Sat 2 Biology

[Vannessa Rataj]

Biologyis the scientific study of life.[1][2][3] It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field.[1][2][3] For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary information encoded in genes, which can be transmitted to future generations. Another major theme is evolution, which explains the unity and diversity of life.[1][2][3] Energy processing is also important to life as it allows organisms to move, grow, and reproduce.[1][2][3] Finally, all organisms are able to regulate their own internal environments.[1][2][3][4][5]

Biologists are able to study life at multiple levels of organization,[1] from the molecular biology of a cell to the anatomy and physiology of plants and animals, and evolution of populations.[1][6] Hence, there are multiple subdisciplines within biology, each defined by the nature of their research questions and the tools that they use.[7][8][9] Like other scientists, biologists use the scientific method to make observations, pose questions, generate hypotheses, perform experiments, and form conclusions about the world around them.[1]

Life on Earth, which emerged more than 3.7 billion years ago,[10] is immensely diverse. Biologists have sought to study and classify the various forms of life, from prokaryotic organisms such as archaea and bacteria to eukaryotic organisms such as protists, fungi, plants, and animals. These various organisms contribute to the biodiversity of an ecosystem, where they play specialized roles in the cycling of nutrients and energy through their biophysical environment.

Biology began to quickly develop with Anton van Leeuwenhoek's dramatic improvement of the microscope. It was then that scholars discovered spermatozoa, bacteria, infusoria and the diversity of microscopic life. Investigations by Jan Swammerdam led to new interest in entomology and helped to develop techniques of microscopic dissection and staining.[17] Advances in microscopy had a profound impact on biological thinking. In the early 19th century, biologists pointed to the central importance of the cell. In 1838, Schleiden and Schwann began promoting the now universal ideas that (1) the basic unit of organisms is the cell and (2) that individual cells have all the characteristics of life, although they opposed the idea that (3) all cells come from the division of other cells, continuing to support spontaneous generation. However, Robert Remak and Rudolf Virchow were able to reify the third tenet, and by the 1860s most biologists accepted all three tenets which consolidated into cell theory.[18][19]

Serious evolutionary thinking originated with the works of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who presented a coherent theory of evolution.[23] The British naturalist Charles Darwin, combining the biogeographical approach of Humboldt, the uniformitarian geology of Lyell, Malthus's writings on population growth, and his own morphological expertise and extensive natural observations, forged a more successful evolutionary theory based on natural selection; similar reasoning and evidence led Alfred Russel Wallace to independently reach the same conclusions.[24][25]

The basis for modern genetics began with the work of Gregor Mendel in 1865.[26] This outlined the principles of biological inheritance.[27] However, the significance of his work was not realized until the early 20th century when evolution became a unified theory as the modern synthesis reconciled Darwinian evolution with classical genetics.[28] In the 1940s and early 1950s, a series of experiments by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase pointed to DNA as the component of chromosomes that held the trait-carrying units that had become known as genes. A focus on new kinds of model organisms such as viruses and bacteria, along with the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953, marked the transition to the era of molecular genetics. From the 1950s onwards, biology has been vastly extended in the molecular domain. The genetic code was cracked by Har Gobind Khorana, Robert W. Holley and Marshall Warren Nirenberg after DNA was understood to contain codons. The Human Genome Project was launched in 1990 to map the human genome.[29]

All organisms are made up of chemical elements;[30] oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen account for most (96%) of the mass of all organisms, with calcium, phosphorus, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium constituting essentially all the remainder. Different elements can combine to form compounds such as water, which is fundamental to life.[30] Biochemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including molecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions.

