Questions tagged [terminology]
How terms are used or the meaning of words as used in scientific literature. Questions should ideally include a link or quote as context for where the term was encountered.
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Are “tremors” and “ tetanic contractions” the same thing?
Do these two expressions have the same meaning?
1- Tetanic contractions in the skeletal muscles
2- Rythmic shaking of the hands
(These two expressions are supposed to be two symptoms of Parkinson’s ...
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1answer
15 views
What is the defining characteristics of a Gap Species?
For the following competitive exam question: A road is constructed through a tropical rain forest, following which a population of a species of butterflies declines. Which of the following is NOT a ...
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2answers
56 views
Meaning of “standard reactions” in a DNA extraction procedure description
From a DNA extraction procedure description (an in-house pharma document I'm translating into Russian):
Preparation of Standards
All the standard reactions should be prepared at least in duplicates. ...
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1answer
35 views
Meaning of “optical” in “Optical cap, 8X Strip” (used in qPCR)
I'm translating an English document that lists equipment used in a qPCR procedure:
Reagents/Materials
Optical cap, 8X Strip
I googled and found that the meaning of this line is "a strip of 8 ...
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1answer
93 views
What is a “fairy smile”?
From Hrdy and Burkart (2020):
At birth, both chimpanzee and human newborns seek out eyes, are capable of mutual gazing, and caught just right, may imitate someone else’s outstretched tongue or other ...
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1answer
25 views
What is the difference between floral primordia and floral buds?
As we know an axillary bud differentiates to form a floral bud, but what is a floral primodium?
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1answer
21 views
Difference between stem cell “expansion”, “repopulation”, and “self-renewal”?
From this paper (link:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4130805/), I read "Thus G-CSF results in the expansion of phenotypic HSCs in the bone marrow with reduced repopulating activity and ...
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34 views
umbrella term for microtiter plate, petri dish, cell culture flask etc
I'm looking for a term I can use in a software user interface that includes anything that may carry cell cultures or similar biological imaging samples (ie that may conceivably go into an automated ...
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1answer
86 views
Technical term for a mutation that only occurs after a preceding one
Consider a hypothetical population of 1000 organisms.
(a) 300 of these 1000 have a T to G substitution at a specific position 1.
(b) 200 of these 1000 have an A to T substitution at a second ...
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1answer
49 views
Why is an intron (or exon) still called intron (exon) if retained in (excluded from) mRNA?
In most explanations, the sections of RNA removed during splicing are called introns, and the remaining segments that are stitched together are called exons. That is, introns and exons are defined in ...
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What do repopulation and expansion mean in stem cell biology?
I was studying a lecture on the effects of cytokines on hematopoiesis, and it uses these two terms often in the context of the effects of regulators on hematopoietic stem cells:
All repopulating bone ...
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1answer
22 views
Meaning of “Domain with function to find” (FIIND)
From NALPs: a novel protein family involved in inflammation.
FIIND - Domain with Function to Find.
What is the meaning of this name? Does it mean "Domain with an unknown function"?
I'm ...
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1answer
72 views
What does the point in the middle between two numbers mean? [closed]
[...] cells were removed to a cover glass and treated with plasma for 2 min, then returned to TS broth and centrifuged for 10 min. Cells were harvested and washed twice with PBS, then mixed with ...
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1answer
222 views
What’s the Difference Between Grass and Sedge?
What’s the difference between grasses and sedges? in terms of anatomy and classification.
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1answer
31 views
What does 'stereotype' mean for a disease? [closed]
I see no definition relevant to vaccination for 'stereotype' on the OED. What does it mean below?
Here’s why we can’t rush a COVID-19 vaccine | AAMC
Dengue fever: The Philippines halted a school-...
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1answer
20 views
What is the name of this part in plants, fruits, vegetables?
What is the name of this part of the plant, fruit, vegetable? The thing that the plant is connected with the tree and gets nutrients with? The part we usually cut out when eat fruit.
Examples below
...
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2answers
37 views
Stem and Branch of plants
What is the difference between the stem of a plant and the branch of a plant. Is the branch part of the stem?
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2answers
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Are “sympathetic nerves” the same as “cardiopulmonary splanchnic” nerves?
I've gathered from a number of sources (e.g., Patel (2015), Wikipedia, and here) that the sympathetic nerves leaving the sympathetic trunk to innervate the heart and lungs are called "cardiopulmonary ...
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2answers
23 views
What is the meaning of a selection regime in this context?
"Our second approach was based on modeling adaptive regimes
across a phylogeny for each of the groups in our study using an OU
model. We especially focused on the lineage leading to humans, and
tested ...
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1answer
62 views
How does species diversity vs Earth total biomass relate?
Are there any laws/theoretical foundations about how diversity of species relate with total biomass on Earth?
While there is a lot of esoteric sort of talk "humanity dis-balances the live on the ...
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1answer
65 views
Where does the “para” in parasitism come from
He there.
So in biology there is the concept of parabiosis, that describes a relationship where one part experiences a positive side effect and the other one has no disadvantages because of that. The ...
4
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1answer
214 views
What are an internal and external exons?
I read the book: Essential Genetics and Genomics It has a table summarizing the properties of the "typical" human gene:
It has a gene feature Size of internal exon,...
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1answer
53 views
Is there term for thermophilic-halophilic plants and if so, what is it?
I know that in botany there is a wide classification for plants that can survive in hot deserts (semi-arid or arid) and harsh climates such as 4-season countries with a tendency to droughts each year (...
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1answer
72 views
True anatomical/physiological explanation for “metaphysis” etymology
The anatomy textbook1 I use for my students states that the prefix meta- means "between:"
The metaphyses (me-TAF-i-sez; meta = between; singular is metaphysis) are the regions between the diaphysis ...
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1answer
43 views
Does parasitism, one of Bacteria's lifestyle?
The parasite is an organism that lives in or on a host. It depends on its host for survival.
Bacteria lives in decaying organic matter, within human organism (colon, oral cavity). It can be a ...
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1answer
23 views
Which parts of the cerebral cortex don't belong to the neocortex?
In the Wikipedia article on the cerebral cortex one reads:
»Most of the cerebral cortex consists of the six-layered neocortex.«
Accordingly, in the Wikipedia list of regions in the human brain, ...
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Are all carcinogens mutagens?
I assume that all carcinogens must be mutagens, but I've read that this is not the case. However, I can't find any good examples or an explanation of why it is not the case.
How can a non-mutagenic ...
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1answer
52 views
Why are Excavata called “Excavata”?
The explanation given in my textbook is:
Some members of this diverse group also have an “excavated” feeding
groove on one side of the cell body. (Campbell Biology)
This still isn't clear, ...
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1answer
44 views
What is the etymology for Pinus halepensis?
I have a problem of figuring out the etymology of Pinus halepnesis.
An etymonline search with halepensis brought no result.
It is unclear to me from the English wikipedia article and from the ...
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2answers
88 views
Functional unit
What is meant by functional unit of a system?
like when we say that the neuron is the basic unit of neural system do we mean that all those things that are performed by neural system can be performed ...
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1answer
52 views
What are cells not affected by hormones called?
Cells that are affected by hormones are called target cells which have their own receptors that listen to signals. I'm unsure of the actual name of cells that are not affected by hormones, I tried ...
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1answer
31 views
Can the word phalanx also be used to describe the finger bone plus the soft parts around the bone?
I was talking in an SE chatroom about fingers, and not being a native English speaker, I had to look up the word used for the part of a finger from the tip to the closest knuckle. I came across the ...
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1answer
89 views
What is the difference between sieve cells and sieve-tube elements?
I looked it up and I'm still confused. Apparently, sieve cells lack sieve plates? What does that really mean? It's difficult to find a good picture of either.
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What are the appendeges behind a crane fly's wings?
