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Intro to Biology
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Biologist | Anyone who uses the scientific method to study living things |
| DNA | Molecule that stores all the information an organism needs to live and is passed onto future generations |
| Homestasis | Relatively constant internal physical and chemical conditions |
| Stimulus | A signal to which an organism responds (change in homeostasis) |
| Irritability | The ability to respond to homeostasis |
| Sexual | Genetic material comes from 2 |
| Asexual | Genetic material comes from 1 |
| Metaboism | Total sum of all chemical reactions that take place in an organism |
| Anabolism | Putting together complex substances from simpler ones |
| Catabolism | Breakdown of complex substances into simpler ones, usually with a release of energy |
| Structure | What is it made of |
| Function | Why does it help it to do what it does (purpose) |
| Tomas Malthus | Humans are overcrowding the planet, only forces keeping us in check are war, famine, disease, if the population keeps growing it is unsustainable |
| Breeder in agriculture | Selective breeding (artificial selection) |
| Struggle for existence | Organisms must compete to obtain food, living space, and needs |
| Adaptions | heritable characteristics that increase an organisms ability to survive and reproduce in its enviornment |
| Survival of the fittest | differences in adaptations affect an individuals fitness |
| Fitness | Describes how well an organism can survive and reproduce in its environment |
| Survival | Means reproducing and passing adaptations to the next generation |
| Biogeography | study of where organisms live now and where ancestors lived in the past |
| Fossil record | explains why organisms that lived long ago are different from the ones we see today |
| Homologous structures | structures shared by related species that have been shared by a common ancestor |
| Vestigial structures | inheited from ancestors but have lost most or all of their original function due to different selection pressures |
| Embryology | similar patterns of embryological development |
| Genetics and Molecular Biology | common code of DNA and RNA , common genes and close DNA sequences |
| Characteristics of life | Is based on a universal code (DNA) , grows and develops , responds to their environment , can reproduce , obtain and use energy , made up of cells , evolve |