The simplest form of an organic molecule is the hydrocarbon, which is a large family of organic compounds that are composed of hydrogen atoms bonded to a chain of carbon atoms. A hydrocarbon backbone can be substituted by other elements such as oxygen (O), hydrogen (H), phosphorus (P), and sulfur (S), which can change the chemical behavior of that compound.[31] Groups of atoms that contain these elements (O-, H-, P-, and S-) and are bonded to a central carbon atom or skeleton are called functional groups.[31] There are six prominent functional groups that can be found in organisms: amino group, carboxyl group, carbonyl group, hydroxyl group, phosphate group, and sulfhydryl group.[31]

Macromolecules are large molecules made up of smaller subunits or monomers.[34] Monomers include sugars, amino acids, and nucleotides.[35] Carbohydrates include monomers and polymers of sugars.[36]Lipids are the only class of macromolecules that are not made up of polymers. They include steroids, phospholipids, and fats,[35] largely nonpolar and hydrophobic (water-repelling) substances.[37]Proteins are the most diverse of the macromolecules. They include enzymes, transport proteins, large signaling molecules, antibodies, and structural proteins. The basic unit (or monomer) of a protein is an amino acid.[34] Twenty amino acids are used in proteins.[34]Nucleic acids are polymers of nucleotides.[38] Their function is to store, transmit, and express hereditary information.[35]

Cell theory states that cells are the fundamental units of life, that all living things are composed of one or more cells, and that all cells arise from preexisting cells through cell division.[39] Most cells are very small, with diameters ranging from 1 to 100 micrometers and are therefore only visible under a light or electron microscope.[40] There are generally two types of cells: eukaryotic cells, which contain a nucleus, and prokaryotic cells, which do not. Prokaryotes are single-celled organisms such as bacteria, whereas eukaryotes can be single-celled or multicellular. In multicellular organisms, every cell in the organism's body is derived ultimately from a single cell in a fertilized egg.

Every cell is enclosed within a cell membrane that separates its cytoplasm from the extracellular space.[41] A cell membrane consists of a lipid bilayer, including cholesterols that sit between phospholipids to maintain their fluidity at various temperatures. Cell membranes are semipermeable, allowing small molecules such as oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water to pass through while restricting the movement of larger molecules and charged particles such as ions.[42] Cell membranes also contain membrane proteins, including integral membrane proteins that go across the membrane serving as membrane transporters, and peripheral proteins that loosely attach to the outer side of the cell membrane, acting as enzymes shaping the cell.[43] Cell membranes are involved in various cellular processes such as cell adhesion, storing electrical energy, and cell signalling and serve as the attachment surface for several extracellular structures such as a cell wall, glycocalyx, and cytoskeleton.

Within the cytoplasm of a cell, there are many biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids.[44] In addition to biomolecules, eukaryotic cells have specialized structures called organelles that have their own lipid bilayers or are spatially units.[45] These organelles include the cell nucleus, which contains most of the cell's DNA, or mitochondria, which generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to power cellular processes. Other organelles such as endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus play a role in the synthesis and packaging of proteins, respectively. Biomolecules such as proteins can be engulfed by lysosomes, another specialized organelle. Plant cells have additional organelles that distinguish them from animal cells such as a cell wall that provides support for the plant cell, chloroplasts that harvest sunlight energy to produce sugar, and vacuoles that provide storage and structural support as well as being involved in reproduction and breakdown of plant seeds.[45] Eukaryotic cells also have cytoskeleton that is made up of microtubules, intermediate filaments, and microfilaments, all of which provide support for the cell and are involved in the movement of the cell and its organelles.[45] In terms of their structural composition, the microtubules are made up of tubulin (e.g., α-tubulin and β-tubulin) whereas intermediate filaments are made up of fibrous proteins.[45] Microfilaments are made up of actin molecules that interact with other strands of proteins.[45]

Cellular respiration is a set of metabolic reactions and processes that take place in cells to convert chemical energy from nutrients into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and then release waste products.[46] The reactions involved in respiration are catabolic reactions, which break large molecules into smaller ones, releasing energy. Respiration is one of the key ways a cell releases chemical energy to fuel cellular activity. The overall reaction occurs in a series of biochemical steps, some of which are redox reactions. Although cellular respiration is technically a combustion reaction, it clearly does not resemble one when it occurs in a cell because of the slow, controlled release of energy from the series of reactions.

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