I noticed that crane flies have strange appendages behind their wings. The appendages look like a pair of antenna or a pair of vestigial wings. In the following picture I marked these appendages with ...
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Name for fluid that leaks out of phyllid (non-vascular) plants?
As Wikipedia says (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-vascular_plant):
Consequently, phyllids are unable to control the rate of water loss from their tissues and are said to be poikilohydric.
And ...
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2answers
73 views
Are neurotransmitters part of the endocrine system?
I was speaking with a substitute teacher of mine, and we were discussing whether neurotransmitters are part of the endocrine system or not. My class just spent an entire semester on the topic of the ...
3
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1answer
59 views
What's it called when a male seahorse gets “inseminated”?
I am looking for the scientific term for the process where a male seahorse receives eggs from the female. For example, we usually say, "the male inseminates the female with sperm." What is the correct ...
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0answers
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Medical terminology for asymmetrically-shaped paired body parts?
Some people have different sized feet [source], a limb that is slightly longer than the contralateral (on other side of the body) limb [source], or other instances of paired body parts being different ...
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“Straight” or “linear” helix
If an alpha helix is discontinued for a short while and then continues in a different direction, I prefer to call in "kinked". If the helix is simply uniformly following one direction, I prefer to ...
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2answers
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What is a “Valid Species”?
I read in a reference book on Google Books (Biology of Termites: a Modern Synthesis, eds. Bignell, Roisin, and Lo) that the termite Heterotermes perfidus found on the South Atlantic island of St ...
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1answer
113 views
In the context of heterotrophic theory of abiogenesis, what is an organism that eats other organisms called?
In the heterotrophic theory for the origin of life, we imagine a primordial soup that is rich in organic compounds and the first organisms emerge eating those compounds. Since these organic compounds ...
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2answers
195 views
Why don't we speak of medial and lateral rotation of the forearm? And pronation and supination of the upper arm?
Why don't we speak of medial and lateral rotation of the forearm?
I notice we speak of forearm supination and forearm pronation, but why not medial and lateral rotation.
It seems to me that if we ...
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0answers
11 views
Can PGPM include pathogenic growth promoters?
I am extremely confused with definition of P.G.P.M. (plant growth promoting microbes/microbiota)such as P.G.P.F (plant growth promoting fungi) and P.G.P.B. (plant growth promoting bacteria). In many ...
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3answers
813 views
Is the genetic term “polycistronic” still used in modern biology?
Is the term "cistronic", meaning an ORF on a mRNA, still commonly used in modern genetics? I´ve seen "polycistronic" being applied to prokaryotic mRNA in old textbooks, but I´ve rarely stumbled upon ...
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2answers
76 views
Is 'disorientation event' a common term among biologists?
On the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources web page about the marine turtle conservation program it says, "When a hatchling sea turtle is attracted away from the ocean towards a direct or ...
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What does “dissection-based microscopy” mean as described here, and how can it give genetic information?
The Phys.org article 'DNA microscopy' offers entirely new way to image cells references the new Open Access paper in Cell DNA Microscopy: Optics-free Spatio-genetic Imaging by a Stand-Alone Chemical ...
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What is it called when a dead flower is rotted away and only the veins remain?
I've spotted a flower that is dead:
It looks like most of the tissue has rotted away and only the veins remain.
(Sorry, I don't know the proper name for flower veins).
What is the technical term ...
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1answer
140 views
Does a cell suspend or exit cell cycle at G0?
In an exam, there was one question which asked whether the cell exits or suspends cell cycle at G0 phase.
I answered that it exits cell cycle but the official answer key says it suspends cell cycle.
...
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1answer
175 views
Difference between cerebroside and globoside
I have a general idea about their difference that cerebrosides have a single sugar while globosides have more than one sugars.
This is the structure of a ceramide (syphingosine and a fatty acid ...
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1answer
86 views
What's the subpatellar tendon?
I read in Thomas Myers book Anatomy Trains:
Although the muscles themselves have attachments within the anterior
compartment to the tibia, fibula, and interosseous membrane, the next
station ...
