Evolution

Question 1

What is the most notable form of life during each era

Answer 1

Cenozoic

Question 2

What is thought to have caused he extinction of the dinosaurs ?

Answer 2

. Meteor impact with Earth created climate change at the end of the Mesozoic.

Question 3

Define absolute dating

Answer 3

uses radioactive isotopes to find the precise age of rocks and fossils

Question 4

Define relative dating

Answer 4

Relative dating compares two evens to see which one is older.

Question 5

What is the theory of natural selection ? Who proposed it?

Answer 5

The process by which individuals that are better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully than less well adapted individuals do. Charles Darwin

Question 6

Transitional forms

Answer 6

Intermediate fossils that connect older fossils with newer ones

Question 7

Homologous structures

Answer 7

Similar structures found in different organisms. Human arm bones, bat wing, bird wing, etc.

Question 8

Vestigial structures

Answer 8

Structures that no longer serve a viable function for the organism. Pelvis in whales, leg bones in some snakes

Question 9

What is an adaptation?

Answer 9

A trait or characteristic that improves an organism’s chances for survival and/or reproduction.

Question 10

What is evolution?

Answer 10

The theory that life changes to suit its environment over time and give rise to new species

Question 11

What is selective breeding?

Answer 11

when humans select for traits in plants and animals to be passed to the next generation.

Question 12

What did Darwin not understand about how natural selection works?

Answer 12

He didn’t understand genetics or how genes were inherited

Question 13

Who was Malthus and Lyell? How did their ideas aid Darwin?

Answer 13

Malthus was an author of a book on the study of populations. Darwin realized that any species can produce many offspring and that there are limiting factors so that not all offspring survive. Thus, some of the offspring must have some traits that made them better survivors. Lyell was an author of the Principals of geology

Question 14

What is significant about the Miller-Urey experiment ? What did it prove and didn’t prove ?

Answer 14

The experiment proved that life could have formed on Earth with the right conductions. It didn’t prove that is how life actually started.

Question 15

What important gas needed for most animals to survive was lacking in the early atmosphere?

Answer 15

Oxygen

Question 16

Why were Cyanobacteria so important to the formation of the modern atmosphere?

Answer 16

produced oxygen which could then reformed to make ozone

Question 17

How was the ozone layer formed? What is its function in the atmosphere

Answer 17

It was formed by the oxygen produced by photosynthetic organisms like the cyanobacteria. Oxygen consisting of 2 atoms combined with single atom oxygen to form ozone. It blocks harmful UV light from the sun.

Question 18

What are the four nitrogen bases?

Answer 18

Adenine, Thymine, cytosine, Guanine

Question 19

What are the three parts of a nucleotide?

Answer 19

Nitrogen Base, Phosphate, Deoxyribose (Sugar)

Question 20

How do the bases pair up?

Answer 20

A-T and C-G

Question 21

Why are the bases and their order important?

Answer 21

It is the genetic code or the blueprints for life.

Question 22

What is the shape of DNA called?

Answer 22

Double helix

Question 23

Define dominant and recessive

Answer 23

A dominate trait always shows as the phenotype. Recessive only shows as the phenotype when it is in the presence of another recessive allele.

Question 24

What’s the difference between a genotype and phenotype?

Answer 24

Genotype is what your genes are, dominant or recessive. Phenotype is the physical expression of the genes.

Question 25

Define homozygous

Answer 25

same alleles

Question 26

Define heterozygous

Answer 26

Different alleles

Question 27

What are the four eras from earliest to most recent ?

Answer 27

Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic