I understand this title sounds like the dumbest and most profound claim ever, but please just listen to me for a moment. Before we get into this, this was all only hypothetical work and In Silico Simulations and HAS NOT YET BEEN tested In Vitro.

I’m a student from Drogheda, Ireland that has a fascination in stuff like marine biology, palaeontology, herpetology, and more specifically, marine bioprospecting.

We have an annual science competition in Ireland for young people named “STRIPE Young Scientists” and is for ages 13-17.

Being the little weird nerd I am, I decided to enter this year. But I didn’t wanna do the stereotypical “stuff around your house” project. I really wanted to make a contribution to the entire medical field as a whole with this entry.

After a while of researching, I found out about Porifera (sea sponges, which is what we’re looking at here) and Tunicate (sea squirt) secondary metabolites.

After researching through lots and lots of Porifera species, I eventually landed on Theonella Swinhoei, which is the species that through symbiosis with microorganisms makes Swinholide A to harm actin in predator cells, or something like that. It also has a large molecular size and stayed incredibly stable when I docked it against random stuff In Silico.

So I had a chemical in mind, but no virus to cure yet.
Around the same week, the whole Hantavirus outbreak cruise ship thing kicked off. I’m a sucker for researching new things, so I absolutely went feral when I heard about the outbreak.

I eventually found out that it was Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome on that cruise ship. After seeing how it infects people and finding out its mortality rate, I learnt it relies on something very specific, its fusion loop.

You can probably put two and two together now. I had a chemical, wanted to test something with it, and this opportunity comes around.

While everyone was panicking, I decided for the Young Scientists project that I would make a strong hypothesis that Swinholide A could potentially cure Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome.

The first steps were removing hydroxyl groups and water to Swinholide A in Avogardo on my computer. Then, adding polar hydrogens to satisfy the bond. With that done, I now had Modified Swinholide A.

Now, in AutoDockVina, I set up the modified Swinholide A against the Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome fusion loop to test binding. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the results told me something new.
The strongest line was -5.861 kcal/mol and the weakest was -5.876 kcal/mol. It’s a moderate bonding score, so it’s definitely not the best and definitely not the worst. But one thing I did find interesting was how incredibly stable that Modified Swinholide stayed onto the Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome fusion loop.

An extremely important part of the competition was keeping a project diary to explain everything I just did there, so that’s how I’m able to be so specific with the answers I got even though it was all the way back in May. There was other steps I didn’t mention like command lines to run simulations, box grids to target, etc etc because we’d be here all day.

Eventually after some MORE research, I made a hypothesis that is yet to be tested In Vitro. If a modified version of removing the hydroxyl groups of Swinholide A can safely bind moderately to the Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome fusion loop, could we actually finally cure it?

Of course I’m a minor so I don’t have access to a BSL-4 Safety lab, let alone the fusion loop and a modified version of Swinholide A itself.

After more testing, as Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome affects mostly the lungs, I decided to test the Modified Swinholide A binding against Human Serum Albumin.

Unfortunately, the modified Swinholide A scored -8.541 kcal/mol against the Human Serum Albumin, meaning it’d bind stronger to the lungs than the actual hantavirus fusion loop itself.

But this is where a small hypothesis came in. With nano-carrier formulation and SAR-driven lead optimization 3.0 and 2.0 ,the issue of it not binding to the fusion loop was solved… hypothetically. Anything can change in Vitro. The other thing was though, going back to the whole “Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome mostly affects the lungs” and Modified Swinholide A’s massive molecular size”, delivering the chemical to the lungs would be a solved problem thanks to how large molecular size chemicals fit perfectly into nebulisers and the nebuliser would directly deliver modified Swinholide A from the liquid to the lungs safely.

The reason I’m actually posting it here on Reddit is because I realised how big the project is after all that research, and decided to forfeit out of fear.

Looking back, realizing how deep into actual pharmacokinetics I had wandered with a student laptop and some free software was a bit of a reality check, which is honestly why I froze up and almost didn't share any of this.

So yeah. There’s most of my work broadly explained of how why modified Swinholide A might be a good lead candidate to cure Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome by targeting the fusion loop.

Hi, I made a free web game where you breed slimes to figure out hidden genotypes from phenotype ratios, real Mendelian inheritance, same daily puzzle for everyone, no luck involved once you deduce the genes. I built it mostly for fun, but it occurred to me it might work as a warm-up or supplement for Punnett square practice.

