as them etc.

(Source) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/258504/heart-urchin

It's currently only for Android, so here's the link to the Google Play page.

You can also join my discord to chat with other players, give me feedback or report the bugs you find. Here's the link.

They have photochromatic receptors on their skin that translate color and texture. This book is an amazingly enjoyable and educational read. Even though it focuses on the giant squid, it delves a lot into squid and octopus biology. The Search for the Giant Squid: The Biology and Mythology of the World's Most Elusive Sea Creature https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140286764/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_QzoJDbVY3251P

And more info on the exoplanets stage of the project: https://www.eveonline.com/discovery/

Summary of protein classification results: https://www.proteinatlas.org/news/2018-08-20/mapping-of-cells-and-proteins-improved-with-combination-of-multiplayer-crowdsourcing-and-ai

A few highlights:

18 of the HPA Cell Atlas includes five new categories annotated by the gamers

Players were also able to report unusual findings in images. A review of all images with more than 20 such reports mainly revealed rare cellular morphologies such as blebs and membrane protrusions, or staining artifacts. However, this demonstrates that the players are capable of finding patterns that deviate from the common patterns, and identified several interesting and previously unannotated patterns such as vesicle fronts and condensed chromosomes

players in PD (aver-age per-class F1 = 0.53) outperformed Loc-CAT (average per-class F1 = 0.47)

a rolling retention of 53% (47% churn) over the first 6 months, which was very good compared with other in-game features over the same period

correct, here is an article talking about that https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/scientists-debunk-myth-that-yellowstone-wolves-changed-entire-ecosystem-flow-of-rivers/70004699

Even if we grant the Yellowstone story a grain of truth, it probably cannot be replicated in the Netherlands because whatever wolves did in the Yellowstone was from suppressing a massive elk population. There is no massive elk or deer population in the Netherlands.

I strongly recommend reading Darwin's On the Origin of Species. I know it doesn't sound original, but there's a reason it made a stir! Clear, simple thinking. You can memorize a lot of facts, but to understand the underlying forces and reasons that explain why those facts align in the way they do - you'll need to understand evolution. And it's not really that complex.

Also, Khan Academy.

^-- I cannot recommend this strongly enough. Free videos that go through pretty much everything you'll need to know in a first-year biology course at college.

And just for fun: the video that jumpstarted my love for molecular biology. Watch this, and don't worry that you don't understand most of what you're watching. It's all of the little molecular biological interactions that made the original scene possible: movement of a white blood cell through the veins, eventually slipping between two cells in the wall. Beauty. Pattern. As you learn later, you'll enjoy coming back and watching and saying, "Aha! I know what happened there!" Have fun with your studies kelsbar. Welcome to the world of biology.

In case you're curious about the ANN, here's the project's page describing the details (with slides).

I'm impressed!

quite a steep learning curve (although I heard the new tutorial is much better these days), but definitely a gaming experience. Give it a try if you want, it's F2P these days ( high tech ships and modules are locked behind monthly sub, but everything else is free): https://www.eveonline.com/signup/?invc=2c52d732-ab7d-4166-97c4-926e6e084484

I'll toss you and everyone else that uses the link above all the rewards I get from referring you + a starting gift in the form of in-game currency

This reminds me of Richard Feynman's "Map of the Cat" story. Short and very worth reading.

EDIT: quoting it here for your convenience, but sorry for the formatting challenges. > > Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning physicist and one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. He was also a drummer, an artist, a ladies' man, and a raconteur. His book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! is a collection of stories about his adventures. This excerpt, where Feynman takes a graduate-level class in biology while he's at Princeton, just to see what's going on in other fields, is one of my favorites. > > The next paper selected for me was by Adrian and Bronk. They demonstrated that nerve impulses were sharp, single-pulse phenomena. They had done experiments with cats in which they had measured voltages on nerves. > > > > I began to read the paper. It kept talking about extensors and flexors, the gastrocnemius muscle, and so on. This and that muscle were named, but I hadn't the foggiest idea of where they were located in relation to the nerves or to the cat. So I went to the librarian in the biology section and asked her if she could find me a map of the cat. > > > > "A map of the cat, sir?" she asked, horrified. "You mean a zoological chart!" From then on there were rumors about some dumb biology graduate student who was looking for a "map of the cat." > > > > When it came time for me to give my talk on the subject, I started off by drawing an outline of the cat and began to name the various muscles. > > > > The other students in the class interrupt me: "We know all that!" > > "Oh," I say, "you do? Then no wonder I can catch up with you so fast after you've had four years of biology." They had wasted all their time memorizing stuff like that, when it could be looked up in fifteen minutes.

It's cause it dates back to the original method paper which I believe is: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003269787900212

As for why they spinned down at 4C it could just be precautions but like everyone else says, it shouldn't really matter cause the guanidine and chloroform in the upper phase should denature any RNAses. (For DNA it's even more unlikely to matter).

Some centrifuges aren't balanced well or whatever so they can get relatively hot, so I just spin samples in the cold room to minimize any possible RNA hydrolysis or something.

