Chapter 1: Themes of Life

Question 1

Biology

Answer 1

scientific study of life

Question 2

7 Properties of Life

Answer 2

order, evolutionary adaptation, regulation, energy processing, growth and development, response to the environment and reproduction

Question 3

Biosphere

Answer 3

all life on Earth and the sum of all its’ ecosystems

Question 4

Ecosystem

Answer 4

consists of all communities in a particular area, along with the nonliving components of the environment with which life interacts (i.e. soil, water and atmospheric gases)

Question 5

Community

Answer 5

array of organism populations inhabiting a particular ecosystem (i.e. meadow – plants, various animals, mushrooms and bacteria)

Question 6

Population

Answer 6

consists of all the individual organisms of a species living within a particular area (i.e. plants)

Question 7

Organism

Answer 7

individual living things

Question 8

Organ

Answer 8

a body part that is made up of multiple tissues and has specific functions in the body (i.e. leaf from plant)

Question 9

Tissue

Answer 9

a group of cells that work together, performing a specialized function

Question 10

Cell

Answer 10

life’s fundamental unit of structure and function; the smallest unit of organization that can perform all activities required for life

Question 11

Organelle

Answer 11

various functional components present in cells (surrounded by membrane)

Question 12

Molecule

Answer 12

chemical structure consisting of two or more atoms

Question 13

Emergent Properties

Answer 13

new properties that arise with each step upward in the hierarchy of life, owing to the arrangement and interactions of parts as complexity increases

Question 14

Systems Biology

Answer 14

an approach to studying biology that aims to model the dynamic behavior of whole biological systems based on a study of the interactions among the system’s parts

Question 15

Eukaryotic Cell

Answer 15

cell containing membrane-enclosed organelles (all have organelle, nucleus)

Question 16

Prokaryotic Cell

Answer 16

cell lacks a nucleus or other membrane-enclosed organelles

Question 17

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)

Answer 17

nucleic acid molecule, double-stranded helix, each strand consists of monomers with a deoxyribose sugar and the nitrogenous bases ACGT, capable of being replicated and determining the inherited structure of a cell’s proteins

Question 18

Gene

Answer 18

units of hereditary information consisting of a specific nucleotide sequence in DNA

Question 19

Gene Expression

Answer 19

entire process by which the information in a gene directs the manufacture of a cellular product

Question 20

Genome

Answer 20

entire “library” of genetic instructions that an organism inherits

Question 21

Genomics

Answer 21

studying whole sets of genes (or other DNA) in one or more species

Question 22

Proteomics

Answer 22

study of sets of proteins and their properties

Question 23

Proteome

Answer 23

entire set of proteins expressed by a given cell, tissue, or organism

Question 24

Bioinformatics

Answer 24

use of computational tools to store, organize, and analyze the huge volume of data that results from high-throughput methods

Question 25

Producers

Answer 25

photosynthetic organisms

Question 26

Consumers

Answer 26

organisms, such as animals, that feed on other organisms or their remains

Question 27

Homeostasis

Answer 27

the steady state physiological condition of the body

Question 28

Feedback Regulation

Answer 28

output or product of a process regulates that very process (i.e. negative feedback/insulin response)

Question 29

Climate Change

Answer 29

a directional change to the global climate that lasts for three decades or more

Question 30

Evolution

Answer 30

concept that the organisms living on Earth today are the modified descendants of common ancestors; scientific explanation for the unity and diversity of organisms

Question 31

Bacteria

Answer 31

one of two prokaryotic domains

Question 32

Archaea

Answer 32

one of two prokaryotic domains

Question 33

Eukarya

Answer 33

domain that includes all eukaryotic organisms

Question 34

Natural Selection

Answer 34

natural environment consistently “selects” for the propagation of certain traits among naturally occurring variant traits in the population

Question 35

Science

Answer 35

approach to understanding the natural world

Question 36

Inquiry

Answer 36

a search for information and explanations of natural phenomena

Question 37

Data

Answer 37

recorded observations

Question 38

Inductive Reasoning

Answer 38

derive generalizations from a large number of specific observations

Question 39

Hypothesis

Answer 39

an explanation, based on observations and assumptions, that leads to a testable prediction

Question 40

Experiment

Answer 40

scientific test, carried out under controlled conditions

Question 41

Deductive Reasoning

Answer 41

logic in which specific results are predicted from a general premise

Question 42

Model Organism

Answer 42

species that is easy to grow in the lab and lends itself particularly well to the questions being investigated (i.e. fruit fly, soil worm and mouse)

Question 43

Technology

Answer 43

the application of scientific knowledge for a specific purpose (i.e. industry or commerce)