SMELL

Blood pressure is the force of blood against the walls of arteries. Blood pressure is recorded as two numbers—the systolic pressure (as the heart beats) over the diastolic pressure (as the heart relaxes between beats). The measurement is written one above or before the other, with the systolic number on top and the diastolic number on the bottom. For example, a blood pressure measurement of 120/80 mm Hg (millimeters of mercury) is expressed verbally as “120 over 80.”

Each person has five sense organs that take in information from your environment and send it to your brain. Your brain then processes the information and tells your body how to respond. The sense organs are your eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin.

The Rh Factor

The Reproductive System

• At birth, a girl baby has about 400,000 immature eggs, or ova, in her ovaries.
• During puberty the eggs begin to mature. Each month one egg ripens and leaves the ovary. It passes through a fallopian tube where, if not fertilized by a sperm, it disintegrates. The uterus, which has built up tissue and blood to make a nourishing nest for the egg, sheds its lining about a week after the egg disintegrates. This is the event known as menstruation, or the menstrual period.
• Gestation begins when an egg that has been released from the ovary is fertilized by a sperm. The result is pregnancy and the eventual birth of a child.
• Lactation is the production of milk in a woman's breasts to feed her newborn child.
• Menopause is when a woman's ovaries gradually stop functioning. Menstruation ceases, and this marks the end of the years that she can bear children.
  

What's the Difference?

Circulatory System

Introduction

Here is a diagram of the human brain. For your GCSE biology you should be able to label this diagram and explain what the various parts do. There are three main regions of the brain: the fore-brain (green), mid-brain (red), and hind-brain (blue).

CNS

Here is some simple information for GCSE biology students about the different types of muscle tissues and why muscles work in antagonistic pairs.

A mammoth discovery in 1705 sparked a fossil craze and gave the young United States a symbol of national might 

Understanding this primal form of communication is no laughing matter for scientists.

Laughter isn't dependent on a single sense but on social interactions.
Tay Jir/Digital Vision

• Laughter is a primal form of communication that is not unique to humans.
• Only 10 to 15 percent of laughter is the result of someone making a joke.
• Laughter itself hasn't been proven to be the best medicine.

The nation's offshore wind power will equal all existing onshore wind farms by 2020

China Offshore Wind Power Let's kick the turbines and, um, collect some wind power Sinovel

When a star dies, there are a few different forms the stellar corpse can take. Now researchers have added another variety of 'dead' star to the list: the electroweak star.

The mission to stockpile the space station also brings a record number of women (four) to space.

Space Shuttle Discovery lifts-off from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. April 5, 2010.
Associated Press

THE GIST:

• Space Shuttle Discovery launched into orbit early Monday.
• The mission will stockpile supplies to the International Space Station.
• Once combined, the shuttle and station crews will number 13.

Wild Bactrian, or two-humped, camels are extraordinary creatures.  They also are very rare—at most, 950 remain in the wild, though this number may be much lower, since their broad habitat has made obtaining accurate population counts difficult.  A number of human factors have contributed to their decline, including hunting for food and sport and nuclear testing and illegal mining activity within their native habitats in Mongolia and China.  These human-induced reductions have resulted in an increased risk of further decline of wild Bactrian populations from natural causes, such as climate change and predation.

Wolf-dog hybrids are becoming increasingly popular as household pets. But the rise in their sales in the United Kingdom and recent reports of escaped hybrids killing small dogs and threatening humans in the United States have renewed concerns about whether these animals should continue to be bred and sold to the public.

What you need to know

Regions of the kidney

How the kidney works

Osmoregulation is the control of the levels of water and mineral salts in the blood. It is a homeostatic mechanism. There are three important homeostatic mechanisms: osmoregulation, thermoregulation and regulation of blood sugar levels. Homeostasis is important because it results in our cells being bathed in tissue fluid which has the correct amount of water, mineral salts, glucose and temperature.
INDEX
Dehydration
Waterlogging
What happens if you drink too much beer?
Water gain
Water loss
Glossary

Hormones are chemical messengers. They are secreted into the blood by endocrine organs. They are carried around the body in the blood system to "target organs" which are controlled by specific hormones. Insulin is produced by the islets of Langerhans (small groups of cells in the pancreas); these islets (little islands) are endocrine organs. Insulin has an effect on the liver: it makes the liver convert glucose into glycogen. The liver stores glycogen.

You need to know about three things:

Enzymes are biological catalysts: this means that they speed up the chemical reactions in living things. Without enzymes, our guts would take weeks and weeks to digest our food, our muscles, nerves and bones would not work properly and so on - we would not be living!

