INTRODUCTION

BIOLOGY: THE SCIENCE OF OUR LIVES

-"the study of life - chemical machines inside our cells, to broad scale concepts of ecosystems and global climate change. (DNA, Brain, Population, Ecosystem) -Structure and function -History: European: Germany in 1800, popularized by the French naturalists Pierre-Antoine de Monet Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck -The unifying concept of biology received its greatest stimulus from the English zoologist Thomas Henry Huxley integrated botany and zoology.

BASIC DIVISIONS 1. Taxonomy - study of the systematic classification of organisms into groups 2. Morphology- study of the form and structure of organisms 3. Anatomy- study of the detailed structure of organisms as revealed by gross dissection 4. Cytology- study of the detailed structure and functions of the cells 5. Histology- study of the group of cells performing a definite or specialized function/s 6. Physiology- study that deals with the functional processes associated with living things 7. Genetics- study that deals with heredity and variations in organisms 8. Embryology or Developmental Biology- a study that deals with the formation and early development of organisms 9. Molecular Biology- a study in that deals with the shape, aggregation ad orientation of the molecules that compose the cellular system as a unit 10. Paleontology- a study that deals with past life as revealed by fossils. 11. Ecology- a study that deals with living things in relation to their environment 12. Evolution- a study that deals with the origin and diversification of organisms forms or the gradual change in the characteristics of a species over a course of successive generations.

TAXONOMIC DIVISIONS 1.Microbiology- a study that deals with microorganisms 2.Protozoology- a study that deals with protozoans 3.Mycology- a study that deals with fungi 4.Botany- a study that deals with plants a. Phycology- a study that deals with algae b. Bryology- a study of mosses, peat mosses and liverworts (bryophytes) c. Pteridology- a study of ferns (pteridophytes) 5.Zoology- a study that deals with animals a. Entomology- a study that deals with insects b. Ornithology- a study that deals with birds c. Icthyology- a study that deals with fishes d. Herpetology- a study that deals with amphibians and reptiles 6.Carcinology- a study that deals with crabs

Science is an objective, logical, and repeatable attempt to understand the principles and forces operating in the natural universe. Science is from the Latin word, scientia, to know. Good science is not dogmatic, but should be viewed as an ongoing process of testing and evaluation, in our context, the scientific study of life.

Science is characterized by an organizational approach, called the Scientific Method, to learn how the natural world works. The methods of science are based on Two Important Principles: A. That events in the natural world have natural causes not supernatural causes. B. Uniformity - is the idea that fundamental laws of nature operate the same way at all places at all times.

scientific method

Basic Structure of Science

refers to the working habits of practicing scientists involves rigorous application of common sense to the study and analysis of data refers to the model for research developed by Francis Bacon (15611626). This model

The process of science begins with an OBSERVATION. An observation is the act of perceiving a natural occurrence that causes someone to pose a QUESTION.

One tries to answer the question by forming HYPOTHESES. A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for the way a particular aspect of the natural world functions. A hypothesis is also known as and educated guess to explain the observation.
A PREDICTION is a statement that forecasts what would happen in a test (experiment) situation if the hypothesis were True. A Prediction is recorded for each hypothesis. An EXPERIMENT is used to test a hypothesis and its predictions. Once the experiment has been concluded, the DATA ARE ANALYZED and used to draw CONCLUSIONS.

 Identifying the problem

ex. the observed fish kill in your area

Basic Structure of Science

Collecting data within the problem area (by

observations, measurements, etc.)

the river like pH, tempertaure, turbidity, nutrient content heavy metal concentrations ask information from the folks

 checking the data for correlations,

meaningful connections, and regularities experimental design, appropriate statistical tool

which is an educated guess that explains the existing data and suggests further avenues of investigation you may want to analyse fish tissues for metal contamination

Testing the hypothesis rigorously by gathering new data

Confirming, modifying, or rejecting the hypothesis in light of the new findings Conclusion
Theory

LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE 1.The idea of a God working through the natural laws of the universe cannot be proven in science because it is not testable.

2.Science cannot make value judgments.

3. Science cannot make moral judgments.

CHARACTERISTICS OF LIVING THINGS

1. Organization CHEMICAL LEVEL: sugars, carbohydrates, proteins, fats. ORGANELLES: are tiny structures that carry out functions necessary for the cell to stay alive. CELLULAR LEVEL: a cell is the smallest unit of life that can perform all life's processes. TISSUE LEVEL: tissues are groups of cells that have similar abilities and that allow the organ to function ORGAN LEVEL: organs are structures that carry out specialized jobs ORGAN SYSTEM LEVEL: organ systems are several organs working for a specific function. ORGANISM LEVEL: one living individual. 2. Metabolism Use of energy to power all of life processes, such as repair, movement, and growth. Metabolism which is the sum of all the chemical reactions that take in and transform energy and materials from the environment. 3. Growth and development All living things grow and increase in size. Multicellular organisms pass through a more complicated process of cell division, cell enlargement, and development. The process by which an adult organism arises is called development. Development is produced by repeated cell division and cell differentiation or cell specialization. Development is a change in shape or form.

