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Biology
Unit 1 Biology and You
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| cell | the small unit capable of all life functions |
| metabolism | sum of all chemical reactions that an organism carries out |
| homeostasis | maintaining a relatively stable internal condition often different from the surroundings |
| reproduction | ability to create another generation, copy oneself |
| heredity | set of instructions via genes that is passed on to offspring by reproducing |
| growth | all can grow and many develop into new things |
| responsiveness | all respond to their external environment |
| biology | the study of life |
| observation | use of one or more of the senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste to gather information |
| data | evidence; information gathered from observations |
| inference | interpretation based on prior knowledge and experience |
| hypothesis | educated guess, possible answer to a scientific question |
| independent variable | variable that can be controlled by the experimenter |
| dependent variable | variable that is directly affected by the independent variable, variable that can be measured |
| controlled experiment | a test of the effect of a single variable by changing it while keeping all other variables the same |