Studying Life Part 1 Flashcards
What are some common characteristics shared among living things?
Made up of common chemical compounds and cells, extract energy for work, homeostasis, use genetic code, build proteins, and evolve.
How old is Earth?
About 4.6 billion years old
What are the 2 elements essential for life?
Nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, and protein synthesis
What are prokaryotes and how old are they?
They’re single celled organisms that came around a few million years ago.
What are eukaryotes?
They’re membrane enclosed organelles where the nucleus contains genetic information.
What’s photosynthesis?
A process which turns sunlight into chemical energy. It provides food for all types of life. It came around 2.5 million years ago.
What’s a phylogenetic tree?
Diagram that illustrates the evolutionary histories of different groups.
Branch patterns have been determined based on evidence from what?
Fossils, physical structures, metabolic rates, behavior, and molecular analyzes from genomes.
What’s O3 and what does it do?
Ozone layer which absorbs UV radiation.
What’s evolution?
Results in changes of genetic makeup over time as well as adaptation and is the major unifying principle of biology.