What you're going to have to realize as you progress through college is that there are a lot of really shitty teachers and there's nothing you can do to change that. What that means is you're going to have to learn how to use the internet and other resources to your advantage to fill in the gaps in your understanding. Khan Academy and MIT's OCW are two good resources. Go through the lecture videos and learn on your own. Also, figure out how those students got those old exam copies. There are student groups and honors societies at my uni that have testbanks hosted on their sites with loads of past exams. Additionally, since the students at my school are ultra-competitive, the professors would post their old exams on the class site since they knew some students would get access to them regardless, so it was best to level the playing field because some students don't know how to get access. It's up to you, but I'd suggest asking your prof if she could provide past exams to study from because her teaching style is different from the person who's writing the exams, making it difficult to adequately prepare as they have different expectations.

Alternatively, talk to the professor who is writing the exams and ask him questions on topics you don't understand and ask what his expectations are for the exams (does he have any office hours?).

That is a very good question, as it would seem that as ions diffuse across the membrane, relative concentrations across the membrane would have to change.

I'm surprised that your textbook doesn't mention it, but the actual number of ions that diffuse across the membrane is minuscule compared to the total number of ions inside and outside the axon. Thus, the sodium ions that move into the cell and the potassium ions that leave the cell do not impact overall concentrations significantly. This link does a decent job of explaining it simply enough. Additionally, this textbook is a good reference for action potential mechanisms and other things neuroscience.

Hope this helps!

Edit: a clarifying sentence

Sure. There are many anti-apoptotic mechanisms (I cover a good amount of them in this paper (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167488910002764)). Breifly, you can have anti-oxidants (which will scavenge free oxygen radicals that can be harmful to proteins and DNA), Heat Shock Proteins (which, as the name would imply, are activated a high temperatures in order for cells to cope with severe cellular stress), inhibitory caspases (that latch onto either caspase 3, 8 or 9, depending on the inhibitor - this in turn will not allow it to activate downstream mechanisms (blocking procaspase 8 will inhibit caspase 8 from activating, which will not be able to activate caspase 3 and so on). You can also inhibit the release of cyctochrome C from the electron transport chain, essentially not allowing it to bind with Apaf-1 and inhibiting apoptosome formation. There are many, many other ways ways to inhibit apoptosis, but if a cell wants to die, it will find a way (either autophagy, necrosis, necroptosis or otherwise). Let me know if you have any other questions! Hope this helped!

I'm currently a biology undergrad studying botany. People underestimate plants, I think they are amazing.

For instance, watch the video on this page: Heavy Accent incoming

Interesting answer. I haven't prepared the samples with any chemicals or dyes, so the only causes would be biological. ~~Wiki suggest: "In addition to appearing as an artifact of staining or drying, echinocytes are associated with uremia, pyruvate kinase deficiency, hypomagnesemia, hypophosphatemia, and hemolytic anemia in long-distance runners"~~ http://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/hematology/deck/6188294 has a picture of echinocytes on one of the flash cards that looks just like these. Search for the word "echinocyte" to find it. Wiki failed to mention slow drying as a cause!

I'm a computer scientist with an interest in bioinformatics and both of my brothers studied cellular/molecularly biology in college. After talking with them and doing my own research, I can definitely say that having any programming and bioinformatics experience could really set you apart from other applicants. I'd recommend learning to program in Python programming lanuage. It is relatively easy to learn and widely used in bioinformatics.

I'd recommend taking the Codecademy course on Python to start.

I don't think you'd need to be anywhere near an expert in bioinformatics to benefit greatly. Hope this helps.

Once you have completed that, the Rosalind problem set would be a great place to start for bionformatic specific programming.

>natural alternative

1) I don't put a lot of stock into the idea that because something is natural, that it's inherently better for you or safe. I think it's at best, naive and a marketing gimmick, and at worst, it's predatory and encourages potentially dangerous recklessness. And many of the pharmaceuticals people seek "alternatives" from were initially isolated from or are derived from plants, algae, and fungi. Aspirin comes from Willow tree bark, many antibiotics come from fungi, and yew bark and periwinkle are used to make anti-cancer drugs. If it worked, medical researchers would test it, pharmaceutical companies would patent the isolation/synthesis pathway, and licensed MD's would prescribe it, and it would just be "medicine."

2) It doesn't work and it's not safe.

3) It can cause argyria over time.

If you're still using it, stop.

EDIT: Elaborated on a specific point about "alternative medicine." Also initially misspoke -- I said "primrose" instead of "periwinkle." Vinca alkaloids come from periwinkle.

Here's de Gray on Ted: http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html

His ideas are theoretically plausible, but don't consider the sheer complexity of aging. We don't know enough to make reversal of aging possible. A shift in resources isn't possible yet, because we don't know the extent, in terms of cellular and systems damage, or the mechanisms behind aging. Aging is not a disease as de Gray suggests, it's an overall reduction in fitness.

I had a biology professor say this in college and I have yet to hear of it again, so I am looking for papers which may have researched this question.

Here is one that has shown: In stationary fluid, X and Y sperm swam in circles with the same average speed.

This is a good answer and true in most forms of life. But as a microbiologist, I need to jump in and point out that prokaryotes do not have histones. The concept is the same, just without those extra proteins for neatly packaging the DNA.

For further reading try Molecular Genetics of Bacteria by Snyder/Champness (Amazon link to most recent version which now has other authors added: https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Genetics-Bacteria-Larry-Snyder/dp/1555816274 ). This is a comprehensive text that focuses on prokaryotic DNA. Try asking your library for a copy or if you are a teacher/TA buy your own as a good reference text!

