Questions tagged [history]
Questions relating to how the field of biology has developed over time.
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Who demonstrated that phage lamba is integrated into the host chromosome?
In the 1950s, the Lederbergs (Esther and Joshua) demonstrated the presence of phage lamba in Escherichia coli K-12.
But who demonstrated that this virus is integrated into the host's genome? Is there ...
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What is important in the Luria-Latarjet effect?
In the seminal paper
Luria, S.E. and Latarjet, R. (1964) “Ultraviolet irradiation of
bacteriophage during intracellular growth”. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences of the United States ...
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Preserving a sample for mtDNA and nuclear DNA analysis
Imagine a person in the early half of the 20th century (1900 to 1950) took some kind of sample(s) from a living human body using any technology of the era. They then stored it using any technology ...
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Who discovered that phage phiX174 has a single-stranded genome?
I have recently read that Erwin Chargaff has discovered that the genome of phage phiX174 (ϕχ174) is single-stranded. However I could not find the paper reporting this discovery.
Is there a link to the ...
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Who demonstrated plasmodium life cycle? Grassi or Laveran
Plasmodium causes malaria which goes through mosquito female anapheles through some of its life stages. But I am not sure which scientist experimentally demonstrated the life cycle of plasmodium. In ...
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What were fed to the rodents in Calhoun's experiments?
From, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1644264/)(https://www.gwern.net/docs/sociology/1962-...
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Graph of new species discovered per year
I'm looking for historical data on the number of new species described each year.
I found the RetroSOS report (page 3), which provides a time series for 2000–2009:
...
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Why were there relatively fewer papers about cell fusion before the 1950s?
While working on my cell fusion technology report, I saw PubMed's cell fusion graph of results by year. There have been studies or research since the early 1900s, but until the 1950s, there were no ...
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Can a dead fish be made to twitch via electrostimulation?
Galvani in the 1700s famously showed that a dead frog can be made to twitch by electric stimulation. The hind legs are particularly susceptible. Salt helps in the activation, as shown in these videos:
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Giant inflatable laboratory in the jungle. How to find it?
When I was a child (circa year 2000), I watched a documentary (in English) about some biologists doing research about jungle (perhaps Amazon). The biologists lived in a base which was a huge ...
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What are the definition of pecking order? [closed]
Pecking order is the phenomenon that dominating individual usually eat first. It is commonly observed in animals. In animals, it is often due to the fact that the strong individual won the fights for ...
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How to decipher references in natural history works of the late Renaissance and early Modernity?
Old botany books from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (and maybe also some later ones) enumerating lists of species used to give references to their sources as abbreviations consisting of one or few ...
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Why did Rivers replace Koch's postulates?
In 1937, Rivers introduced a new set of postulates that were meant to replace those formulated by Koch.
However, I couldn't find an article (or other scientific literature) that describes why Koch's ...
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What Old World fish produces "white gems" in its brain?
In his ancient list of "white gems," Isidore of Seville mentions the "cinaedia," which he describes as follows:
Cinaedia is found in the brain of a fish with the same name; it is
...
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Which landmark paper first described the differentiation of T-cells?
T-cells are distinguished from B cells in part by their locus of differentiation/maturation (thymus). This is textbook knowledge, but I was wondering which particular person or people were responsible ...
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Did Mendel believe that proteins are hereditary substances?
Scientists first thought that proteins, which are found in chromosomes along with DNA, would turn out to be the sought-after genetic material. Proteins were known to have diverse amino acid sequences, ...
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When was peptidoglycan discovered?
I've searched for some time now, but I can't find a definitive answer. The closest I have gotten is "knowledge about peptidoglycan structures dates back to the 1970s–80s" from this paper.
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Why do we use an autoclave at 121°C (250F)? (Origin)
Let me start by saying I know why, but I am inquiring more about the origin.
My question is more related to literature that I cannot seem to find.
I've found some helpful papers and information on the ...
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Pre-Mendelian genetics
In the 18th century, Joseph Gottlieb Kölreuter concluded from his plant experiments that in some hybrid generations the characteristics of grandmother generation, grandfather species and F1 generation ...
user48716
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Has there even been a clinical study where healthy volunteers consented to be infected with a pathogen?
I am curious if there has ever been a (modern) clinical study where a healthy volunteer was purposefully infected with a pathogen in order to test the effectiveness of a therapeutic or preventative ...
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Who were the first authors to talk about local adaptation?
I was curious to read about what Darwin had to say about the existance of locally adapted subpopulations. I discovered to my surprise that the expressions and terms "local adaptation", "spatial ...
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Who invented dN/dS?
I am writing a paper, and I want to refer to the original paper that coined the term dN/dS (or Ka/Ks for that matter). I have found early works on dN and dS (like Miyata and Yasunaga 1980), but cannot ...
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What did Francis Crick and James Watson discover that Rosalind Franklin didn't?
I've recently been introduced to the history of DNA research from Miescher to Franklin, Crick, and Watson, and I've found that Franklin had figured out a great many number of things out that Crick and ...
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Who created the codon wheel chart (not as a table)?
I'm trying to find out who created or first used the codon wheel chart as far as we can know.
I don't mean the tabular format.
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High altitude rail travel
This question is primarily about human performance. I do know about hypoxia, hence this question.
