Question | Answer |
How do cells of bacteria differ from those of eukaryotes? | bacteria are prokaryotes. The genetic matrial in their cells is not contained in a nucleus. |
What do bacteria need to survive? | source of food and a way of breaking down the food to release its energy. |
Under what conditions do bacteria thrive and reproduce? | plenty of food, right temperature, and other suitable conditions. |
What positive roles do bacteria play in people's lives? | oxygen and food production, environmental recycling and cleanup, health maintenance and medicine production. |
bacteria | single celled organisms that lack a nucleus. |
flagellum | long, whiplike structure that helps a cell to move. |
binary fission | asexual reproduction in which one cell divides to form two identical cells. |
asexual reproduction | reproductive process that involves one parent and produces offspring that are identical to the parent. |
sexual reproduction | a reproductive process that involves two parents that combine their genetic material to produce a new organism, which differs from both parents. |
conjugation | The process in which a unicellular organism transfers some of its genetic material to another unicellular organism. |
endospore | A small rounded, thick walled, resting cell that forms inside a bacterial cell. |
pasteurization | heating food to a temperature that is high enough to kill most harmful bacteria without changing the taste of the food. |
decomposer | an organism that breaks down chemicals from wastes and dead organisms, and returns important to the soil and water. |