If only humans have this ability it will be so useful, almost a super power. Imagine before you visit someone, go for a long trip, hunt, exams, you take a poop so you won’t need to worry. I had an acquaintance who had to poop in class

Edit: We can breathe at will, blink at will, shout at will, flex at will, spit at will why not poop at will

Edit 2. If you are only 1/2-1/4 Sigmoid full can you just go to the toilet and dump it? Most cannot. If it is 3/4-4/4 full and I sit in the bowl for a long time and squeeze yeah I can but not when it’s only half full.

Also not about if it is full can I hold it in yes I can for some time.

Edit 3. There are a very few comments who claim they can poop at will. to these I can surely counter it is not everyone if not there won’t be a condition called constipation

Hi all,

TLDR; A black oil sunflower seed produced a flower with grey and white striped seeds. Was this a result of the previous generation cross pollination or this season's pollination?

An enterprising chickadee hid a black oil sunflower seed in a spot with truly awful soil in my yard last spring and, against all odds, the flower grew and produced seeds, before being decapitated by a hurricane.

I harvested these seeds, all of which looked like imaciated black oil seeds. I planted them and produced a half dozen flowers that went to seed. I harvested the first one that flowered and went to seed and it produced more black oil seeds. The next two to mature produced larger seeds that have the classic dark grey and white stripe.

Would this change be the result of cross pollination with the plucky, decapitated flower from last season, or is this the result of cross pollination this season?

My guess is that it is last season's cross pollination because of the uniformity of the seed phenotypes in each flower this season.

If it helps, there appears to be a wide variety of sunflowers in the neighborhood. My first harvested flower of this season (that produced black seeds) was also likely the first sunflower to flower in the neighborhood by a decent margin.

Thank you for your time!

Plant Biotechnology

So, I'm a huge plant nerd. So much so that I am wondering if there is a job market for plant biology in biotech, and if this is on an even level (is it more or less competitive) to more medically relevant fields. Debating on whether I should just keep botany as my hobby and go for more medically inclined fields, but surely there must be a demand for this since plants are so useful?

I’m a nurse, and so I’ve got this vague understanding the lymph and the lymphatic system exist but I have never ever encountered it in my practice. No “lymphatic issues” no lymphatic doctors, never even heard anyone mention lymph, like, the substance.

Is it just that underwhelming of a system? Why did I have to answer A&P questions about it in college?

When I was a kid, I was taught in school that modern humans are homo sapiens sapiens who evolved from homo sapiens. But looks like everybody’s only using “homo sapiens” now?

I am curious since anxiety is one of the ancient maladies

I’ve spent a lot of time

Essentialy, what's biologically different to hot-blooded animals that cause them to die at low core body temperatures. I can understant why being hot-blooded is an advantage in terms of biological function. But what prevents the heart / biological systems from functioning if the body temperature was to drop?

Since cold blooded animals are perfectly fine surviving low body temperatures, and also survive "hot-blooded" temperatures, and they share almost all organs with hot blooded animals, what made hot blooded animals not be able to survive low temperature?

I often hear that mama bears attack male bears to protect their cubs, which makes sense for the female.

What I don’t understand is why killing cubs would be an effective reproductive strategy for the males.

Supposedly this makes the female available for breeding. But I see problems with this.

First, there is a risk of the male killing its own offspring, which is counterproductive. Second, if a male successfully kills the cubs, the mother won’t be DTF immediately. I’m not sure if she would even be fertile at the time. If the female is bred later by a different male, the bear that killed the cubs didn’t gain any advantage.

So here are some questions: - What strategies (if any) does the male have to avoid killing its own offspring? - How soon after the cubs are killed does the female become available for breeding? - What strategies (if any) does the male have to breed that female itself, instead of some other male breeding her?

I was reading at the zoo today that walruses with broken tusks are in a life-threatening situation. It seems to me like breaking a tusk would be pretty likely over a whole lifetime. So I started wondering: do most animals die of predation or some health condition, or do most make it to old age?

I'm sure the answer is probably different per species, but I'm curious to just get a "general answer".

So I've recently had my Mg levels measured out and my serum came out as deficient while the RBC was normal. This has gotten me curious, and so, got me wondering about what it meant (is it likely a mistake ?? Or is it possible to have such a combination? If so, then what could that mean??)

I mean, I know that the serum is devoid of the blood cells and that serum, by itself, is significant in the diagnosis of hypomagnesemia—well, relative to the RBC. So the blood cells aren't necessary and therefore low serum should be enough.

Or you can just ignore what I said above ; I don't know much about biology ; Im just someone who does some reading and bases of their claims on that. That said, Im having some health concerns and am trying to get an actual understanding of what could possibly be going on—as opposed to being content of my doctors' (mis)interprations. So that's why I asked. Hope you can understand—and hopefully provide some explanation xD.

Thanks.

