Biology

10,000 Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Outliers” reported studies that it takes about 10,000 hours for any person to become an expert based on studies conducted in various laboratories. This is a big number. Consider an 8 hour day with a 40 hour week specializing in only one area. With 50 weeks that equates to…

Dr Claudia Gravekamp from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is exploring the treatment of cancer with bacteria after she observed that the bacteria, Listeria monocytogenes, seemed to be concentrating near the area of tumor. Tumor targeting of drugs or radiation is a very big issue. Currently, there are several drugs that attack cancer cells…

It always is amazing to think about the forces that are required to push water up the really tall trees. The forces involved are enormous and it is amazing that natural phenomenon without massive pumps and large amounts of energy are not involved! The video below seeks to understand the forces that make water move…

It is amazing how camouflage happens instantaneously. There has been a lot of research but the skin responses needs more research into understanding the phenomenon as well as brain processing of complex stimuli. The video below says it all. {youtube}0b4tmbE5jj4{/youtube}

Brain achieves a remarkable task to simplify the world and it is important for us to distinguish data from the noise. Take the example of a small piece of forest. This forest has trees, plants and some animals. The trees by themselves have branches, leaves, and other structures that have distinct shapes and sizes. If…

Brain neuron organization has been investigated since a long time and it had been very confusing for scientists trying to determine the organization among a mass of neurons. Vernon Mountcastle’s discovery of a column of neuron paved the way for understanding of the brain. In 1957 he made the radical discovery that the columnar pattern…

The human brain project has been recently getting a lot of attention with the US Government carving out funding for the brain mapping project. The interesting thing is that this project has been started by the European Union since 2005. It is called the blue brain project and it is about simulating the human brain….

Transferring any protein, DNA or a large molecule through the cell is very difficult. There are two techniques that are very commonly used for this purpose. The one that is used the most in electroporation: in which a defined pulse of current /electricity is passed through the medium to create small holes in the membrane…

It is hard to imagine binding forces as a scientist develops an immune-assay and often times the commonly used antibodies are often thought to be the tightest binders. But these forces are very interesting to measure and compare among different types of interactions. But first what is the measurement unit of the force? The force…

Learning Biology is an evolving process. The science keeps changing towards a greater understanding and sometimes the conclusions that were drawn are not always right. For example, blood letting or bleeding a person used to be the treatment for some diseases. That was an acceptable form of treatment but now we wonder as to what…