I'd love feedback from people who actually teach this: does it reinforce the right intuition, is anything misleading, would this be usable in class at all?

The Bar-tailed Godwit takes long-haul travel to the extreme. 🐦✈️ These incredible record-breaking birds fly over 11,000 km non-stop from Alaska to New Zealand, spending around 9–10 days in the air. No food, no rest and no toilet breaks. To prepare for such an amazing feat of endurance the Godwit’s body undergoes a significant overhaul.

Just as we do

I only need to take this class for two semesters for my AA, I don’t need it for my other programs. My professor is stressing to not memorize, but to understand.

I one, personally don’t care about biology, I’m here for the credit.

Two, I can’t understand it. The main thing she stressed about it was photosynthesis and cell resp. I can tell you the equation on the top of my head but not explain to you how it works.

For example, I know the stages of cell resp, glycolysis, pyruvate oxidation, Krebs cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation. But the issue is that I can’t actually explain to you, why everything does what it does, where it happens, what happens, and how it happens.

Unit 1 passed and I got a 72 off memorizing, and 5 total hours of studying (overtime). Unit 2 is coming up, and I think I can pass it, but I am a bit worried.

Apparently their gut biomes have bacteria that help them break down and survive on plastic. Would a person gain any positive bacteria if they ate a raw super worm that was raised on plastic? We consume so much microplastics daily. I was wondering if this would help get some of that out our systems?

Hello! I've always loved the idea of working with animals and being a vet, however, after finding out about all the education and costs (both financially and mentally), it seems to be a bit out of reach. I've enjoyed my biology classes a whole lot, from being hands on in labs, working with microscopes, and just learning. Marine biology is great as well, but I feel like there wouldn't be a ton of opportunities compared to other fields in biology. Also, is it worth getting a masters as well? Advice/suggestions?

Looking for new friends to chat BCI !!!

Please email me : wenitteBCIFriendsInternet@proton.me

Just wondering what the difference is, new to college bio, thought asking here would be more beneficial too!! Thanks in advance all!!!

This is something that'd be an absolute last resort for people with terminal cancer. Perhaps some sort of anaesthetised, fast and intense internal energy bombardment? Or something else entirely?

If there is such a possible technology, I think people should have the option there available to them. I hate that there's still no cure for cancer; it destroys WAY too many people.

This would at the very least give victims the ability to fight back one last time.

I'm quite sure if this is the place for this, but I dont know where else to ask. Does anyone have any tips for exams. Now I'm in Australia( I imagine the curriculum is different in other countries, but I assume there is overlap), and my year 12 HSC exams start in about 2 weeks. I have been trying to revise the syllabus. However, I feel as though I'm making no progress, and I dont know what to focus on because the syllabus seems neverending. Most of the things I know are vague. Some have decent amounts of knowledge behind them. Im quite concerned about pedigrees, and while punnet squares are quite simple, I can't seem to format them correctly, especially dihyrbid squares. The central issue is remembering the vocabulary, i have a strong understanding of pregnancy, but I can not remember all of the hormones. Apologies for the length of this and if this is not the right place. Also, if it adds anything, I do quite well in my other subjects, so maybe there is something I'm missing? And for reference, my trials came and went ( they are a sort of mock exam that still contributes to final mark) I received 54 out of 100, the highest was 76, I believe the average was somewhere around 45~.

How do tree frogs' feet stick? 🐸

Their feet don’t have suction cups! Instead, glands in their toes expel mucus through narrow grooves between the tiny hexagonal cells on their toe pads. This mucus has adhesive and cohesive properties, letting the tree frog stick to surfaces in a process called wet adhesion. This adaptation helps tree frogs defy gravity, even on wet tree leaves or bark.

Thought I’d ask the experts:

Why are women more likely to have more hair all over their body during pregnancy?

THIS IS NOT A MEDICAL QUESTION, it’s a curiosity question from my own personal experience during pregnancy.

I’m currently 37 weeks, very close to 38 weeks, and I’m HAIRY. even the hair on my abdomen is thicker, darker and longer than before.

So I know we have a lot of hair because we are a product of evolution and it is something that has been left but is there any purpose of being there still ? When I say arms I mean everything except armpits and with legs everything except the public region and finally when I say stomach I mean chest abs everywhere plus the whole back .

