Unit 1: Chemical, Cellular, And Evolutionary Foundations Flashcards
Biology
The science of how life works
Biologists
Scientists who study life
Observation
The act of viewing the world around us
Experimentation
A way of asking questions in an unbiased manner
Hypothesis
Tentative explanations
Predictions
Making a guess about observations not yet made or experiments not yet run
Test
Devising an experiment to see whether the predictions made by the hypothesis actually occur
Scientific Method
A deliberate and careful way of asking questions about the unknown
Theory
A general explanation of the world supported by a large body of experiments and observations
First Law of Thermodynamics
Energy can neither be created or destroyed; only changed in form
Second Law of Thermodynamics
The degree of disorder in the universe tends to increase
Entropy
The amount of disorder in a system
Variable
A feature of the experiment that is changed by the experimenter from one treatment to the next
Cell
The simplest self-replicating entity that can exist as an independent unit of life
DNA
A double-stranded helix, with each strand made up of four different kinds of molecules connected end to end
Proteins
The key structural and functional molecules that do the work of the cell
RNA
A copy of the DNA’s information in a closely related molecule
Transcription
The copying of one form to another
Translation
Converts information stored in the language of nucleic acids to information in the language of proteins
Central Dogma
The pathway from DNA to RNA to protein
Gene
The DNA sequence that corresponds to a specific protein product
Replicated
Allowing genetic material information to be passed from cell to cell or from one organism to its progeny
Mutation
Errors in DNA that occur during replication
Plasma Membrane
Separates the living material within the cell from the non-living environment around it
