Biology Weekly Newsletter - Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Top new questions this week: Do homing pigeons fly straight home or follow certain "highways"? Homing pigeons (Columba livia) have been prized for their navigational abilities for thousands of years. They've served as messengers during war, as a means of long-distance communication, and as ... zoology ornithology   asked by Katai 33 votes answered by iayork 31 votes Why do we go blind for a few seconds after switching off the light? At night, when I switch off the lights, I always seem to go blind for a while. The room becomes pitch black and I am unable to see anything. After a while, however, my vision slowly recovers and I ... vision eyes neurophysiology   asked by علی آفاق 14 votes answered by Christiaan 20 votes Can viruses be toxic? Bacteria can produce toxins like endotoxins and exotoxins. In diseases like cholera or tetanus they can harm infected people due to these toxins. Now, although viruses are much smaller and are ... human-biology   asked by Marijn 11 votes answered by alec_djinn 7 votes Are alleles equally sized? If alleles occur at the same locus on a chromosome, does that mean they are of the same size? I was under the impression that they were, but I saw a gel electrophoresis testing different alleles of ... genetics gel-electrophoresis allele   asked by lightweaver 6 votes answered by R.M. 9 votes What is this bird of prey with white belly? This bird was around the house in northern Switzerland (altitude approximately 700 metres) on January 17th 2016, and I am just wondering what kind of species it is. The legs are yellow and the ... species-identification ornithology   asked by ruffp 5 votes answered by Chris 5 votes Do Asian giant hornets (Vespa mandarinia) prey on other nests of Asian giant hornets? Asian giant hornets are known to attack nests of other bees and wasps, but should they encounter another nest of their own, would they attack it? entomology ecology predation   asked by Kyle 4 votes what is meta-sympathetic nervous system? I always knew about the sympathetic and para-sympathetic nervous systems, and today I was told about the meta-sympathetic nervous system, but I didn't understand well the man who told me about it and ... neuroscience autonomic-nervous-system   asked by Assiduous 4 votes answered by mgkrebbs 2 votes Greatest hits from previous weeks: What is the difference between local and global sequence alignments? There are a bunch of different alignment tools out there, and I don't want to get bogged down in the maths behind them as this not only between softwares, but varies from software version to version. ... bioinformatics sequence-analysis sequence-alignment   asked by James 19 votes answered by WYSIWYG 16 votes Why does a coconut have exactly three holes A theory says: As coconut is a sibling of palm, somehow long time ago, three palms were in a same husk. Based on evolution theory, it's how the coconut was born in the world with three holes. ... evolution botany   asked by daviswen 28 votes answered by fileunderwater 53 votes Can you answer these? Why were dinosaur skeletons so light compared to mammal skeletons? I was watching a presentation by Dr. Jessica Theodor [1] who discusses (at 38:10), among other things, the skeletal structure of dinosaurs vs. mammals. "Dinosaurs have way lighter skeletons, which ... evolution mammals bone-biology vertebrates   asked by Charles 1 vote How do I retrieve electronic annotation from Uniprot and GO records that relates to molecular function? I'm interested in one activity the protein G3BP1 possesses. An external link guides me to UniprotKB-KW electronic annotation. How can I retrieve valuable and concrete information (e.g. catalytic ... bioinformatics database protein-structure   asked by L. Bird 1 vote Are the destruction of Olfactory Receptor Neurons (ORNs) permanent? I lost the ability to smell a particular smell due to an exposure to solvents years ago. It has never fully come back. I had always assumed that simply meant I had permanently destroyed my ORNs for ... olfaction   asked by Cort Ammon 1 vote

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