4. Reproduction asexual (no recombination of genetic material) or sexual (recombination of genetic material). Use DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) as the physical carrier of inheritance and the genetic information transmit hereditary or trait information to their offspring. A short segment of dna that contains the instructions for the development of a single trait of an organism is called a GENE contained in DNA -SEXUAL REPRODUCTION (egg and sperm and zygote) -ASEXUAL REPRODUCTION = clones (same DNA). 5. Responsiveness and Irritability Taxis Tropism (phototropism) 6. Adaptation Features that allow allow organisms to exist in their environment. 7. Homeostasis Balance in internal environment in terms of temperature, pH, water concentrations up to certain limits 8. Evolution Populations of organisms evolve, or change over generations (time). The "theory of evolution" helps us to understand how many kinds of organisms that have lived on earth came into existence. Scientist suggest that a process called natural selection is the most important driving force in evolution - organisms that have certain favorable traits are better able to successfully reproduce - survival of the fittest. The survival of organisms with favorable traits causes a gradual change in populations of organisms over many generations. Species of organisms adapt to their environments through

THEORIES ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 1. Divine Creation (Bible/ Creationism)- life created by a supernatural being (God or Allah, or other forms of supernatural intervention, bathala, dreamtime). The term creationism is most often used to describe the belief that creation occurred literally as described in the book of Genesis (for both Jews and Christians) or the Qur'an (for Muslims) 2. Cosmozoic or Interplanetary- Protoplasm as resistant spores of simple living forms might have reached the earth accidentally via meteorites from some other source from the universe.

3. Natural or Marine - natural reaction of inorganic to form organic substances In addition the metabolic atmosphere and oceans contained the inorganic compounds such as oxygen and carbon dioxide in quantities similar to those present today
proteins enzymes self replicating molecules (proto RNA) proto DNA

4. Spontaneous Generation (Abiogenesis)- Certain living things could arise directly from non-living things. Classical notions of abiogenesis, now more precisely known as spontaneous generation, held that complex, living organisms are generated by decaying organic substances, e.g. that mice spontaneously appear in stored grain or maggots spontaneously appear in meat. According to Aristotle it was a readily observable truth that aphids arise from the dew which falls on plants, fleas from putrid matter, mice from dirty hay, and so forth. Such was the prestige of the ancient Greek philosophers in general. In the 17th century such assumptions started to be questioned; such as that by Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, subtitled Enquiries into Very many Received Tenets, and Commonly Presumed Truths, of 1646, an attack on false beliefs and "vulgar errors." His conclusions were not widely accepted, e.g. his contemporary, Alexander Ross wrote: "To question this (i.e., spontaneous generation) is to question reason, sense and experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants However, experimental scientists continued to decrease the conditions within which the spontaneous generation of complex organisms could be observed. The first step was taken by the Italian Francesco Redi, who, in 1668, proved that no maggots appeared in meat when flies were prevented from laying eggs. From the seventeenth century onwards it was gradually shown that, at least in the case of all the higher and readily visible organisms, the previous sentiment regarding spontaneous generation was false. The alternative seemed to be omne vivum ex ovo: that every living thing came from a preexisting living thing.

5. Physico-Chemical or Coacervate Droplet Theory- It was believed that a long time ago that the atmosphere containes the following substances: CH3, NH3, H2 and water vapor. These substances were exposed to cosmic radiation, UV rays and electrical discharges by lightning where the following were forced to react among themselves and produce smaller carbon compounds and were made to react again to form larger organic compounds. These reactions took place very slowly. The compounds formed were sugar, fatty acids, glycerol, amino acids, purines and pyrimidines. The compounds formed were nonliving but they furnished the building blocks or materials from which living mater could be constructed as the DNA that forms the gene. In 1936 Aleksandr Ivanovich Oparin, in his "The Origin of Life on Earth", demonstrated that organic molecules could be created in an oxygen-less atmosphere, through the action of sunlight. These molecules, he suggested, combine in ever-more complex fashion until they are dissolved into a coacervate droplet. These droplets could then fuse with other droplets and break apart into two replicas of the original. This could be viewed as a primitive form of reproduction and metabolism. Favorable attributes such as increased durability in the structure would survive more often than nonfavorable attributes A coacervate is a spherical aggregation of lipid molecules making up a colloidal inclusion which is held together by hydrophobic forces. More plainly stated; it is usually a little ball of organic matter which is formed by the repulsion of water by something like an oil

Coacervates measure 1 to 100 micrometers across, possess osmotic properties and form spontaneously from certain weak organic solutions. Their name derives from the Latin coacervare, meaning to assemble together or cluster. They were even once suggested to have played a significant role in the evolution of cells and, therefore, of life itself Coacervates were actually suggested by Aleksandr Oparin, as a means by which that first "ur-organism" could have formed from non-living, organic matter. He noted that organic chemicals could be formed by the exposure of natural substances to sunlight (ultraviolet radiation, more specifically), in an oxygen-free atmosphere and then would sometimes recombine into larger molecules, until sufficient to form colloids and, therefore, coacervates. Since these coacervates do superficially resemble living cells, Oparin suggested that they eventually became complex enough to be simple life. While this is vaguely similar to modern theories, regarding the formation of first life, coacervates are no longer thought actually to have become the first cells directly; life is thought to have gone through many intermediate steps before becoming cellular. Around the same time J. B. S. Haldane suggested that the earth's pre-biotic oceans - very different from their modern counterparts - would have formed a "hot dilute soup" in which organic compounds, the building blocks of life, could have formed. This idea was called biopoiesis or biopoesis, the process of living matter evolving from self-replicating but nonliving molecules.

In 1953, taking their cue from Oparin and Haldane, the chemists Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey carried out an experiment on the "primeval soup". Within two weeks a racemic mixture of a few amino acids, some of the building blocks of life, had formed from the highly reduced mixture of methane, ammonia, water vapor and hydrogen. While Miller and Urey did not actually create life, they demonstrated that a more complex molecule a few amino-acids could emerge spontaneously from simpler chemicals. The environment was meant to simulate a primeval earth. It included an external energy source and an atmosphere largely devoid of oxygen. (the specific experiment involved shooting a spark, representing lightning, into their flask) There was careful filtering in place to preserve the results from destruction.

Aleksandr Oparins Hypothesis (1922)

Urey-Miller Experiment (1953)