In an experiment to test the hypothesis that added phosphate will cause marigolds to produce more blooms, the experimenter has two groups of pots planted with marigold seeds. one group gets watered with phosphate added to the water, while the other group gets watered with no phosphate. both groups get the same amount of water and light. which is a controlled variable in this experiment?

Phosphate is a controlled variable in this experiment because the experimenter is controlling the amount of phosphate given and which group it is given to. 

Proteins are the workhorses of the cell, controlling virtually every reaction within as well as providing structure and serving as signals to other cells. proteins are long chains of  amino acids  , and the exact sequence of the amino acids determines the final structure and function of the protein. instructions for that sequence are encoded in  genes  . to make a particular protein, a messenger ribonucleic acid (mrna) copy is made from the gene (in the process called  transcription  ), and the mrna is transported to the  ribosome  . protein synthesis, also called  translation  , begins when the two ribosomal subunits link onto the mrna. this step, called initiation, is followed by elongation, in which successive amino acids are added to the growing chain, brought in by transfer rnas (trnas). in this step, the ribosome reads the  nucleotides  of mrna three by three, in units called  codons  , and matches each to three nucleotides on the trna, called the anticodon. finally, during termination, the ribosome unbinds from the mrna, and the  amino acid  chain goes on to be processed and folded to make the final, functional protein