All articles starting with B

Biodiversity hotspot

Biodiversity hotspots are regions with at least 1,500 endemic vascular plant species that have lost at least 70% of original vegetation; 36 are designated, covering 2.5% of land and holding nearly 60% of plant and vertebrate species, a concept originated by Norman Myers in 1988.

Biodiversity loss

Biodiversity loss is the reduction of genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity, driven by habitat loss, overexploitation, invasive species, pollution, and climate change; up to 1 million species are threatened, and the Kunming-Montreal framework targets 30% protection by 2030.

Biodiversity Park (Argentina)

Biodiversity Park (Parque de la Biodiversidad): two Argentine sites of this name, the 17-hectare former Córdoba Zoo turned wildlife rescue and education park (reopened 2023, Ente BioCórdoba) and a 10-hectare protected landscape in Rivadavia, San Juan, from a 1979 fish-culture station.

Biodosimetry

Biodosimetry estimates a person's absorbed radiation dose by measuring biological markers, most often chromosome aberrations in blood lymphocytes, using calibration curves; the dicentric assay has been the gold standard since the mid-1960s.

Biodynamic agriculture

Biodynamic agriculture: esoteric organic farming founded on Rudolf Steiner's 1924 Koberwitz Agriculture Course (GA 327), using biodynamic preparations, the farm-organism principle, and Demeter certification across roughly 6,900 farms and 253,000 hectares.

Biodynamic wine

Biodynamic wine is wine from grapes farmed by Rudolf Steiner's 1924 biodynamic system, certified mainly by Demeter (founded 1932), covering about 1% of world vineyards, with stricter cellar rules than organic wine and contested scientific evidence.

Oct 10, 2026

Bioeconomics

Bioeconomics is a school of economic thought founded by Romanian economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, treating the economy as a physical process bound by thermodynamic limits to growth.

Bioelectrical impedance analysis

Bioelectrical impedance analysis, also called bioimpedance, is a simple, inexpensive method for estimating total body water, fat-free mass, and fat mass from the body's electrical impedance.

Bioelectrical impedance vector analysis

Bioelectrical impedance vector analysis (BIVA), or impedance vector analysis, is a body composition method proposed by Antonio Piccoli in 1994 that assesses hydration and nutrition without prediction equations.

Oct 15, 2026

Bioelectricity

Bioelectricity is the generation and flow of electric currents and voltages in living organisms, carried by mobile charged ions across cell membranes and along cells' ionic environment.

Oct 22, 2026

Bioelectrocatalysis

Bioelectrocatalysis is the acceleration of electrochemical reactions by biological catalysts, chiefly redox enzymes or whole cells, combining biocatalytic selectivity with the energy efficiency of electrochemistry.

Bioelectromagnetics

Bioelectromagnetics is the study of how electromagnetic fields interact with living systems, spanning static fields through radiofrequency up to light, with applications including MRI and transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Bioencapsulation

Bioencapsulation encloses biologically active molecules or living cells within a protective, semipermeable polymer matrix or membrane that preserves their activity and controls release, notably immunoprotecting transplanted cells without immunosuppression.

Bioenergetic analysis

Bioenergetic analysis is a body-oriented psychotherapy founded by Alexander Lowen and colleagues in New York in 1956, combining verbal therapy with breathing, movement, and stress positions to release chronic muscular tension.

Bioenergetics

Bioenergetics is the biochemistry field studying energy flow and transformation in living systems, centered on ATP and the chemiosmotic theory Peter Mitchell proposed in 1961, for which he won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Oct 15, 2026

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a carbon dioxide removal technology in which biomass produces energy and the resulting CO₂ is captured and stored geologically.

Bioengineered

Bioengineered is a Taylor & Francis fully open access journal on bioengineering and biotechnology, formerly Bioengineered Bugs (2010), MEDLINE-indexed, suspended for new submissions in 2025 over paper mill investigations.

Bioequivalence

Bioequivalence is the demonstration that two drug products with the same active ingredient are absorbed at the same rate and extent, the basis for approving generics.

Oct 15, 2026

Bioerosion

Bioerosion is the removal of hard substrate such as rock, limestone, and coral carbonate by the direct action of organisms, through boring, grazing, etching, and dissolution.

Bioerosion of coral reefs

Bioerosion of coral reefs: removal of reef calcium carbonate by organisms such as excavating sponges, parrotfish, and sea urchins via boring, grazing, and chemical dissolution; accelerated by ocean acidification and nutrients, it can tip reefs into net erosion.

Bioethics

Bioethics is the interdisciplinary study of ethical, legal, and social issues in the life sciences and health care, also called biomedical ethics. It arose in the late 1960s around the Hastings Center, centers on the four principles of principlism, and spans research, clinical, public health, and AI ethics.

Biofabrication

Biofabrication is the automated generation of biologically functional products from living cells, biomaterials, and bioactive molecules, central to tissue engineering and bioprinting; its namesake IOP journal, founded 2009 (ISSN 1758-5082), is the field's flagship venue.

Biofeedback

Biofeedback: therapy using real-time displays of physiological signals (EMG, heart rate variability, skin conductance, EEG, temperature) to teach voluntary self-regulation; strongest evidence for migraine, tension headache, and post-prostatectomy incontinence; neurofeedback is its EEG-based subset.

Biofertilizer

Biofertilizer (microbial inoculant): products of living or dormant bacteria, fungi, or algae that fix nitrogen or solubilize soil nutrients. First commercialized as Nitragin in 1895; global meta-analyses show ~16% average yield gains; Brazil uses them on over 90% of soybean acres.

Biofilm

Biofilm: structured microbial communities embedded in a self-produced extracellular polymeric matrix on surfaces, also called EPS biofilms. Distinguished by antibiotic tolerance, persister cells, and a role in about 65-80% of microbial and chronic infections.

Biofilm regulator BssR

BssR (formerly YliH, gene bssR) is a 127-amino-acid regulatory protein of Escherichia coli K-12 that represses biofilm formation in glucose-containing media by modulating indole and AI-2 quorum-sensing signals.

Biofilm-associated metzincin protease inhibitor

Biofilm-associated metzincin protease inhibitor (BamI, PA2782, UniProt Q9I061) is a 219-aa Pseudomonas aeruginosa protein that binds and inhibits the biofilm-secreted metzincin protease Mep72, its coregulated adjacent gene product, preventing premature protease activity until secretion.