The 2003 Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal; David S. Hogness

Inductive reasoning is a form of logical thinking that uses related observations to arrive at a general conclusion. It is uncertain and operates in degrees to which the conclusions are credible. As such, inductive arguments can be weak or strong, rather than valid or invalid, and conclusions can be used to formulate testable, falsifiable hypotheses.Inductive reasoning is common in descriptive science. A life scientist makes observations and records them. This data can be qualitative or...

Hydrogen BondsHydrogen bonds are weak attractions between atoms that have formed other chemical bonds. One of these atoms is electronegative, like oxygen, and has a partial negative charge. The other is a hydrogen atom that has bonded with another electronegative atom and has a partial positive charge.Hydrogen Bonds Control the World!Because hydrogen has very weak electronegativity when it binds with a strongly electronegative atom, such as oxygen or nitrogen, electrons in the bond are...

When we hear a sound, our nervous system is detecting sound waves—pressure waves of mechanical energy traveling through a medium. The frequency of the wave is perceived as pitch, while the amplitude is perceived as loudness.

When organisms require the same limited resources within an environment, they may have to compete for them. Competition is a net-negative interaction. Even if two competing individuals or populations do not interact directly, the overall fitness of both competitors is lowered as a result of not having full access to the limited resource.Intraspecific competition, which occurs between individuals of the same species, serves as a natural mechanism for regulating population size. Too much...

The Frost circle or the inscribed polygon method is a graphical method for determining the relative energies of π molecular orbitals (MOs) for planar, fully conjugated, and monocyclic compounds. This method was first described by A. A. Frost and Boris Musulin in 1953.
A Frost circle is constructed by drawing a polygon whose number of edges is equal to the number of carbons of the given cyclic system, with one of the vertices pointing down. Then, a circle is drawn enclosing the polygon so that...