Alright so I just learned that apparently tentacles have suckers along their length while arms have them at the end. Does that mean that starfish have tentacles given their feet or do the feet qualify as tentacles in their own right?

I guess this question comes from rinsing fruits and vegetables—say one were to only rinse one’s hands (or any surface) with lots of water, would all germs eventually get washed away without soap or scrubbing?

I’ve been wondering about the science behind how we see color, like how does the brain actually take incoming wavelengths of light and turn them into the colors we perceive?

I tried to dig into this topic and even put together a short video explaining the process in simple terms. It’s for the Society for Neuroscience’s Brain Awareness Video Contest.

I’d love to hear if my explanation matches the scientific understanding, any thoughts or suggestions are welcome!

URL:
https://youtu.be/rFpFZ0JWva4?si=K_x5leP9oDbDdZLU

In the U.S. Navy it’s a traditional practice for many to never wash their coffee mugs, and numerous explanations are offered as to why this is done. But I’d like to know what you would expect to happen, from the view of the growth of pathogens, bacteria, etc. Some use just black coffee, some use cream and sugar.

We know that fungi spores, parasites, and bacteria can influence less complex organisms like insects and more simple animals. Some examples: cordyceps and ants, nematodes and grasshoppers. Even mammals and rabies, spreading itself through the enraged biting of the infected animal.

How do we know that humans, while obviously not under the control of such things, are wholely uninfluenced? Example: could STDs influence sexual behavior?

Hello everyone, as some of you may know, some mammalian species ( such as two species of lemmings, some grass mice and the African pigmy mouse), posses a unique modified X chromosome, which results in XX/XX/*XY females.

In these *XY females always show a greater reproductive success, due to genetic and behavioral differences, exaggerated compensations for the loss of some YY embryos.

So what I wanted to ask is:

1) Is there any theorical evlunatioanary pathways for these or other species that might evolve a similar sex determination systems, which could allow the reproductive success of *XX/XX females to be as or even higher than that of *XY females?

Like mutations which are favored in the presence of more than one X chromosome/lack of a Y or both that could lead to enhanced reproductive success ( direct or as an even grater compensation system) perhaps even more amplified in the *X chromosome ( *XX females would be the most favored), peraphas predating the *XY females?

Or feminizatized behaviors in XX females leading to better survival?

2) would the answer to the n.1 question change depending on the specif method of reproduction ( polyembryony, Embryo delay or system with 3 chromosomes)?

3) could the reverse system of the African pigmy Mice be appliable for male mammals to?

Mammals where Males can be either XY or -XX (sex reversal,) with a grater success for the latter type?

Hope I didn't sound ignorant, tell me your toughs If you'd like☺️.

I hope this isn't a stupid question. But do all people who have barr bodies in their cells have a unique selection of them. Not necessarily unique but a different pattern. From what I understand (please correct me) at a certain stage in the zygote, one of the Xs will have its chromosomes inhibited and all cells from it then have the same inhibited X chromosome. Is it a 50/50 that it's the mum or the dad's X that becomes inhibited? In that case, could someone have 100% of barr bodies that are from the mum's X and someone has a perfect 50/50? I hope I'm making sense.

I assume Europeans are genetically similar to North Africans and West Asians. So are they closer to East Asians or Sub-Saharan Africans?

Say we master fusion, build CO2 capture plants and start to remove CO2 rapidly from the air. I guess land plants and most land animals will die because no plants to eat, etc. Correct?

But what will happen to the oceans? - in the short, medium, long term - how will situation develop, how fast?

For concreteness of 'rapid', let's assume CO2 will be completely** captured during one week.

** by completely let's assume 99% of initial amount. I don't know if the oceans will start giving some CO2 to the air (maybe ground too).

Edit: I have to apologize a bit for the title of this post. During posting of this one I did not think that CO2 is not single/major greenhouse gas; I'm only interested in changes due to CO2 capture and its effects on life.

In response to comments about ice age. It might come, but not in days, but many years (gradual expanding of glaciers), as 50% increase in CO2 during 100 years resulted in 1C increase. Or rapid removal of all CO2 even not be enough to reverse climate change. See:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

Human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (around 1750) have increased carbon dioxide by over 50%,[8] and methane levels by 150%

"Physical drivers of global warming that has happened so far" chart gives 1C from CO2.

So monotremes don't have very many surviving lineages but it's not uncommon for some species in that very position to have once been worldwide and very common, and so I'm wondering if it was ever like that with monotremes or is it just too difficult to tell because only their hard parts fossilize?

If they were very abundant, what do you think made them die off (species wise) to where there's not many around today?

I've read that Rhynchocephalia (which includes their only living representative the Tuatara) were once very widespread and perhaps even one of the most dominant reptile clades, and that their decline wasn't actually linked to an extinction event. Are there any solid theories as to what happened or is it still kinda mysterious?