The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that you will find beneath the lungs and heart. It is the primary muscle we use when we breathe and it contracts constantly when you breathe in and out. What is the function of the diaphragm? This is a thin, skeletal muscle and it’s what separates the abdomen from …
A silent mutation is when there’s a change in the sequence of nucleotide bases that make up DNA, but that doesn’t change the amino acid or the function of the protein as a whole. In some cases, a single amino acid will change, but it turns out that it has the same properties as the …
Meiosis is a process by which a eukaryotic cell reduces its chromosomal content and produces germ cells, also known as gametes or sex cells that are needed for sexual reproduction. This means that a cell with a double set of chromosomes (diploid) is divided in half and ends with a single set of chromosomes (haploid), …
A plasmid is a piece of DNA, small and circular, that is not the same as chromosomal DNA since this one is the one that contains all the genetic material found in the chromosomes of an organism. It replicates separately from chromosomal DNA. These plasmids are mostly found in organisms like bacteria, but they have …
The three domains system is a classification used in biology that divides cellular life forms into three categories: archaea, bacteria, and eukaryote domains. It was introduced in 1977 by Carl Woese et al. One of its characteristics is that it points out the separation into two groups of the prokaryotes; Eubacteria (now called bacteria) and …
One very useful feature of a smartphone is that it “knows” in which direction it’s pointing, so when you use a compass app, it knows if you’re going north, south, east or west. Many technologies today, that include smartphones, are able to identify their orientation thanks to a device known as an accelerator, which is …
An inert gas, is a gas that under certain given conditions doesn’t have chemical reactions. Noble gases don’t react very often with many substances, and were referred to as inert gases for a long time.Inert gases are commonly used when degrading a sample and chemical reactions are to be avoided; such chemical reactions include oxidation …
An alveolar macrophage, also known as a dust cell, is a type of cell that is located in the pulmonary alveolus close to the pneumocytes, however it is separated from the wall. Their location is crucial because it is one of the main boundaries that separate the body from the outside, so the activity of …
Let’s get one thing straight: proteins are one of the most important substances in the human body. Your hair, eyes, muscles, organs, many hormones and enzymes are mostly made up of proteins. When your body tissues need to be repaired or maintenance, proteins are highly involved. But, not all proteins are the same, nor are …
A codon is a sort of genetic code that has a set of rules, where specific information is encoded in the genetic material that can either be DNA or mRNA sequences, which is then translated into proteins. The proteins that are synthesized are made up of amino acids that are placed together in a specific …