I'm busy designing a fictional region, currently in the 1930's. I have a railway line that climbs to ...
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What is the evidence that plants and animals had a common ancestor?
According to the theory of evolution (which I don't dispute), plants and animals evolved from a common ancestor, probably a eukaryote. I'd like to know how we know that to be true.
Specifically how ...
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Pre-linnaean names, where can I ask about current IDs?
I run a large website with lots of historical herb books. For the older ones, finding out current botanical names is very difficult.
Can I ask here? If not, does anybody know where I could ask what ...
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Rejection of valid theories of biology on theoretical grounds
Is there a theory in biology that was initially disregarded as false (because of critical or contrasting perspectives) and only recognized as important after a considerable time, possibly only in ...
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Book on the history of Darwin's discoveries and development of his theory
This question is a book request. I am wondering if there are any books with these elements:
Tells the history of Darwin's discoveries.
Captures Darwin's changing views of the origins of species, ...
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On which chromosomes were the traits studied by Mendel?
In his experiment with peas, Mendel mainly studied two traits : yellow/green colours and round/wrinkly shapes. I've heard that the pea genome is very large and its sequencing is a challenge. However, ...
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History of plasmid maps
To create a small history of visual representations in biology, I am seeking the earliest published papers or books that have used plasmid maps as figures ; or strategies to effectively search for ...
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Pangenesis and Lamarck's theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics
I've read that Darwin had split ways with Lamarck's evolutionary ideas. Yet his theory of pangenesis seems to support Lamarck's theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics. What am I missing?
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Darwin's views on Lamarckian Heredity?
Currently I'm reading She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity, a fascinating book about heredity by the popular science author Carl Zimmer.
While reading this I ...
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When was it understood that a male haemophilia sufferer can't pass it on to his sons?
Haemophilia A and B are both X-chromosome mutations, so a sufferer necessarily inherits the disease from his mother. She won't have serious symptoms unless both of her X chromosomes have the mutation, ...
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The role of atomic theory in biology
Feynman writes, in his Lectures on Physics Vol. 1, Chapter 1:
The most important hypothesis in all of biology, for example, is that everything that animals do, atoms do. In other words, * there is ...
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What happened to pertussis incidence in the US between 1955 and 1974 and why?
The Wall Street Journal ran a great collection of infographics in 2015 superimposing the dates on which vaccination was introduced for various childhood diseases on their incidence:
http://graphics....
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Why aren't 'exons' named 'introns'?
Why are introns called 'introns' when they are the actual ones who are getting spliced out from the pre-mRNA. Shouldn't exons be named introns as they are the ones that are 'in' and are not 'exiting'? ...
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Did early 20th century researchers state why they used E. coli as a model organism?
I am investigating the early uses of E. coli as a model organism. Sadly, many early 20th century papers are not in English. In those that are, I have been unable to find explicit statements as to why ...
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Vitamins — how did they get their names?
There are several types of vitamins. A,B,C,D,E,H,K,P, etc. How did they get their names?
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Meaning of term ‘rapidly labeled RNA’
I encountered the term, “rapidly labeled RNA”, in the article: Rapidly labeled HeLa cell nuclear RNA. I. Identification by zone sedimentation of a heterogeneous fraction separate from ribosomal ...
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Did Carl Linnaeus ever name a species he never saw?
According to this post Carl Linnaeus named more than 13,000 species which is definitely quite impressive. If we consider a 50 years career it makes about 5 species per week! It would feel impressive ...
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Blood Group Notation
In a textbook, I encountered a notation used when writing blood groups down, which was "I" with the blood group type as a superscript. I was curious as to why the letter "I" is used in this notation ...
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When did human and animal blood became distinguishable from each other as forensic evidence?
Since a few decades ago, DNA testing became an important tool in criminal forensics, and a lot of information can be gathered from a single drop of blood or from a few cells.
Even before that, blood ...
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History of ideas about the form of the genetic code
In preparing a lecture on mRNA translation and the genetic code, I remembered a talk given at a symposium where they mentioned the origin of the code and how, before the code was established, various ...
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Where did the term "vegetative nervous system" come from?
I am interested in the origin of the name. I am aware that Reil coined the term in the 1800s, but want to know why did he choose the term vegetative. I have not been able to find an answer to this ...
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Names of different cyclins
Different types of cell cyclins are designated as a to y
Why are some letters like m, n, p, q.. etc. skipped?
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclin
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Was Raymond Gosling supervised by Rosalind Franklin? [closed]
The story of how the structure of DNA was deduced is fairly complicated and controversial, but most parties agree that a key pieces of data was "Photo 51", an X-ray diffraction image of DNA ...
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What am I looking at in Franklin's Photo 51 of DNA?
Here's Rosalind Franklin's famous Photo 51, the X-ray diffraction image of DNA from which Watson and Crick deduced its structure:
My understanding is that it depicts a short segment of DNA shown from ...
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Etymology of PAX proteins
What is the reasoning behind naming proteins first found in Drosophila as paired box? All I could find on internet is that it was first found in Drosophila as a protein with paired domain, but I ...
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ECG wave names origin
Why do electrocardiogram waves go P, Q, R, S, T and not like A, B, C, D? Is there any specific reason behind this?
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