We believe that behind every invention and discovery there is always a curious mind working. This section of BioNE, is dedicated to all those young curious minds who have been thinking and working on unexplored possibilities in the horizon of biological sciences. Today’s learning process is no longer confined in books, rather it is based on questioning beyond the existing knowledge and searching for relevant answers. Here, we are inviting all those curious minds to put up questions and bring up a joint platform to share their ideas. Please mail your questions to bione@vetbifg.ac.in

Question: Why yawning is contagious? – Bhaswati Chakraborty, Class XII, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Khanapara

Answer: Yawning is not contagious. It’s an involuntary imitation that we do when we see someone else yawning. It is not that only humans involuntarily copy yawning. It has also been observed in dogs and chimpanzees.

Question: Exactly when and how did life on earth originate? – Bijitashya Kashyap, Class XI (B), Kendriya Vidyalaya, Khanapara

Answer: Our earth is 4.5 billion years old. The oldest form of fossil that could be recovered so far signifying the start of life is 4.2 billion years old. These fossils of extremophiles were found on the thermal vents. However, life probably started much before that with step by step process of evolution.

Question: Can we achieve immortality and can we cure cancer as cancer cells are immortal? –Bedanta Ingty, XI (B), Kendriya Vidyalaya, Khanapara

Answer: Immortality is still unachievable when we consider cells at tissue, organ or at the whole organism level. Ageing is a multi-factorial complex process, which has not yet been fully understood. Research is also ongoing to identify the interactions among genetic, environmental, lifestyle, behavioral, and social factors and their influence on the initiation and progression of age-related diseases and degenerative conditions. Curing cancer is enterily a different issue where cells replicate in an unregulated manner. But important to consider here is that individual cells are not immortal. They do die. We call it immortal as they maintain their line by continuous division.

Question: Is there any similarity between human and pig heart? – Farnaz Nashrin, XII, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Khanapara

Answer:  Similar to the human heart, a pig heart also consists of four chambers: two atriums and two ventricles, and has four valves and an aorta. Due to these similarities, blood within the heart of both the species circulates in the same way. Although the possibility of xenotransplantation (transplation between two different species) of heart from pigs to humans is being explored, the pig heart is little bit larger than the human heart. The average weight of a human heart is 266.5 g, whereas the same of a pig heart is 302.8 g. There are also some other anatomical differences between the two. The biggest difference is that – in humans, the left atrium receives four pulmonary veins, whereas in pig, it receives two pulmonary veins.