Quotes About Biology

When we talk about stem cells, we are actually talking about a complicated series of things, including adult stem cells which are largely cells devoted to replacing individual tissues like blood elements or liver or even the brain.

The biggest development in reproductive biology is the birth-control pill. Nobody ever talks about it, but look at the consequences: demographics; aging populations; the sinking population of Europe, Japan; immigration. It's incredible.

Natural DNA is a tractless coil, like an unwound and tangled audiotape on the floor of the car in the dark.

When I last looked, there weren't queues of eager guys under 40 hanging outside single ladies' doors begging them to give up work and have their babies. It takes two to tango and the same number, without medical help, to make a child.

No, humans are good at growing bones, toenails, and cancer. That's about it.

Interesting fact: Most crabs don't have even a basic grasp of physics.

From my experience I have noticed the people we coach who seemed to suffer the most weight fluctuations are actually the ones who continue restricting their food. I know that sounds crazy, but scientifically and biologically it makes sense. Not eating enough food lowers your metabolic rate, which in turn teaches your body to store more of the food you eat as fat, rather than allowing you to expend it as energy.

A plant has been defined as a living thing that absorbs in microscopic amounts over its surface all that it needs for growth. Through

food chain - the vitally important system by which matter from soil and air passes through plants and animals and back to soil and air. It is this system upon which all life depends.

We know that infant rats who receive more licking and grooming from their mothers are less fearful and more intelligent as adults, have better immune systems, and are more attentive mothers themselves.

Did you know that rats can't vomit?" "Okay, enough. No more rat trivia.

sociosexual propagation misfits.

Life has a way of talking to the future. It's called memory. It's called genes.

In biology, nothing is clear, everything is too complicated, everything is a mess, and just when you think you understand something, you peel off a layer and find deeper complications beneath. Nature is anything but simple.

The weight of our guts is estimated at about 60 percent of what is expected for a primate of our size: the human digestive system as a whole is much smaller than would be predicted on the basis of size relations in primates. Our small mouths, teeth, and guts fit well with the softness, high caloric density, low fiber content, and high digestibility of cooked food.

compared to that of great apes, the reduction in human gut size saves humans at least 10 percent of daily energy expenditure: the more gut tissue in the body, the more energy must be spent on its metabolism.

In addition to having a small gape, our mouths have a relatively small volume—about the same size as chimpanzee mouths, even though we weigh some 50 percent more than they do. Zoologists often try to capture the essence of our species with such phrases as the naked, bipedal, or big-brained ape. They could equally well call us the small-mouthed ape.

Are we just an ordinary animal that happens to enjoy the tastes and securities of cooked food without in any way depending on them? Or are we a new kind of species tied to the use of fire by our biological needs, relying on cooked food to supply enough energy to our bodies?

In 1995 Leslie Aiello and Peter Wheeler proposed that the reason some animals have evolved big brains is that they have small guts, and small guts are made possible by a high-quality diet. Aiello and Wheeler's head-spinning idea came from the realization that brains are exceptionally greedy for glucose—in other words, for energy. For an inactive person, every fifth meal is eaten solely to power the brain.

the implication is clear: there is something odd about us. We are not like other animals. In most circumstances, we need cooked food.

When we eat, our metabolic rate rises, the maximum increase averaging 25 percent. The corresponding figures for fish (136 percent) and for snakes (687 percent) are vastly higher, showing that humans pay less for digestion than other species, presumably due partly to our food being cooked. But the cost of digestion is still significant for humans and can be reduced or raised depending on the food type.

High-testosterone men are not particularly aggressive unless challenged, but when confronted they are likely than low-testosterone men to respond with aggression.

The moral sense was once explained purely by religion. Now an evolutionary account is needed.

Pride, ideology, or belief restrains many people from viewing Homo Sapiens as just another primate species, one among many.