I recently took the Experimental Methods in Systems Biology course on Coursera. Sounds like it might be similar to to what you're looking for. You can earn a specialisation in Systems Biology if you take all five of their courses, and pay (not sure how much) for a verified certificate. I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for! Unfortunately the Experimental Methods course has just closed, so you'll have to wait for a new offering to open up. But there's load of other course that are interesting just to take for fun!

I was confused by your explanation so I sketched out what it sounds like to me. Two possibilities from what I understand of your explanation:

1) Mom(1) is the 95year old, and Dad is unrelated to her. You have access to Mom's DNA but not Dad's. In this case, doing a DNA test like 23andme will show that you are precisely 50% identical to Mom(1).

2) Mom(1) is actually your grandmother. Dad is her son. Your mom(2) is someone you have never met and completely unrelated to Mom(1). In this case, you still only have access to Mom(1)'s DNA, only now you know that she is UNRELATED to your mother. mtDNA will show that your mtDNA comes from someone other than Mom(1). Moreover, gDNA will can show that you are approximately 25% related to Mom(1).

Have a couple bucks to throw around? Use 23andme and buy 2 kits, one for each of you. There's ancestry/relatedness tools within 23andme that will help and if they don't help enough then PM me.

This is a well-written article, but it sounds a bit like hand-waving. Here's what I gathered:

• Shaking bees makes them hesitant to eat questionable food sources. Also, neurotransmitters in this shaken group were lowered. This is correlation and doesn't prove that stress creates a cognitive equivalent to pessimism.

Time to find an actual copy of the study.

edit: Here is a link to the article, if y'all are interested.

In case you're really curious about the animal trials:

Probiotic activity of a bacterial strain isolated from ancient permafrost against Salmonella infection in mice

Relict microorganisms of cryolithozone as possible objects of gerontology

A distinct lack of actual statistical analysis, particularly in the second paper, but whatever, it's potentially interesting results. He's also pretty clear in the article that injecting the bacteria into himself wasn't a scientific experiment.

I'm a Bio tech- professor's assistant at a college. My best advice...

Be present in class, physically and mentally. Show up, pay attention and take notes. You cleared your schedule and made a committment to this time so use it- don't waste it! If you don't pay attention, you will have a much more difficult time trying to figure out the content a week later.

Know your vocabulary. Much of general science is simply an introduction to new vocabulary. It's a whole new language. Make flash cards. Know the accurate definitions of words. This will go a long way in helping you understand relationships and systems later on.

Read your laboratory work ahead of time. Read through the experiments you are to do that week before you get to the lab. Focus on the concepts, materials, techniques. One student I know, who was a visual learner, used to read through the lab and draw pictures of the steps to be be done, like a comic book. It seemed silly to some, but she knew exactly what she had to do when she got to lab and it became her study notes for lab exams!

Khan Academy provides videos, about 12 minutes each, on a specific bio topic. This is a great resource to clarify topics that you learn in class. Good luck!

Edit. Added Khan Academy link.

That's really cool. It reminds me of this flash, which uses a similar layout and zooming to show the scale of all kinds of things, from the planck length to the observable universe.

In general, a reproductive health female will have lower testosterone then a reproductive health male.

Here is one list of expected testosterone levels across age and sex: http://ltd.aruplab.com/Tests/Pub/0081058

Testosterone can be temporally raised by exercise, but it shouldn't cause long term effects:

https://www.webmd.com/men/features/exercise-and-testosterone#1

Conditions like PCOS can raise a female testosterone to male levels but come along with masculinizing side effects like facial hair.

Microbes are everywhere! Pick any area/surface/environment/niche, swab for samples (assuming you're looking for bacteria), isolate/purify using plate streaking, and identify using biochemical tests (Gram stains, MRVP, etc). If you still have time, maybe do some antibiotic susceptibility tests.

"The Microbial Flora of ____________" is an all-too-common title.

Suggestions: bicycle seats, cafeteria tables, make-up, gym equipment

This reminds me of Richard Feynman's "Map of the Cat" story. Short and very worth reading, and quoted here for your convenience: > > Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning physicist and one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century. He was also a drummer, an artist, a ladies' man, and a raconteur. His book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! is a collection of stories about his adventures. This excerpt, where Feynman takes a graduate-level class in biology while he's at Princeton, just to see what's going on in other fields, is one of my favorites. > > The next paper selected for me was by Adrian and Bronk. They demonstrated that nerve impulses were sharp, single-pulse phenomena. They had done experiments with cats in which they had measured voltages on nerves. > > > > I began to read the paper. It kept talking about extensors and flexors, the gastrocnemius muscle, and so on. This and that muscle were named, but I hadn't the foggiest idea of where they were located in relation to the nerves or to the cat. So I went to the librarian in the biology section and asked her if she could find me a map of the cat. > > > > "A map of the cat, sir?" she asked, horrified. "You mean a zoological chart!" From then on there were rumors about some dumb biology graduate student who was looking for a "map of the cat." > > > > When it came time for me to give my talk on the subject, I started off by drawing an outline of the cat and began to name the various muscles. > > > > The other students in the class interrupt me: "We know all that!" > > "Oh," I say, "you do? Then no wonder I can catch up with you so fast after you've had four years of biology." They had wasted all their time memorizing stuff like that, when it could be looked up in fifteen minutes.

when i was studying for the gre biology subject test, i found khan academy lecture videos incredibly helpful.

they're mostly introductory and so there isn't always enough detail, but i found them an excellent resource to supplement more detailed readings that you'd find in a textbook.

also, take notes on everything and draw EVERY diagram. i can't stress drawing things out enough; it was the only way i finally managed to understand cellular respiration.

