4 ms·

The Database of Useful Biological Numbers

55 points by apsec112 6y ago

d0dgercapybara 6y ago
Cool.
onychomys 6y ago
Searching for kangaroo ended me up on this pdf table [0] of the percent of lactose in non-domestic mammal milk. Sadly, the table is null on that exact measure, although they do have data on the amount of fat and protein in kangaroo milk. https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/files/The%20gross%20composition%20of%20mammalian%20milk.pdf https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/files/The%20gross%20compo...
motohagiography 6y ago
Reminds me of Prime Curios, which is trivia about prime numbers. https://primes.utm.edu/curios/ https://primes.utm.edu/curios/ They could make an interesting mash-up. Like a Vornoi scale made of prime numbers with the occurrence of biological numbers between them. It's well into the territory of a weird gematria at that point, but in terms of looping people into studying them with trivia, it would be fun.
data_acquired 6y ago
This is a more useful resource than one would think. When I switched from studying math to biology, I was surprised that most graduate biology textbooks never provided these basic numbers --- average diffusion time of a protein across a cell, for instance --- which really helps in making back-of-the-envelope calculations.
hardlianotion 6y ago
I'm a little sorry I clicked on "Net population change in North American birds" https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=117281&ver=3&trm=&org= https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=117281&...
- csa 6y ago
  Could someone with knowledge of birds and/or the methodology explain why the confidence intervals for the coasts and Arctic tundra biomes are so wide? Are those bird populations just that difficult to count or estimate, is the data set just insanely small (if so, why?), or is there some other reason?
sva_ 6y ago
Fascinating. > Length of neuron from base of spine to big toe-longest cell in human body > Range ≤1 meter https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=104901&ver=11&trm=&org= https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=104901&...
EngrRavi 6y ago
The full database (27 MB) can be downloaded from: https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/resources.aspx https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/resources.aspx It is a surprisingly simple single excel sheet or a single table with 14,248 rows. I was expecting an SQLite database with multiple relationally linked tables. Anyway the simplicity and the fact that it is a single spreadsheet makes it easy to browse through, and for most rows, a reference is provided. Note to the maintainers: The last 3-4 entries are spam.
xyzzy21 6y ago
Why do they need to refrigerate COVID mRNA vaccines? Because the mean lifetime of mRNA is 5 minutes (at body temperature). Arrhenius acceleration (or deceleration) with cold temperatures is the only viable trick. But even then, it's going to disappear quickly once it hits a target cell and the liposome is absorbed. Probably not a great half-life even then. https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=108592&ver=4&trm=lifetime&org= https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=108592&...
- tmearnest 6y ago
  No this is due to degradation from nucleases. In fact the number you linked is specific to bacteria. Lifetime of mRNA in eukaryotes is on the order of hours, and this is due to active degradation as well.
tmearnest 6y ago
If this is interesting to y’all, I highly recommend checking out their book Cell Biology By The Numbers. It’s lots of numbers like in this database, but with the hows and whys. http://book.bionumbers.org/ http://book.bionumbers.org/

55 points by apsec112 6y ago

Cool.

Searching for kangaroo ended me up on this pdf table [0] of the percent of lactose in non-domestic mammal milk. Sadly, the table is null on that exact measure, although they do have data on the amount of fat and protein in kangaroo milk. https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/files/The%20gross%20composition%20of%20mammalian%20milk.pdf https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/files/The%20gross%20compo...

motohagiography 6y ago

Reminds me of Prime Curios, which is trivia about prime numbers. https://primes.utm.edu/curios/ https://primes.utm.edu/curios/ They could make an interesting mash-up. Like a Vornoi scale made of prime numbers with the occurrence of biological numbers between them. It's well into the territory of a weird gematria at that point, but in terms of looping people into studying them with trivia, it would be fun.

data_acquired 6y ago

This is a more useful resource than one would think. When I switched from studying math to biology, I was surprised that most graduate biology textbooks never provided these basic numbers --- average diffusion time of a protein across a cell, for instance --- which really helps in making back-of-the-envelope calculations.

hardlianotion 6y ago

I'm a little sorry I clicked on "Net population change in North American birds" https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=117281&ver=3&trm=&org= https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=117281&...

csa 6y ago
Could someone with knowledge of birds and/or the methodology explain why the confidence intervals for the coasts and Arctic tundra biomes are so wide? Are those bird populations just that difficult to count or estimate, is the data set just insanely small (if so, why?), or is there some other reason?

sva_ 6y ago

Fascinating. > Length of neuron from base of spine to big toe-longest cell in human body > Range ≤1 meter https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=104901&ver=11&trm=&org= https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=104901&...

EngrRavi 6y ago

The full database (27 MB) can be downloaded from: https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/resources.aspx https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/resources.aspx It is a surprisingly simple single excel sheet or a single table with 14,248 rows. I was expecting an SQLite database with multiple relationally linked tables. Anyway the simplicity and the fact that it is a single spreadsheet makes it easy to browse through, and for most rows, a reference is provided. Note to the maintainers: The last 3-4 entries are spam.

xyzzy21 6y ago

Why do they need to refrigerate COVID mRNA vaccines? Because the mean lifetime of mRNA is 5 minutes (at body temperature). Arrhenius acceleration (or deceleration) with cold temperatures is the only viable trick. But even then, it's going to disappear quickly once it hits a target cell and the liposome is absorbed. Probably not a great half-life even then. https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=108592&ver=4&trm=lifetime&org= https://bionumbers.hms.harvard.edu/bionumber.aspx?id=108592&...

tmearnest 6y ago
No this is due to degradation from nucleases. In fact the number you linked is specific to bacteria. Lifetime of mRNA in eukaryotes is on the order of hours, and this is due to active degradation as well.

tmearnest 6y ago

If this is interesting to y’all, I highly recommend checking out their book Cell Biology By The Numbers. It’s lots of numbers like in this database, but with the hows and whys. http://book.bionumbers.org/ http://book.bionumbers.org/