Lecture 1 (Biology & Life)

Question 1

What are the characteristics of living organism?

Answer 1

• Exhibit growth and development into highly ordered forms
• Made of one or more cells
• Building instruction stored in DNA
• Require Energy
• Reproduce on their own
• Evolve
• Die
• Maintain an optimal steady state despite changes in environment (Homeostasis)

Question 2

Life exhibit emergent properties

Answer 2

Emergent properties are those that arise through
interactions among smaller parts that alone do not exhibit
such properties

Question 3

Information storage and retrieval in Earthlings

Answer 3

• All Earth life is based on DNA->RNA ->Protein
• They call this the “central dogma of molecular biology”

DNA has great potential for long term, high-density data storage