Citing from the project's page:

> In addition, when all data is used for training, the custom network achieves 100% success with only 4 inconclusive samples, proving the network is more effective with more samples.

And that is, if true, amazing.

First off, I'm in the US so my advice may not apply if you're from a different part of the world.

There were two things that helped me find work when I was on the market. The first was this job board: http://www.indeed.com/ It searches other job boards as well as accepts postings so it has a lot of listings. Pick a job title or keyword and start searching. Even if you just search for something like "biology" or "laboratory" and put in the state or nearest city to you you should be able to find some listings.

The second thing to do is contact staffing agencies. I hesitate to give this advice because, honestly, I hate them. But, it seems to be a fact of life that entry level work is most often supplied through staffing agencies and at least you're getting paid. In my experience Lab Support, Kelly Scientific, and Aerotek are the major players for biology jobs. To their credit, they also give advice for how to build a resume.

Or, you could cold call professors at research universities and see if they're looking for a technician. I haven't as much experience getting jobs like this, but if you don't want to pester too many professors you could probably get some information by calling department secretaries and asking if there's anybody looking for a technician. The bigger your professional network the better the odds you have of finding a job like this as word of mouth goes a long ways.

Nice! For anyone else looking, I found this sweet guide on writing CVs with an example.

If you feel skin that is warm that means that it is radiating heat away from the body making her feel colder since she is loosing heat. The reverse being true as well, not to mention that hot and cold are subject to each person so you might feel cold at 98 F, but she might not feel cold until 100(if this is the case she might be a la lava person).

Alcohol has a similar effect where it will cause blood vessels to dilate and cause heat to pass through the skin making you feel warm, but in fact your body is loosing heat.

Despite its title, Hudler's book, Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds, is a great overview of fungal evolutionary history and cultural importance, from things like corn smut in Mesoamerica to ergot blight in colonial New England.

I highly recommend you at least read the blurb on the Amazon page and see if it sounds like what your looking for. He used it as the text for a non-majors' mycology course.

Fast assumption: you sound insufferable. When someone tells you that this post is useless and you get defensive, it makes you seem disingenuous. Next time you're wondering what to post, look at what is successful in this subreddit and see if you can figure it out yourself before resorting to navel-gazing. Hint: the other commenter is right. Post articles, media, and questions relating to the living world or its study.

Professors aren't trying to trick you. Some of the questions are extremely challenging because they are supposed to find the students with the deepest grasp of the concepts. If you can't answer, the problem is usually your understanding of the material.

As for formatting, you need to work on your writing skills. Your sentences meander and they're difficult to read because your grasp of when the comma should be used is tenuous at best. You can buy The Elements of Style, or you can write short, active sentences. Don't make the mistake of thinking that long and complex sentences make you seem smarter. Readable and coherent work is what makes you seem smarter. A nice bonus is that working on writing will also help you with your reading comprehension. No more getting caught up in the wording of tricky questions!

Oh, and ask your professors for help with exam questions, not the internet.

It's the boring, obvious answer, but:

• Richard Dawkins works pre-holy-war are quite entertaining, Blind Watchmaker, Extended Phenotype and Selfish Gene
• Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See
• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman (not Biology but insightful and very funny)

I'm currently in graduate school studying microbiology so I spend most of my time reading journal papers. However, I did read Bryan Sykes', "The Seven Daughters of Eve". It describes the science and history examining mitochondrial DNA in the attempt to identify the time and place that different human populations diverged.

Mitochondrial DNA is unique because it never undergoes recombination (sex), it is always passed from mother to child, and it's function is so streamlined that point mutations are minimized. Because of these properties, analyzing mitochondrial DNA is a great way to compare populations.

I highly suggest it.

Also, anything by Richard Feynman is good. Check out, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman". He won the Nobel Prize for physics, but anyone interested in science will find it entertaining. He's a nut.

Similarly to the other commenter, I think it refers to assays where you attain a pure culture and analyze the lineage of the cell or what lineages that cell can give rise to.

Here's a link that I think will help

I can confirm what ramma314 said. They're located all along Eastlake Ave here, which is essentially just a neighborhood, aside from a few restaurants along the water. It's not a popular spot for a visitor to go to, though.

you did fairly well, of course there's a lot more detail we could get into on each topic, but this is an acceptable level of understanding for most undergraduate courses.

I just wanted to add that as the election goes through the z-scheme, it's eventually used up to reduce NADP+ to NADPH (NADP+ plus an electron plus H+ equals NADPH). This means that the electron transport chain requires fresh electrons, so the process starts over again with the splitting of water.

Also, as the electron goes through the z-scheme, it's energy is used to pump protons (H+) from the stroma to the lumen (i.e. inside the thylakoids) via the intermediary molecule plastoquinone. The resulting energy potential of the electrochemical gradient of protons is then used by ATP synthase to synthesize ATP from ADP and H+. The proton gradient works analogously to how a hydroelectric dam uses the energy potential of water stored at elevation to turn power turbines, thus producing electricity.

On the other hand, cyclic photophosphylation uses the same electron, and cycles it around PSI indefinitely. The dotted blue line in this diagram shows the path of the electron during cyclic photophosphorylation, when it is diverted back to a previous step in the electron transport chain. In this case, the proton gradient that powers ATP production is created, but the electron is not consumed by NADP+ to create NADPH. Since it uses the same electron, fresh electrons are not required (as often), so water is not split and oxygen is not produced in cyclic photophosphorylation. A plant would use this method of photosynthesis when it wants to make ATP, but not NADPH, which is necessary under certain circumstances.