This is just a beginning: some information on glucose, fructose and sucrose. More sugars will be added to this page in due course.
Structural Formulae:

Here is a diagram of a vertical slice through your mouth. You should be able to label the diagram and explain what the various parts do.

 
Labels

1. nasal cavity
2. hard palate
3. soft palate
4. pharynx
5. tongue
6. epiglottis
7. oesophagus (gullet)
8. trachea (windpipe)
9. salivary gland
10. lower jaw
11. mouth
12. nostril

1. Carbohydrates: these provide a source of energy.
2. Proteins: these provide a source of materials for growth and repair.
3. Fats: these provide a source of energy and contain fat soluble vitamins.
4. Vitamins: these are required in very small quantities to keep you healthy.
5. Mineral Salts: these are required for healthy teeth, bones, muscles etc..
6. Fibre: this is required to help your intestines function correctly; it is not digested.
7. Balanced Diets: we must have the above items in the correct proportions.

There are two stages in a heart beat. They are called systole and diastole. For your GCSE biology exam you should be able to label a diagram of the heart, put arrows on the diagram to show how blood flows through the heart, and explain how the muscles and valves force blood through the heart. You should also know that the left hand side of the heart pumps blood from the lungs to the rest of the body and that the right hand side pumps blood from the body back to the lungs.

Mitosis is a special kind of cell division used by eukaryote cells. You will probably find a series of diagrams in your biology text book to show the stages of mitosis; these are:

• prophase
• metaphase
• anaphase
• telophase

You might get asked how this cell is specialised for its function. Well, this kind of cell is found in a leaf and it has many chloroplasts for photosynthesis.
Chloroplasts
Chloroplasts contain photosynthetic pigments. You have probably heard of "chlorophyll" which is needed for photosynthesis. If there was only one kind of photosynthetic pigment you would expect all green plants to be exactly the same shade of green, but they are not. This is because there are several different photosynthetic pigments and different plants have different amounts of each one and they are not all the same colour.

• Talk to the students about the type of flowers and plants they might see in the spring and summer time. Let the kids know that today they will be making plants for their very own summer garden to take home and look after.
  
• What kind of things will our garden plants need to survive? Sunlight, nutrients, water etc
  

• Ask the students if they think there city is particularly damp, why are some cities damper than others? Why do they have more moisture in the air? The reason often comes down to location and geography, where the city is located can make a big difference. If a city is built on or near a swamp area, moisture comes through the ground and eventually into people’s houses. Home owners might need to buy a dehumidifier to help improve this kind of situation.
  

• It is said that as far back as 10000 years ago people had a strong awareness of the importance of the head and brain.
  
• The word ‘brain’ originated from the ancient Egyptians.
  
• Early philosophers such as Socrates and Aristotle wrote and made theories regarding the human brain although Aristotle also believed that the heart played a crucial role in human intelligence.
  
• The human brain interprets the world around us in many different ways. These processes are researched in the study of neuroscience.
  

It’s bath-time. The perfect moment to teach your child about her skin! While you’re drying excess water off and sprinkling on some powder, you can ask your child if she knows what part of her body holds in her insides. Tell your child that this is just one function of our skin but that it has other jobs as well. Skin has a protective function, preventing us from infection and also contains cells that produce hair, sweat and oils and other substances that are important for our health and appearance.

Nothing beats watching your kids learn about something by direct observation. The wonder in their faces as they see a process unfold and “catch on" to principles that you have talked about is worth the time it takes to think about how to fashion the lesson! Along that line, in order to teach your children about frogs and their life cycle, why not let them actually watch a tadpole grow up?

I used to be a very shy person. Whenever I was around other people I would stress out. When in the company of more than one person, I was generally very quiet, and speaking to a group of even two or three friends was a difficult thing for me to do.

“Everything created solves a problem.” – Mike Murdock

Given the great response to the article “10 Amazing Life Lessons You Can Learn From Albert Einstein,” I’ve decided to publish the other seven lessons that I originally intended to include in that article. These were cut out because I feared the article was too long. However, I now believe that these seven lessons are even more profound than the original ten.

Have you ever felt exasperated when you bumped into someone at the store but absolutely couldn't remember their name? Sure, it happens to all of us.

There are two gifts I want to give you right now: more time and better sleep. To do this I will need your complete attention and an open mind. It's really not that hard but it does require a little self discipline, some patience and a willingness to make a few changes in your life.

Although we might still have the archetypal view of college life involving keg parties, frat houses and last-minute panics when a paper’s due, many of us integrate our studying into the rest of our lives. Whether you’re taking a PhD over many years or simply learning a foreign language before your trip this summer, your studying is going to take up time – and it needs to fit into your life.