What is biology?
Biology is the study of life
What are the characteristics/unifying principles of life?
- cells are the simplest unit of life
- living things use energy- acquire energy from the environment
- living organisms interact with their environment
- living organisms have mechanisms that maintain homeostasis
- living organisms grow, develop and reproduce
- the genetic material, DNA, provides a dynamic plan for sustaining life
- populations of organisms evolve from one generation to the next
- all life is related by evolutionary history
- organisms follow the laws of chemistry and physics, and structure determines function
what are the 12 level of biological organization
atoms -> molecules and macromolecules -> cells -> tissues -> organs -> organ systems -> organisms -> species -> populations -> community -> ecosystem -> biosphere
what are the 2 mechanisms of evolutionary change?
vertical descent with mutation:
-progression of changes in a series of ancestors (lineage)
-mutation: an inheritable change in the genetic material of organisms
horizontal gene transfer:
-when genes are transferred from one species to another
what are the three domains of life?
bacteria \
archaea / prokaryotes
eukarya
what are the 8 taxonomic groups?
domain - kingdom - phylum - class - order - family - genus - species
what is genome?
- the evolutionary history and relatedness of all living organisms
- carries the results and evidence of millions of years of evolution
- prokaryotes usually contain a few thousand genes
- eukaryotes contain tens of thousands
what is proteome
the complete complement of proteins that a cell or organism can make
what is proteomics
- analysis of proteome of a single species
- comparison of proteomes between species
- comparison of different members of species under different living conditions
what is a hypothesis
proposed explanation for a natural phenomenon
theory
- broad explanation of some aspect of the natural world
- lots of evidence!!
what are the steps of the scientific method?
observation, hypothesis, experimentation, data, conclusion