Khan Academy is a really good free online resource for reviewing and learning math topics.

They cover everything from the basics up to college-level stuff and the videos are usually between 10 and 20 minutes long. So even with a busy schedule, you should be able to squeeze a daily video or two in.

Consider a business analyst career path in the biomedical domain. It is good for extroverts, and it requires domain experience. You should consider getting a masters or enrolling in a business analyst certificate program to be competitive. http://www.indeed.com/q-Healthcare-Life-Science-Business-Analyst-jobs.html. If you have technical capabilities you could even go the business systems analyst path. http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=Healthcare+Life+Science+Business+Systems+Analyst&l=

My limited understanding of Astrobiology is that it is a highly competitive multi-disciplinary field. You would need to know biology, particularly extromophile microbiology, chemistry and of course astronomy / stuff about exoplanets. I took a Coursera online course about it a few years ago, it was quite basic but it gave me enough flavour to understand that to succeed you would need to draw up on so many different fields.

This was the course, https://www.coursera.org/learn/astrobiology

Long story short: NADH donates electrons (and protons) to the ETC complexes. The protons are shoved across the membrane. The electrons are transported through a bunch of intermediates and eventually the electrons are donated to oxygen (or whatever terminal electron acceptor). The protons come back across the membrane through ATP synthase, which captures this energy to make ATP. The protons are combined with the oxygen and electrons to yield water.

You will probably not need to understand more details until Biochemistry II.

Khan Academy has a video: http://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/v/electron-transport-chain I've never used their videos, but people rave about them.

You can click through to her project presentation, where she describes the commercial and custom machine learning packages she used and the datasets she used to test it.

Coursera has a great bioinformatics introduction - the one I found was run by the University of Toronto.

For python, code academy is great. Coursera also has some tools for python.

Aside from python, R is a good language to learn. I've started learning LaTeX along the side. Not directly useful but nice to be able to use to create documents.

Richard Preston's Demon In the Freezer is an excellent book about biological warfare. It's similar to Singh's books in that it partially focuses on the lives of the researchers involved, and what their day-to-day work in the field is like.

Neat! I used to work in a lab during undergrad counting algae cells under a microscope and I remember losing my sanity counting individual cells in tangles of spirogyra. That said, they're breathtaking under the microscope.

I haven't seen it yet, but I have a feeling I'll complain about the same thing, and my friends will remember I'm that person. I'm hoping it's realistic enough that I won't spend half the time shaking my head, saying "nope nope nope". Also, for funsies: Pandemic the game! http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/360724

What kind of things are you going over? I always like reading other explanations of whatever--whether on wikipedia, or other various study guides online. If you haven't checked out Kahn Academy before, I highly recommend it. Just going over the same material from different perspectives often helps cement it in your mind.

And another you can do if you feel ambitious enough is to teach it to someone else. Having to explain how something works in your own words gets you to remember it so much better, and I think think "in your own words" part really helps your brain remember in a way that works with your brain. If you don't have anyone around you can teach it to, just explain it outloud to yourself, and re-draw everything as you do, as much as you can remember, explain what each thing is for, etc. As you explain it or draw, you'll probably find yourself saying "and this is ___ and it's purpose is... hm... I don't really know", which then you look up, go "oh, right, that makes sense", then re-explain, then you get it more.

Anyway.. that's what always helped me.

Check out Finch.tv for a sequence viewer with a good GUI.

If you want something more technical stadden package will let you do a few more manipulations. But you'll have to figure out how to use it.

Hm. This is tricky. If by "math" you mean that you have a rough time with calculus, then, you should be ok (though most biology programs require that you take and pass Calc I and maybe Calc II). The majority of the math you would do as biologist is going to be a combination of statistics (to interpret data) and relatively simple algebra (for doing things in lab, like quantifying DNA, etc.). It will be hard to be a scientist of any sort if you don't have reasonable mathematic ability, but perhaps you can improve yourself by looking for a highly-rated math professor at whichever school you are going to (http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/) and see if that helps?

Best of luck!

Check out ImageJ, there are some plug ins that allow you to count colonies of scanned images. I believe it is all open source and only requires Java to run.

ImageJ

Colony Counting Plugin

This is the first thing that came up. There may be better plug ins for ImageJ if you do some searching.

The interface takes a bit to learn, but it is a powerful piece of software with a large array of plugins.

I looked it up before I made this to make sure. Maybe the way I'm having it pronounced is a less common version. I always thought it was "zei" (rhyming with "eye"). Oh well. :) Everyone should feel free to laugh as if were a goatse joke also.

Next time you need to look up an etymology, I highly recommend using the well-sourced and respected etymonline rather than a website that promotes pseudoscientific historical linguistics ;)

I don't think I would use it and it sounds like a lot of work to build. Your main issue is that you lose protocols? We have a Google Drive folder where we keep ours. You're terrible at keeping a lab notebook? I think it would be even more inconvenient to use an app.

Besides platforms exist that have been built out with more functionality. See: Benchling

No, that's not true. I just published my first first-author paper and I have only a BS.

Maybe Fiji? https://fiji.sc/

Like ImageJ itself, Fiji is an open source project hosted in Git version control repositories, with access to the source code of all internals, libraries and plugins, easing the development and scripting of plugins.

