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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Preferred order when combining directional terms
Is there any preferred order when combining directional terms? For example, if I say ear is superolateral to the mouth, can I instead say that ear is laterosuperior to the mouth? Is one correct while ...
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Animal specific names with non-alphabetic characters
I'm part of a research team that investigates and documents native bee species, and we identified one of our Andrena specimens as A. w-scripta. With over ten years of experience in insect and ray-...
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What does "DS" stand for in some articles?
I'm super ashamed of asking such a question, but there is an abbreviation that often comes in some papers that I have to read, I have no idea what it stands for and I'm just too ashamed to ask my ...
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Difference between in cis/in trans and in phase/out of phase
Something I've never been quite clear on is the difference between in cis/in trans and in phase/out of phase (in the context of diploid organisms).
My understanding is that the in cis/in trans ...
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What is the DNA sequences between two Inverted Repeats called?
I would like to know some rules about the nomenclature of Inverted Repeats DNA sequences. More in detail, I want to know what is the name of sequences between two inverted repeats.
For example, I have ...
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Is there a term for fixation OR loss of an allele?
I remember reading a paper which used a term to describe either fixation OR loss of an allele via drift. Its definition is basically "the removal/fixation of a polymorphism in a population due to ...
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Is pyruvate considered a high energy molecule like ATP or NADH?
ATP, NADH and FADH2 are high energy molecules. The second half of glycolysis is known as the pay-off phase, characterised by a net gain of the energy-rich molecules ATP and NADH.
In fermentation, for ...
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How do we determine what we call "flexion" and what we call "extension"?
Question:
How did we determine which motion to call "flexion" and which to call "extension" with regard to the wrist and the neck?
Background:
Just to set the stage, I'm not asking ...
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Is the use of DNA SNPs vs amino acid variations in the description to detail the absence or presence of a consequent amino acid variation?
Studying Schizophrenia and reading some papers discussing polymorphisms in the 5HT-2A receptor gene (HTR2A). Specifically, the authors mention A-1438G, T102C, his452tyr.
Was his452tyr not described as ...
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Why are O-antigens and H-antigens on (certain) bacteria called O and H?
Somehow, despite extensive searching, I cannot find an answer....
Does O stand for oxygen and H signify hydrogen?
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What is, (and what isn't) "kinetic replication" as it applies to molecules and to living organisms?
CNN's World's first living robots can now reproduce, scientists say describes "xenobots"; clusters of stem cells that move around and by this motion occasionally push enough free stem cells ...
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Where could I find biology-specialized transcription services for my conference? [closed]
I'm a conference organizer for various conferences in the field of biology. Just recently, I stumbled upon this Nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03487-2 and I have ...
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Is tumor necrosing factor alpha now properly referred to as "tumor necrosing factor"?
"Because LTα is no longer referred to as TNFβ,[64] TNFα, as the previous gene symbol, is now simply called TNF, as shown in HGNC (HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee) database." says https://en....
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What morphological traits can be used to diagnose members of the Eucalypteae?
I read the Wikipedia article on Eucalypteae and it doesn't actually say what these plants have in common.
(I am now reading through https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.3732/ajb.1200025 ...
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What is the proper anatomical name of the "band of Richer" that wraps around the quadriceps femoris?
There's this fascial band called the band of Richer that wraps around the quadriceps femoris muscle above the knee (in this illustration, look for it near the left knee). It seems to stem from the ...
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meaning of the name "Dictyostelium discoideum"
Dictyostelium discoideum is a well-known species of slime mould.
Does anyone know what the name means?
Here's my best guess.
I found the 1935 article in which it was first described, but there doesn't ...
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The use of the word “canonical” in biological science
What is the meaning of the word canonical in a scientific context? This is an example that I do not understand:
BDNF is a member of the neurotrophin family of growth factors, which
are related to the ...
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What is the meaning of harboring cryptic in below sentence?
Tissue culture became more widely used at this time because of the introduction of antibiotics, which facilitated long-term cell line propagation, although many people were already warning against ...
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What is the difference between the cheeks and the near parts?
Linguistically, there should be the different property or feature between cheeks and the parts right near them for us to call cheeks “cheeks.” What is the main difference between cheeks and the other ...
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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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What do you call members of a same species that show some morphological differences depending on their environment and/or diet?
What do you call members of a same species that exhibit a number of morphological differences depending on their environment and/or diet?
I was thinking of the term "different phenotypes," ...
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Does the cytoplasm include the organelles?
I am a student in middle school. My textbook says that
Cytoplasm is the gelatinous liquid part of the cell excluding organelles.
However my teacher said this is wrong. According to her, the correct ...
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Is there a formal name for the dissolved caterpillar substance produced during metamorphosis?
Is there a formal name for the dissolved caterpillar substance produced during metamorphosis? I've seen this described as a protein-rich soup, a horrid meltdown, larval tissue breakdown, metamorphic ...
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Is there a term that distinguishes extracellular "transport" proteins from membrane-bound "transport" proteins?
I've been researching genetics and biochemistry in my free time and I've noticed that proteins such as albumin and apolipoproteins that facilitate extracellular transport and proteins such as GLUT1 ...
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In fluorescence microscopy images what is meant by the term "puncta"?
I am reading papers where confocal fluorescence microscopy images were analysed. In many of the papers I see the term "puncta" being used when researchers analyse the colocalisation between ...
