Biology
Triggered by enzymes called caspases, this highly regulated process of "programmed cell death" is famously responsible for removing the webbing between human fingers during embryonic development.
What is apoptosis?
Giving vinegar its signature sour taste and pungent smell, this weak organic acid is typically diluted to about 5% to 8% by volume in the bottles you keep in your pantry.
What is acetic acid?
This polymath and rival of Isaac Newton not only formulated the law of elasticity for springs but was also the first to use the word "cell" to describe biological organisms after looking at cork.
Who is (Robert) Hooke?
According to this law, if you triple the distance between two point charges, the electrostatic force between them is reduced to exactly one-ninth of its original value.
What is Coulomb's Law?
This "vine that ate the south" was promoted by the soil conservation service in the 1930s to claim territory back from erosion.
What is Kudzu?
Because DNA polymerase can only synthesize in the 5' to 3' direction, the lagging strand during replication is built using these short, discontinuous segments.
What are Okazaki fragments?
This transition metal, which commonly takes on a +1 or +2 charge, is famous for forming compounds that dissolve in water to create a brilliant, bright blue solution.
What is Copper?
When analyzing motion in a rotating reference frame, this "fictitious" force must be included to account for the radial outward acceleration felt by an object, distinct from the Coriolis force.
What is the centrifugal force?
Because of their rapid breathing and high metabolism, these birds were famously used in coal mines as early warning systems for the presence of carbon monoxide.
What is a canary?
This UN agency is responsible for the MARPOL convention, which sets global standards to prevent marine pollution from ships, including oil, sewage, and air emissions.
What is the International Maritime Organization?
This large protein complex serves as the physical attachment point for spindle microtubules during cell division.
What is the kinetochore?
Formed by the natural radioactive decay of uranium in the soil, this odorless, invisible gas is a major health hazard because it can easily seep into and accumulate in poorly ventilated basements.
What is Radon?
Unlike apparent brightness, which changes depending on how far away an observer is, this intrinsic property measures the total actual amount of energy a star radiates into space every second.
What luminosity?
This synthetic radioactive isotope of a transition metal is a staple in "teletherapy," emitting high-energy gamma rays to destroy tumors by damaging the DNA of cancerous cells.
What is Cobalt(-60)?
This is the term for the often-contaminated liquid that forms as rainwater filters through a landfill, picking up dissolved or suspended matter from the waste.
What is leachate?
This photo-reversible regulatory protein exists in two forms, Pr and Pfr, allowing plants to detect day length and trigger physiological responses like flowering and seed germination.
What is the phytochrome?
After a billions-of-years-long radioactive decay chain that includes radium and radon, uranium ultimately stops decaying once it stabilizes into this heavy, dense metal.
What is lead?
This fundamental law of electromagnetism states that a changing magnetic field through a loop of wire will induce an electromotive force, or voltage, in that wire.
What is Faraday's Law?
Though it is a heavy metal, this element is the active ingredient in a famous pink antacid as a subsalicylate; it works by coating the stomach and inhibiting the growth of H. pylori bacteria.
What is Bismuth?
Adopted in 2015, this international treaty aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius—and preferably to 1.5 degrees—compared to pre-industrial levels.
What is the Paris Agreement?
Functioning like a microscopic film editor, this complex molecular machine operates inside the nucleus to cut non-coding "introns" out of messenger RNA and splice the "exons" back together.
What is the spliceosome?
Boasting the highest melting point of any pure metal, this element is famous for serving as the glowing filament inside traditional incandescent lightbulbs.
What is Tungsten?
First observed by its namesake in 1827 while looking at pollen grains in water, this random motion of particles provided the first physical proof of the existence of atoms in one of Einstein's 1905 papers.
What is Brownian Motion?
Final Jeopordy!
Though their group name once implied a total lack of reactivity, this specific element became the first of its kind to be successfully synthesized into a stable chemical compound in 1962, proving that the "Octet Rule" could indeed be broken.
While phytoremidiation is the general term for using plants to clean soil, this specific targeted sub-process involves using plants to stimulate microbial activity in the soil, effectively turning the roots to turn into a bioreactor to break down complex hydrocarbons.
What is rhizodegradation?