Fiji is licensed under the GNU General Public License. It builds on top of the ImageJ2 core, which is licensed under the permissive BSD 2-clause license. Plugins and other components have their own licenses.

Another interesting topic in biomechanical mechanisms or locomotion that blew my mind is the hydrodynamics of walking on water.

• Walking on Water: Biolocomotion at the Interface John W. M. Bush, David L Hu

No. After reviewing the inclusion guidelines for Google Scholar... well, they don't filter by content, and I think that'd be a dangerous step. Slippery slope and all that.

R is a pretty easy language to learn on its own, in fact learning other languages may make it more difficult since R has quite different syntax from Python (which is the most common beginner language). You probably don't need comp sci courses for your job, since R is mostly used for data analysis and not algorithm design. I recommend downloading RStudio (it has a much more friendly user interface than other R IDEs) and the package swirl, which you can download by typing install.packages('swirl') and run with the command library(swirl). It's an R package that lets you learn R in the R environment, so you get comfortable with how RStudio feels and what everything will look like when you're actually doing your work.

http://posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/temp-2011-10-20/bfkorxsiwIoryjvynrlqmHhxtopmvrHxqqdqzbkiiizaypnzlhllsfBAyxfw/RS_Career_Structure.png.scaled500.png

IT is from this royaal society report "the scientific century"

http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/publications/2010/4294970126.pdf

3.5% and People need to be TOLD!

I have an AmScope T340B-DK at home. They retail for ~$315 and are definitly not a Leica, but would be fine for an advanced hobbyist.

I've some images from mine at ello.co/mattimicrograph

Excellent post. I will second the suggestion of using Khan Academy (or some such site). If you do end up using Khan Academy, another thing to consider would be to find yourself another user of the site to be your "coach" on there - the site has that as a nifty feature. Your coach will be able to see your progress, and if you do any of the exercises, they can see in great detail which questions you got right and wrong, and how long you took to answer them, etc., giving them a very good idea of which parts you find difficult and which part you do already have a good grasp on.

This video will give you some idea of this feature, and also (earlier on) talks about the exercises and statistic tracking more generally.

I agree with most of the things said. These are what you need to work with bacteria

• nonporous table top: to keep things clean
• incubator: to grow cultures
• fridge/freezer: you want both to keep lab supplies from going bad
• digital scale: I doubt you will be doing much DNA work on a small budget so a scale is probably more useful than a pipette.
• bottles of 70% ethanol/ distilled water: for disinfecting everything. Get these in large quantities.
• autoclave sterilizer: definitely needed if you are growing anything as it will prevent unwanted fungus from growing in your stuff.
• microwave: to melt mixes like agar plates or gel electrophoresis
• miscellaneous(flasks, conical tubes, petri dishes, wood toothpicks, pipettes): probably best to ask her specifically.

I think that's all you will be able to do on that budget. But as a lab tech I have always dreamed of my own pipette-man. A smooth one is sooo nice to work with; and depending on what she does, may be used every day. The stuff in university labs are usually pretty bad. But a set will cost you at least $500. For everything listed above you can buy used but I wouldn't buy pipettes used because they need to be calibrated if they are mistreated and are often mistreated in labs so the accuracy of used ones is more risky.

I don't think a microscope is going to be absolutely necessary. I work with cells, bacteria, DNA and only use microscopes occasionally to make sure what I am working with is actually there.

In the case of male Dytiscid beetles such as this one, the fancy whorls and such are used as suction cups. The male attaches them to the smooth, shiny hydro-dynamic elytra of the female in order to facilitate mating.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kelly_Miller2/publication/6272423/figure/fig1/AS:213874629451776@1428003093240/The-male-on-top-has-access-to-air-with-the-abdominal-apex-and-can-replenish-the-air.png

Rodentia13 is right there are many helpful tools and r-bloggers is right at the top. I personally got started with a program Coursera puts on with the help of Johns Hopkins that is free to take online. The course gives a good introduction along with problem sets to work through to get a good feel for the language.

Santa Cruz Island is a few hundred miles south of Santa Cruz.

I'm bad at articulating these kind of things so I wont really try to, but I did find a related paper on the subject that points out that there's a lot more going on than a single "extra chromosome" that makes it so difficult for mule gametes to be viable. But this is a good example of why it's often quite critical for chromosome counts to be an even number (there are special cases but that's a different can of worms) so that all the gametes have matching chromosome numbers to avoid half having n and the other half having n+1. That alone further complicates the combining of gametes in sexual reproduction even without reality barging in, as the above paper and what others have commented, to further muck things up.

I knew absolutely nothing about coding before I started my PhD but you just seem to pick it up as you go along. It's definitely worth learning the basics of python, R or Unix, but you mostly learn how to do things when you actually have data sitting in front of you. This was a nice resource I used for basic python http://www.codecademy.com/en/tracks/python

Look up research by Jack Szostak. He's one of the leaders in the field. I had the privilege to listen to him at a seminar, the man knows his stuff.

There are some really good courses on Coursera. You can probably even find one that specifically relates to your area of research. For example, the 'statistics for genomic data science' is great for bioinformatics. Good luck!

Khan Academy provides free, accurate and easily understandable videos explaining multiple subjects including biology. I only discovered the site recently myself so I'm not certain if it's what you are looking for but I hope this helps.

Honestly, you should spend some time looking at relevant Wikipedia articles. I've heard great things about Khan Academy, but I've never personally used it.