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Is there a specific English term for this vessel for microbial sampling?
In Russian, such a container (see pictures) for microbial sampling is called бакпечатка (bakpechatka), as I learned just now. I've no idea about the etimology of the Russian term. Probably "bak&...
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Is sonic hedgehog a gene or a protein or both?
Is sonic hedgehog a gene or a protein or both?
I think sonic hedgehog is okay as a name for a chemical.
Having said that, I am a little bit concerned about the way sonic hedgehog seems to mean the ...
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Direction of translation/transcription
Perhaps it would not be wrong to say that "translation/transcription goes in the direction of 3' to 5'" or "in the direction of 5' to 3'";that's because these statements are ...
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What is the difference between effective and efficient selection?
I always thought of the efficiency of natural selection in the context of molecular evolution. I.e. that linked selection and smaller population size cause less efficient selection. It took me a while ...
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Is there a term for the entire system of moving oxygen around?
The respiratory system brings oxygen to the blood, and also can include stuff like nicotine from smoking.
The circulatory system brings oxygenated blood (and all its little friends) to wherever they'...
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How to convert a genus name to a noun or adjective
Consider the crayfish family Cambaridae. As I understand it, this familial name can be turned into an English noun or adjective by changing the first letter to lower case and dropping the "ae.&...
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Brain centers vs areas (and how they relate to nuclei)
I'm looking for a reputable source that can provide succinct definitions differentiating the following terms in the central nervous system (CNS; particularly in the brain):
Area
Center
Nucleus
...
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What is intracellular retention?
On the wiki page for proto-cadherins, they write, "The cytoplasmic domain also mediates intracellular retention, a property which distinguishes the clustered protocadherins from the related ...
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Is there a difference between ISH and ISHH? (In Situ Hybridization, In Situ Hybridization Histochemistry)
I came across the term ISHH in my document and discovered that it stands for In Situ Hybridization Histochemistry. I's translating to Russian a document that uses this abbreviation.
Example from the ...
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What is the correct nomenclature for expressing a genotype where a recombination event may occur?
Given an example punnett square:
...
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Why do animal cells "mistake" rubidium ions for potassium ions?
So, I was browsing the Wikipedia article for rubidium, and came across this interesting tidbit:
Rubidium is not a known nutrient for any living organisms. However, rubidium ions have the same charge ...
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When does one decide to refer to a virus as a new variant?
I've read that SARS-Cov-2 has several variants, e.g.:
Can the U.S. keep Covid variants in check? Here's what it takes.
Novavax’s Vaccine Works Well — Except on Variant First Found in South Africa
...
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Difference between a phototroph and a photosynthetic organism?
A quick search on google about the topic and the page on wikipedia did not help understanding the difference between these two related terms.
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What would be a single elegant-sounding word denoting controlled increase or decrease?
I am a biologist and frequently encounter the words 'upregulated' and 'downregulated' in the literature. Appropriately, these words are flagged by my browser spell-checker; they don't seem to be very ...
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Understanding the use of English tenses in biological journal articles
My colleague and I (second language speakers) got in an argument in understanding the sentence: " however, how this complexity and diversification have been achieved remains rather poorly ...
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Cancer: what does it mean "at presentation"?
Unclear to me what this means:
"Objective The biological heterogeneity of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) makes prognosis difficult. We translate the results of a genome-wide high-throughput ...
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A word that includes plants and fungi, but not animals [closed]
Hello biologists and biology enthusiasts!
I am working on a project which includes information about plants and fungi. It would be very helpful for me if there a word that means plants-and-fungi, but ...
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Structure and reactions of the cofactors of oxidoreductases such as ferredoxin
I have seen the word flavoprotein being used in place of ferredoxin in few places and vice-versa. I have not found any source that mentions them both together and explains the relation between them.
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Meaning of the word "targeted" in a description of chromatin immunoprecipitation
From a research paper:
The ChIP assay demonstrated that CIC physically binds to the promoter region of FOLR1, PCFT and RFC1.
Compared with IgG control antibody, CIC antibody enriched 4.1-fold more ...
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Is there a term for the opposite of intergenic?
I am looking for a term that describes DNA regions that overlap genes, i.e., non-intergenic DNA regions.
For example, say I am writing a paper about DNA-binding sites (i.e., DNA sequences that ...
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Meaning of "stripped" in "stripped antibody-depleted sera"
From a research paper:
FOLR1 autoantibody detection
The assay for identification of the presence and relative quantification of FOLR1 autoantibodies in serum samples was performed as previously ...
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Why is the "mango fly" called a "mango fly"?
Cordylobia anthropophaga, the mango fly, tumbu fly, tumba fly, putzi
fly, or skin maggot fly, is a species of blow-fly common in East and
Central Africa. Wiki page
Why is Cordylobia anthropophaga ...
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What does 21q21.1-q21.2 mean?
I am reading a journal paper about the association between NCAM2 and autism, and I have come across the following:
We performed microarray analysis and identified a 1.6-Mb deletion of
21q21.1-q21.2, ...
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What is the thinnest spot on the ilium called?
Is there a specific name for the spot on the human iliac fossa where the bone is the thinnest? (Or, is there a name for the thickness measurement of that spot, e.g. the left/right _________ is 2.1mm?)
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