human biology - Is sperm contagious?

I'm unsure about the use of the word "contagious" here. If you would describe it as an organism "catching something" from another only once, this answer applies (vaguely perhaps).

One example of "contagious" sperm: sea urchins spray their sperm (called milt) into the surrounding water, so that it can hopefully fertilize roe, which are fish eggs. The eggs are also expulsed for some species, but for others they stay on the surface of the female sea urchin, as this Wikipedia article explains.

The gonads are lined with muscles underneath the peritoneum, and these allow the animal to squeeze its gametes through the duct and into the surrounding sea water where fertilization takes place.
...

In most cases, the eggs float freely in the sea, but some species hold onto them with their spines, affording them a greater degree of protection.

Thus, it's entirely possible for a female sea urchin to be bombarded by free-floating sperm, to ultimately fertilize the eggs on its surface. I don't know if one would strictly consider this a contagion, but it's what I initially thought of after reading the question.

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When referring to sexually transmitted disease however, sperm in itself is not contagious, as it would require the pathogen to "tag along with it" in whichever environment (whether it be airborne or aquatic). Also, if considering impregnation as "contagious", physical contact would certainly be required.

In short: For humans, no. For sea urchins (and likely other aquatic animals), sort of.

human biology - Why do we like salt?

In developed countries we usually consume enough salt (sodium to be exact) without actually adding table salt to food. Everything can become toxic when consumed in excess - even water - and when we frequently add more salt to foods, we tend to consume sodium in potentially harmful excess. That's what your friends are referring to.

However, salt (sodium) is one of the most essential substances your body needs to stay alive, for several reasons. One of the main purposes of sodium is the upkeep of blood's osmolarity (i.e. concentrations of osmotically active compounds. Higher salt concentration on one side of a permeable membrane attracts water to that side - I'm sure you've heard that before). There are numerous systems in your body to make sure the osmolarity of blood is correct. If they fail and blood becomes hypo or hypertonic, your cells will be sucked dry or pumped full of water and in either case, burst and die.

Look up the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system for example: when the kidney filters blood, it reabsorbs or lets through water depending on the current blood osmolarity; leading to higher or lower amount of higher or lower concentrated urine. You drink lots, your blood is diluted, it becomes less tonic, kidney registers that and lets water through more, you urinate more. There are many more elements involved there, including blood pressure, nerve signals stimulating thirst or hunger of different kinds, some hormones etc.

As you can see, there's a reason why the basic infusion given in hospitals to replace lost blood quickly isn't just water but normal saline.

Delayed update to pick up some side aspects of your description: 1) There are of course things that humans do which have absolutely no value to them whatsoever. Anything that plays into the feel-good-reward-circuit in our brain can become such an unhelpful habit. Take smoking and drug consumption as examples. 2) About evolutionary relevance: Being a key player in maintaining body function, evolution selected for instictively liking salt. Simultaneously, most people will not like food that is extremely salty - a protective mechanism against excess.

mars - How long would it take for earth's core to cool down and solidify?

At what rate is the earth's core cooling down?

The inner core is cooling at the rate of around $55^{circ} C$ every billion years.

Would earth go the same way as Mars by first losing its magnetic field followed by its atmosphere as its core solidifies and cools down ?

Given enough time, yes; But earth is constantly producing heat though multiple processes, the most important being the decay of radioactive elements with long half lives (for e.g., U-238 has a half life of around 4.5 billion years). As the present temperature of the inner core is estimated to be around $5000^{circ} C$, this is going to take tens of billions of years.

The magnetic fields are generated by eddy currents in the outer core, which is a liquid layer about 2,300 km thickness. The inner core is growing at the rate of about 1 mm per year, so it is going to 'freeze over' (i.e. solidify) in about 2.3 billion years. Without its liquid outer core, the Earth's magnetic field shuts down, and charged particles emanating from the Sun gradually deplete the atmosphere, like Mars.

Is it slow enough?

Well, it is not slow enough for the sun to become a red giant and fry earth, which will happen in 4 billion years or so. But is certainly doesn't matter as we won't be around to witness it.

heat - What Makes Stars Hot?

Stars do not get hot because of nuclear fusion, they become hot enough to sustain nuclear fusion and this process maintains their temperatures. Nuclear fusion actually stops a star getting hotter.

Protostars (before nuclear fusion) get hot because of a well known statistical relationship between the gravitational potential energy of a gas and the internal kinetic energy of the particles that make up the gas. [In an ideal gas, the kinetic energy of the particles is directly proportional to the temperature of the gas.] This is known as the virial theorem, which says that twice the summed kinetic energy of particles ($K$) plus the gravitational potential energy ($Omega$, which is a negative quantity for a bound object) equals zero.
$$ 2K + Omega = 0$$

Now you can write down the total energy of the system as
$$ E_{tot} = K + Omega$$
and hence from the virial theorem that
$$E_{tot} = frac{Omega}{2},$$
which is also negative.

If we now remove energy from the system, for instance by allowing the gas to radiate away energy, such that $Delta E_{tot}$ is negative, then we see that
$$Delta E_{tot} = frac{1}{2} Delta Omega$$

So $Omega$ becomes more negative - which is another way of saying that the protostar attains a more collapsed configuration.

Oddly, at the same time, we can use the virial theorem to see that
$$ Delta K = -frac{1}{2} Delta Omega = -Delta E_{tot}$$
is positive. i.e. the kinetic energies of particles in the gas (and hence their temperatures) actually become hotter. In other words, the gas has a negative heat capacity. But a hotter temperature usually means more radiation is produced and if the energy losses continue, then so does the collapse.

This process is ultimately arrested in a star by the onset of nuclear fusion. This replaces the radiative losses with nuclear energy and the star attains a quasi-equilibrium that lasts as long as it has nuclear fuel to burn.

evolution - What advantage would the initial 'donor' in horizontal gene transfer by conjugation have received?

I am struggling to think why horizontal gene transfer between bacteria would have persisted during the course of evolution as surely it puts the 'donor' at a disadvantage?

For example, consider a hypothetical situation where only one species of bacteria has a gene to resist a new (almost) omnipotent antibiotic. When growing on this medium, this species of bacteria has nil inter-specific competition for the resources it needs. Yet if it passes on the plasmid containing the resistance gene via conjugation to individuals of a different bacterial species, they then too are able to grow on the medium and potentially out-compete the first species - thus the conjugation could possibly be extremely detrimental to the survival of the original population.

I'm obviously missing something as the feature has persisted, so what is the advantage to the donor species of conjugation?

Are there any studies that prove/disprove the Oscillating Universe Theory?

The evidence suggests, strongly, that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. If an oscillating universe theory ruled that out then this would, in turn, dismiss this theory. As it is, it does strongly indicate that the idea that gravitational attraction would eventually slow the expansion of the universe and then send the expansion into reverse, is a false one.

But, you really need to be more specific in your question: which theory of an oscillating universe is it that you are asking about?

bioinformatics - What is the optimal frame size for protein secondary structure prediction methods?

The whole question is

What is the optimal frame size for the second and third generation protein secondary structure prediction methods? Justify your answer.

I remember it has something to do with the average length of alpha-helix. More specifically, 3 on both side of a site. So in total the frame length should be 7. But I can't remember the reason behind the argument.

What do you think?

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According to what my professor said in class, 2nd and 3rd generation of protein secondary structure reconstruction relies on statistics data of several consecutive residues. I guess what he meant by "frame size", is how many adjacent residues we should take into account in the algorithm.