It sounds like your test is going to be over the basics. None of us are in your class, so we can't guess how your teacher approached the material. If you have specific questions about material that doesn't make sense, /r/bio can probably help. But you can't expect us to write some textbook chapters for you.

A simple neural network. Lookie here.

I'm a senior and working on a project using similar methods myself(for automated playlist generation), it's just that I or many others like myself, didn't think that it could be used to analyze breast cancer samples.

A good site for practical learning is Rosalind. It's probably best to take tutorials like Codecademy alongside. Python is a pretty good place to start.

I started out a few years ago by doing some simple online courses on Python, which is fun to do at Codecademy. I didn't really push forward with it, got demotivated and stuck at some point because I had been trying to code something for hours and it kept going wrong until I read in the answer that I interpreted the question differently.

However, now that I am using R, I find it much easier to make some simple scripts to (pre-)analyze my data automatically. The things I learned in Python, (although a different language than R) helped me to have a better idea of how to do things in R.

In the end I think most biologists use R (unless heavy programming is required), and using R for your data will probably be the easiest (as you can get more help on the subject). But online courses for Python are better, and you'll learn how to make loops, if statements and how to use and change dataframes. These general things will help you pick up R more quickly.

Try codecademy - it's really simple and interactive, and builds in difficulty gradually. If you go through their Python lesson, you'll have a solid foundation. I also did their Ruby,Javascript, and HTML/CSS stuff and enjoyed it.

For future questions like this, looking at the roots and origin of a word often helps.

You might recognize the Latin "novus", meaning new; it's used in some other contexts you might be more familiar with. The diminutive form is "novellus", which went into the French term "nouvelle", which in English became "novel".

There are studies testing for example plant hydrolysates for serum replacement and the results seem quite promising. Also if you would use a certain cell line to make the in vitro meat the cell line could be mutated or transgenic to allow it to grow better in minimal requirements.

It's impossible to learn about these fields of computational biology without learning about the computer science (hence "computational" biology) behind them. It's a very common misconception non-CS people have that Computer Science is just about learning how to program. Computational biology deals extremely heavily on the more advanced CS topics, like Data Structures and Algorithm Design (writing "correct" code isn't always writing "good" code, especially with such huge datasets, and writing efficient code but using the wrong data structure is just as bad).

What I'm getting from your post is the equivalent of a Computer Scientist saying "I want to get into computational biology, but I'm not really interested in the biology aspect of it." Systems Biology is far less programming-driven than Bioinformatics, but it still heavily depends on it (there's no way to study these huge biological systems without using computer science skills).

That being said, to answer your overall question, check out Codecademy for some nice resources on getting better at programming (in Python, mainly). You need to become comfortable with coding before you can use it as a tool to answer other stuff (just like you have to become comfortable with something like Calculus or Statistics before applying it to whatever research topics interest you).

I feel like the best way to get a feel for this stuff is to try to just get a position in a research group and play with actual datasets. It's much easier to learn when you have a specific problem in mind and you're trying to solve it.

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, and I hope you find something you like!

I don't have an android, but I found this which might be useful: http://appcrawlr.com/android-apps/best-apps-school-biology If those aren't what you're looking for, I usually browse through Pubmed, some university bio-info sites, or even Mayo Clinic for some reading. Hope this helps.

> viruses interest me

Look into metagenomics. Specifically phage (viral) metagenomics. All papers on this subject should be after 2000.

> how they interact with their surroundings

Check out quorum sensing.

Depends on the University, so you'd have to check there first for what courses they offer and what the requirements are for a Evo Bio degree, but if this is something you want to get a feeling of first, maybe take a Bio101 course at your local Community College.

I'd suggest calling up a University that's nearby and asking for some information, I'm sure they could put you on the right path.

If you are not ready for this yet, here's a list of free Biology courses online.

Sorry, completely forgot to add this information.

Location is South-Western Germany in a small village surrounded by mostly agricultural area.

I think Vole is a good match, didn't think of it yet although they're rather common around here.

This is a great question, and I'm really excited to see what everyone else has to say but really it will all come down to what interests you in biology. The obvious contenders here would be Charles Darwin (everyone should read Origin of Species) and the more controversial Richard Dawkins who frankly I don't like but I do like some of his books! Would recommend anything David Attenborough - I'm actually a physical chemistry undergrad but his series Kingdom of Plants (which is very recent) really got me interested in botany and the more I learned about plants the more excited I was to go to my zoology classes and ecology classes as well to watch everything come together! If you're interested in zoology, conservation or animal ecology there is tonnes of great documentaries out there for example I'm a big fan of the monster fish series run by national geographic scientist Zeb Hogan (freshwater ecology) and theres a great yet simplistic show by a virologist that airs often here in Australia called Bite Me with Dr. Mike Leahy.

As far as interesting topics go I love a bit of palaeontology and I'm really interested in evolutionary biology as a whole but looking at problems like protein folding are really more up my ally (phys chem background I guess) so I've gotten really into this foldit game https://fold.it/portal/ which is all based on using the brute force of citizen science to work out protein confirmations. Of course theres plenty of great Ted talks as well, although many are a bit to wishy washy!

Also I'll add if you're looking for something a bit more out there and sort of abstract the book biocentrism by Robert Lanza is worth knocking back to get some perspective on ideas regarding consciousness and it's role in the universe.

