CharonY

I was replying to the OP. This is not what is happening (usually). Once the genetic information has entered the genome it will copied over to the daughter cell. This also includes plasmids (or more likely a few copies of the plasmid end up in the daughter cell during cell division).

It appears there is some confusion here. Exchange of genetic material is not reproduction as no offspring is created. What you are thinking of is horizontal gene transfer. Amoeba may be able to conjugate, but to be honest I do not know how common this may be. However, the genome of Entamoeba histolytica for instance showed extensive horizontal gene transfer from bacteria, quite possible from those that have been consumed.

What do you mean with only one plate? One Ouchterlony plate? In any case it depends whether the difference due to the modification is sufficient to raise specific antibodies against it. Or at least distinguish between native and modified insulin. In other words, it depends on the type of mdification.

There are a number of possibilities. Paraquat is often used to generate oxygen radicals in tissue tests. You should just keep in mind that different radicals affect tissue differently and are protected by different mechanisms (with major players being SOD and catalase). As a side note, every aerobic organism possesses mechanisms to defend against oxidative stress (that is why they can be aerobic to begin with). But it does not mean that it oxidative stress does not influence the organisms. It only means that they can survive a higher amount of it.

Sterile techniques in general? They are almost universally the same, regardless of organism. Or do you mean cultivation, or manipulation?

Precisely. Differences in reproductive success is the main point. Death is but only of the possibilities that can affect it. Immortality (as defined as immune to age effects) is basically a trait of relatively simple organisms. The mechanisms necessary for that (e.g. rapid cell proliferation) is probably unsustainable in more complex (in terms of cellular complexity) organisms. For instance, cancer cells are essentially immortalized cell lines. And they clearly do not promote reproductive success....

There are organisms that in their unicellular lifestyle are sometimes called amoebae, like e.g slime molds that form macrocysts. But amoebae in the stringent sense generally do not proliferate sexually.

This is basically based on the assumption that each point on the chromosome has the same chance of a crossover event (which is not true near the centromer). Hence, if you look at a longer stretch, the overall chance of a crossover occurring is higher than within a shorter one.

Well, technically H1N1 serotypes have been around for longer. Just not the current variant It is likely that they may use the current pandemia as an additional sales boost, but to be fair the article is not very specific about what the claims of the manufacturers really are.

It depends on the virus and of course, the length of the heat treatment. Literature values (known to me) vary widely between 45 to 100° for a few seconds up to an hour. Most widely actually 121° C is used. Theoretically you can go higher and in some instances it actually makes sense. In most cases, however it is sufficient to ensure proper sterilization. This particular value has probably been established as a reference value for industrial/medical sterilization protocols.

Some update http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/unrevealed-anal.html

Wait a tick, I may have misunderstood your question. Are asking whether several subunits (i.e. protomers) are needed? The latter is dependent a bit on what model for allosteric inhibition is used.

Note that bacteriophages can only pack a limited amount of DNA. If they accidentally put host DNA into their capsids, they lose some of their own. So if they infect the new cell they inject their original host's DNA instead of their own. Without their own DNA, however, they cannot hijack their new host's cellular functions.

The nucleus possesses porins (essentially proteins that form a channel) that are large enough to let nucleotides pass. IIRC there was no difference in nucleotide concentration between between nucleus and cytoplasma, further indicating free diffusion.

Not quite, for DNA synthesis deoxy-ATP (and the respective other nucleotides) is used. Also ATP-dependent energy transfer is normally limited to a single phosphate residue (i.e. from ATP to ADP). Whereas during DNA polymerization PPi is removed. But yes, the principle is very similar.

In fact, Paul Davies, a Templeton award winning physicist argued that there may be life on earth based on different properties but biologists are too focused on DNA based lifeforms to recognize them. Not that I would be inclined to agree, but it highlights that this is an ongoing discussion (with different levels of quality, of course).

The nucleotides hang around. Not the pure bases. Also remember that the volume is rather low.

Actually it is easy. You have to think more in terms of mechanism. On which part does a competitive inhibitor bind on the enzyme, and where doe allosteric inhibitors bind?

Should be in homework. Why not just write down the Lambert-Beer law and start plug in the numbers. Or ask if there is confusion to what is what.

Yus. Why a slap in the face when you can have electrocution collars?

Good points.

The text is very vague. I doubt that transport mechanisms are meant, as on the biological side it is more a conformational change more than anything else. Viruses do have exporters, to introduce genetic material into host cells, for instance. More classically it may refer to motor proteins of any kind (actin-mysosin for example). But again, the text except is rather too imprecise for my taste. Maybe passages before that hint at what they may be actually talking about.

All cells require potential across the membrane. But not an action potential. Membrane potentials are also involved in energy generation, however this is done across the mitochondrial membrane (or the cell membrane in case of prokaryotes.

Ionic interaction in the broadest sense. pH changes lead to protonation or deprotonation of reactive groups. These can change the the interaction of the amino acids within the proteins and hence the overall structure. It does not necessarily need to denaturation (i.e. loss of secondary and tertiary structure), but it may lead to a conformation that is less active than the optimal one. In other words, the optimal pH of an enzyme is when the charge load of the protein results in the stabilization of the structure with the optimal activity.

Geez, this is a long thread. I really do not have the time to read through all of this but it appears to me that its intended to be an early form of a research proposal. In this case it has to be scrutinized more carefully than a regular hypothesis that one just throws in as one of the function of a proposal is to demonstrate the relevance of the work to be conducted. As such, strong background information (aka preliminary results and literature data) that support the central hypotheses of the proposal are essential. Of course, it cannot be expected that posts on a forum will equal a research proposal of any level. Nonetheless if let students write a short proposal of any kind, I expect roughly the following elements: Background: what is the problem/question to be answered, to what is it related and what is new about it? Which knowledge gap is there? Central hypothesis: what is the proposal based on? What is the rationale behind it and what supports the hypothesis? Specific aims: How do they relate to the central hypothesis and how do they answer the proposed questions. There have been a lot of comments already and as mentioned, I have not read them all. But based on the initial post there is little evidence that supports the assumption (or central hypothesis) that perception preference correlates with certain facial features. As noted, proposals need a basis and this is not provided sufficiently in the post. The remainder of the post deals with specific without establishing the basis first. In other words, you would first have to find good reasons for your central point before more detailed analysis would begin to make sense. In other words, unless you find literature data, you would have to design an experiment that would demonstrate that there is a strong correlation with perception type and facial features. This requires a very strong design that would account for any number of confounding factors, utilizes the right statistics etc. The problem is that in the remainder of the post you already jump to possible mechanisms without establishing the basis first. Research generally takes small steps to succeed.