Was reading about microchips that are designed to allow a few mistakes (known as '
Sloppy Chips'), and pondering equivalent kinds of 'coding' errors and entropy in biological systems. Can a fair comparison be made between the two?
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posted by 0bvious
on Jun 5, 2012 -
4 answers
How and why do we become accustomed to smells? What makes some odours personally super-pungent one day and unnoticed 'background noise' later on, despite the smell remaining objectively unchanged?
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posted by peacay
on May 19, 2012 -
7 answers
Why are there no lobsters the size of horses or horses the size of shrimp?
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posted by jeb
on Apr 25, 2012 -
23 answers
Evolutionary biologists: I'm trying to recall the concise explanation a professor gave in an evolution and ecology course about why dragons just plain did not exist.
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posted by hegemone
on Feb 6, 2012 -
13 answers
What are some article length studies readily available on the internets that summarize the evidence for evolution?
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posted by holdkris99
on Dec 1, 2011 -
8 answers
Why do humans (and most mammals) have two nostrils instead of one? Seems redundant.
posted by bardic
on May 8, 2011 -
18 answers
Given enough time and the right circumstances, would it be possible for non-land-based mammals to develop human levels of intelligence? What about non-mammals, land-based or otherwise?
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posted by Afroblanco
on Feb 18, 2011 -
42 answers
Pretty much every cell in a organism contains the DNA for that whole organism. How does a mutation in
one cell pass on so that it becomes part of the DNA of every cell or actually affects a characteristic in that organism or its child?
posted by westerly
on Jun 27, 2010 -
6 answers
Why is it assumed that all forms of life evolved from a single common ancestor, instead of any number of different instances of abiogenesis?
posted by shakespeherian
on Apr 8, 2010 -
25 answers
What is the name of the effect, in evolutionary biology, whereby
acquired behavioral characteristics that lead to reproductive fitness can result in the selection of predispositions toward acquiring these characteristics?
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posted by moorooka
on Dec 7, 2009 -
7 answers
At a cocktail party last weekend, an Anthropologist was telling me about an experiment/study where people were shown videos of various animals preying on one another, and then measured their reactions. The findings, he contends, were that humans were largely more sympathetic to the deaths of animals more similar to themselves (i.e. sharing a more recent common ancestor).
What is this study, what is this area of research called, and where can I read more about it?
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posted by jjjjjjjijjjjjjj
on Jan 18, 2008 -
8 answers
I need teaching resources about race: the biology of human "races"; why "race" is not biological but social; how racial categories have shifted over time and place; and related questions on teaching about race? This is as a supplement to reading
The Mismeasure of Man in a university "Critical Thinking" class. I need more science and verifiable cross-cultural examples to back up my "there are no biological races" claim.
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posted by LobsterMitten
on Nov 5, 2007 -
38 answers
"A human is halfway in size between an atom and the known universe"... This is a paraphrased quote I have come across several times. I like it. Who said it first? How true is it in the most literal sense? And, finally, what errors arrive in postulating a universe, or an atom, which can be measured AT ALL from our singular, relativistic, perspective?
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posted by 0bvious
on Feb 18, 2007 -
14 answers
Why can't vaccination encourage the evolution of viral potency?
posted by freebird
on Oct 5, 2006 -
16 answers
Why do humans and animals(?) urinate from their sex organs? Are these two bodily functions in some way related?
Are their examples of animals that pee & have sex with parts of their bodies that are spaced far apart?
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posted by selton
on Jul 22, 2006 -
32 answers
What experiments have been carried out where animals perform
better than us at particular cognitive tasks?
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posted by 0bvious
on May 9, 2006 -
13 answers
Are there any animals that have evolved a use for radioactivity? If so, what ways is it used? If not, why has this not happened?
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posted by 0bvious
on Nov 23, 2005 -
32 answers
Selfish penguin theory: I just saw March of the Penguins and observed the chick-stealing behavior. How is this at all adaptive?
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posted by nev
on Oct 24, 2005 -
13 answers
Evolutionary Biologists: A friend and I were walking through the woods, saw a deer and started pondering our ability to survive with primitive tools. We couldn't get within 40 meters of the deer before it took off. I couldn't see myself making a missile weapon to kill it at that range even with years of experience. My friend asserted that evolutionary pressures have produced deer that are quite a bit more skittish than the deer our distant ancestors had to hunt...
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posted by cadastral
on Aug 19, 2005 -
20 answers
Are there really such things as "scars on chromosomes" and "X vs. Y" 'wars' between the male- and female-determining genes?
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posted by rleamon
on May 8, 2005 -
15 answers
Is there a limit to scientific advancement? If there is only a certain number of elements to the universe, will there reach a technology plateau?
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posted by the fire you left me
on Jul 17, 2004 -
24 answers
How did we evolve separate genders? I assume it happened pretty early on, since most animals have a male and female, but wouldn't it have had to happen to lots of things at once for it to actually work?
posted by Orange Goblin
on Jun 6, 2004 -
7 answers
How do evolutionary changes occur in biology? Is there some sort of "intelligence" that helps a species adapt, or does a species have to wait for a random mutation to occur that just happens to confer an advantage (a mutation that might never even happen)? For instance, how do bacteria become resistant? And are there different theories on evolutionary changes?
posted by Tin Man
on Feb 25, 2004 -
22 answers