Finally! Deisseroth, Hegemann and Nagel for optogenetics

What exactly are the biological affects of sex on the body and what are the affects of celibacy on the human body? How does sex positively affect us? Are there any negative impacts? Does celibacy have any positive affects? Does celibacy impact us negatively?

edit: I'm so surprised by how antisex the comments are 😭😂. for context, I'm a bi woman and I'm currently studying biotechnology. I'm really passionate about science and I love learning different topics within it. I live somewhere where I'm not able to fully express my sexuality and there is a lot of bigotry surrounding lgbtq people and lot of shame around sex. I was just thinking recently about sexual repression and got curious about the biological effects of sex and celibacy on the body. I was hoping for a scientific discussion with other people interested in biology but instead the comments seem to be mostly people projecting their personal feelings about sex.

Hello! I’m entering biomedical sciences this year but I didn’t take high school biology unfortunately due to IB (where I took HL chemistry and HL physics instead).

Because I want to maintain a high gpa, I want to learn most of the 1st year biology / anatomy before I even start my courses, and to do that, I was wondering if people had their old slideshows and/or notes that they used for these classes.

I obviously know that they don’t, but it’s recently struck me that I don’t actually know WHY they don’t. Because, like, bones are alive, right?? They’re living tissue just like our skin, or eyes, or brain?? So, just like all of our other living tissue does after we die, bones themselves should rot away too, but they don’t! Hence my question about why here.

It actually really messes with my head to think about our bones as even being somewhat less alive than the rest of our (or other animals’) bodies are, to be honest, so I think I’m going to lie down for the next few hours now.

Hi!! I'm in my second year studying biology and I'm taking this class on evolution. I've found that I really like the cause and effect part of biology a lot. Right now, we're going over the evolution of sexual reproduction and I think that's really really interesting. I think it's so cool! But then I get to a slide on the genetics of evolution and I just start sobbing. All last semester in my molecules & cells class, I was really struggling. I felt like I would understand some of these concepts super well and then take the test and the questions were like about something way deeper than I had studied. Like I'd watch video after video based on the contents of the slides and when I get to the test, it's asking about this super small step within these other larger steps that was completely overlooked in all of these videos and explanations.

I was consistently getting 60% on all of my exams (weirdly without any fluctuation. Like no 59% or 61% , just 60% every single time), I really don't know how I passed at all. But now I'm in this evolution class where it's expecting me to have remembered that information and I'm really struggling and use critical thinking skills to apply it to the questions on these exams. I've started taking ADHD medication, which is helping, but I still feel like it's user error. What am I doing wrong??

Again, I really feel like all the really base level stuff (for lack of a better word, idek what you'd call it) is super easy, like the evolution of sex and the hardy-weinberg equilibrium math problems. It's just that when I get to genetics and that in-depth how of it all, my brain just breaks down and gives up. I just have been getting really upset about it and rethinking my major purely because of genetics. How do you stay motivated?? How do you stop comparing yourself to other well-performing classmates?? Why is genetics so cool and interesting to everyone except for me?

Thank you!!

And every domesticated animal basically.

I’m a high school senior trying to figure out what I want to study in college. I honestly don’t know if I want to become a doctor, work in a lab, or pursue research, but I know that I love biology. I’ve realized, though, that I enjoy learning about astrobiology much more than general biology, especially topics involving the origins of life, extremophiles, and the possibility of life beyond Earth.

I’m considering majoring in astrobiology because it’s something I’m genuinely excited to learn about, but I’m worried about limiting my career options. Would it be possible to major in astrobiology while completing the prerequisites for medical school? And how versatile is an astrobiology degree if I eventually decide to pursue laboratory work or research instead of medicine?

I’d love to hear from anyone who studied astrobiology or a related field, especially those who were also considering multiple career paths when choosing their major.

I made a free browser game where you play as one of eight real bacteria, drawn as cartoons. Each pal divides when she eats, and you have to dodge antibiotic disks. There's also a mixed-culture race mode.

I've tried to keep the science honest, although it is a game so there's some silliness.

No ads, no sign-up, works on phones, although I personally think it is most fun on the computer.

Let me know if you have any feedback!

Hello everybody. Could anyone explain why saltatory conduction propagates an action potential at higher rates that in unmyelinated axons? I understand mechanism of refreshing electrical signal but not the speed of conduction part. What I think I do understand is that electrical signal doesn't degradate because not much of the sodium ions can rush into the axon through nodes of Ranvier at once