Also, also, I see that you're quite into zoology! If you liked that picture, I've been sending around a little video compilation of some animals at the Bronx Zoo that I put together with a nice fancy lens which makes the camera used in the original picture of this post look terrible in comparison.

Check it out if you have some free time!

Just stumbled on this:

>Increased efficiency of HDR-based knock-ins from repeated cutting after indel formation > >Cpf1 cleaves target DNA far away from the PAM at the end of the protospacer, unlike Cas9. The indels Cpf1 causes will therefore be located far from the target site. Cpf1 can continue cutting at the target site as a result, which may increase the chance that new DNA can be inserted at that site.

https://benchling.com/pub/cpf1

Apparently, the Cpf1 PAM sequence is TTTN on the 5' side. That sucks for my needs, but maybe you can do something with it.

Okay so here is a study showing that Intelligent people have developed novel habits that are not evolution-based. One of those habits is being more nocturnal.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886909002177 you can read the PDF for free by putting it into google scholar.

Well since this is r/biology .......

“In biology, 'intelligence', in the broadest sense of the term, refers to the ability of an organism to adapt to its environment through learning and through shaping the environment, the organism employing its cognitive abilities to do so.” - http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Intelligence_(biology)

Spike-timing dependent plasticity

Homeostatic Plasticity

Neurons are able to modulate the amount, type, subunit composition, and lipid-raft association of receptor proteins and ion channels by monitoring their levels of activity (likely through Ca^+2 ion interactions with proteins, though the full picture is much more complex). Ca^+2 ion levels are tightly regulated in nerve (and most) cells, and can interact with some proteins to initiate cascades. Throw in ion channel localization due to inclusion or exclusion from lipid-rafts, and you've got a pretty cool system there.

Through signals like these, secreted chemical signals, intracellular cytoskeleton activities, and probably other things that I am not aware of (this isn't exactly what I study, but almost) dendrites can retract from or extend towards particular axons.

I feel like I haven't really answered the question you were asking, so feel free to ask more. As I was saying, I'm by no means an expert on this so consider this post as anything but definitive; however, this is the information that I am aware of that comes to mind when I consider the same question that you posed. :)

He's actually using Bacillus cereus's strain F. Bacillus cereus is most commonly known for food poisoning. To build upon that theme his papers actually refer to the death of mice exposed to the strain. And at best his work points to the concept of vaccinations preventing illnesses.

If he wasn't a f*cking loon, and he was, then he was trying to fix anti-vac'ers. But, no one risks their career and scientific integrity over something like that.

Also I study senescence in lab and plan on going to grad school for Aging Biology, and people who pull this kinda shit piss me off. Don't get me wrong, when we have a fix to aging I'll be ahead the crowed, but if you're going to fuck around with your own biology you better be damn sure you got it right. To say the least that means an MD with that PhD and you're not getting out of monkey trials because who's gonna argue it's inhumane? Not even f*cking PETA, that's who.

Immunoprecipitation is an umbrella term for pulling down proteins with antibodies, so it wasn't "invented" in one moment by one person. I'm pretty sure the word immunoprecipiation was first used to describe using antibodies to precipitate proteins in this paper, but I don't think it's the first time an antibody was used to select for proteins.

If you have researchgate, you can access the paper here

I agree with your statement,

>What we're dealing with here is not a matter of censorship, it's a matter of putting things in their rightful place...publications which are intellectually dishonest or otherwise unable to meet certain academic requirements should not be given a scholarly status.

However I think that you and I are going to disagree on the semantics of "scholarly" in this argument's context. My point being is that while it does say "Google Scholar," using it to search for scientific publications and sources one must go into the search with a different mindset as opposed to doing the same search on PubMed or JSTOR.

Also, the Google Scholar's about page, found Here states:"Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Google Scholar helps you find relevant work across the world of scholarly research."

Thank you for your well thought out response.

This is where you can download the program:

http://www.r-project.org/

And here are some tips on getting started/tutorials/resources:

http://scs.math.yorku.ca/index.php/R:_Getting_started_with_R

R is a powerfull statistics tool widely used in scientific research.

I definitly agree with this, the r/Biology has some recomended books as well, this one (https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Gene-James-Watson/dp/0805396039/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&dpID=51DrYpfnqgL&preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&dpSrc=detail) is $8 for a soft cover (not including shipping) and a few other books, if you like those you could try taking a class or two, and if you absolutely love it you can take more for a degree ( and get Amazon Prime to get more books!) Best of luck on the new endeavor!

Yes, these OMAX scopes are good for beginners. They are still high precision, though, so you have to be careful how you treat them. Make adjustments slowly and smoothly and in general treat them well and they will really last, I think. Look around for an online tutorial on microscope care and use to make sure you're familiar with the best practices.

It's not clear what the second one (with the 1.3MP camera) ships with. The first one with no camera obviously includes some slides and cover slips and lens paper, but there's no mention of them with the second. So you'd want to buy all those. Since you're interested in looking at pondwater type stuff, I'd also definitely recommend some depression slides in addition to flat slides. It's harder to bring things into focus with a depression slide, but you can potentially see much more, including natural movement and behavior, which is very cool.

I notice that Amazon also recommends a set of prepared slides like these ones and I agree with that. It's nice to have slides that have known stuff on them so you can get used to exploring with the microscope before diving into your own slides that aren't always easy to navigate or find stuff in.

Other things like dyes or oil immersion are all more advanced things you could probably wait on.

Overall, have fun and be creative.