Chapter One: Principles of Life Flashcards
What is biology?
Biology is the study of life and living organisms
What are three common features of living organisms?
water, ions, carbon-based macromolecules
What are the four carbon-based macromolecules
proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids
What are cells?
are the basic structural and functional units of life
What are the two main kinds of cells?
Prokaryotic, eukaryotic
Can eukaryoric organisms unicellular, multicellular, or both?
Both
How do cells reproduce? Why?
They reproduce by cell division and pass along a complete copy of their genome to each new cell
Do all organisms come from pre-existing cells?
Yes
Do all cells come from pre-existing cells
Yes
Organisms need _____ and ____ to survive, move, grow, and reproduce
energy, raw materials
Where do organisms get energy from
They obtain energy in the form of photons or electrons from their environment and transform it into other forms of energy
What 4 nucleotides make up the genetic alphabet
A, G, C, T
What is a genome?
All the genetic information of an organism
What do boxes represent in a diagram of a biological system
components
What do arrows represent in a diagram of a biological system
the processes by which components interact
When does feedback occur?
When the rate of an early process is affected by the amount of a later product
Which form of feedback speeds up an earlier process and which form of feedback slows down the process (positive vs. negative)
Positive feedback speeds up, negative feedback slows down
Hierarchy of ecosystems
population, community, landscape, biosphere
Deductive reasoning
used to create testable predictions from generalized to specific predictions
Inductive reasoning
used to form a hypothesis; collects and analyzes many specific observations or data to create a generalization
What are observations and facts used for
to formulate a hypothesis or otherwise construct a statement that explains observations and describes a natural component or process
What does a hypothesis provide
the basis for designing experiments and making predictions about the outcome
