Class 10 Science (Biology) - Chapter: Life Processes

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering life processes including autotrophic and heterotrophic nutrition, human digestion, cellular respiration pathways, double circulation, plant transport systems, and renal excretion.

Life Processes

The essential processes that together perform maintenance tasks to keep an organism's body alive and functioning, including nutrition, respiration, transportation, and excretion.

Nutrition

The process by which an organism takes in food, digests it, absorbs useful substances, and utilises them for energy, growth, and repair.

Autotrophic Nutrition

A mode of nutrition in which organisms prepare their own food from simple inorganic substances ($CO_2$ and $H_2O$) using energy, usually sunlight.

Heterotrophic Nutrition

A mode of nutrition where organisms cannot prepare their own food and depend directly or indirectly on autotrophs for organic nutrients.

Photosynthesis

The process by which green plants prepare glucose from carbon dioxide and water in the presence of sunlight and chlorophyll: $6CO_2 + 12H_2O \rightarrow C_6H_{12}O_6 + 6O_2 + 6H_2O$.

Chloroplasts

Organelles located in plant leaf cells that contain the green pigment chlorophyll and serve as the site of photosynthesis.

Photolysis

The light-driven reaction during photosynthesis in which water molecules are split into hydrogen and oxygen.

Stomata

Tiny pores present on leaves that facilitate gas exchange ($CO_2$ in, $O_2$ out) and transpiration, whose opening and closing are regulated by guard cells.

Holozoic Nutrition

A mode of heterotrophic nutrition involving the sequential steps of ingestion of solid food, digestion, absorption, assimilation, and egestion.

Salivary Amylase

An digestive enzyme (ptyalin) found in saliva that breaks down complex starch into maltose.

Peristalsis

The rhythmic wave-like muscular contraction and relaxation of the alimentary canal walls that moves food along the digestive tract.

Pepsin

A protein-digesting enzyme secreted by gastric glands in the stomach that converts proteins into peptides in an acidic medium provided by $HCl$.

Bile

A secretion from the liver stored in the gall bladder that emulsifies large fat globules into small micelles and creates an alkaline medium in the small intestine.

Trypsin

A pancreatic enzyme in the small intestine that converts peptides into amino acids during protein digestion.

Lipase

An enzyme present in pancreatic juice that breaks down emulsified fat molecules into fatty acids and glycerol.

Villi

Finger-like projections in the inner lining of the small intestine that increase the surface area for the absorption of digested nutrients.

Assimilation

The cellular process of utilising absorbed nutrients for energy release, growth, and tissue repair.

Respiration

The cellular process of breaking down nutrients like glucose to release energy, which is stored in the form of ATP.

ATP

Adenosine Triphosphate; high-energy molecules that serve as the universal energy currency of cells.

Glucose Breakdown Pathways

The pathways by which glucose (6-carbon) breaks down into pyruvate (3-carbon) in the cytoplasm, followed by anaerobic respiration in yeast (ethanol + $CO_2$), anaerobic respiration in muscle cells (lactic acid), or aerobic respiration in mitochondria ($CO_2 + H_2O$).

Alveoli

Thin-walled, balloon-like air sacs in the lungs surrounded by dense capillaries that serve as the site for gas exchange between air and blood.

Double Circulation

A circulatory system feature in humans where blood passes through the heart twice during one complete cycle, consisting of pulmonary and systemic loops.

Lymph

A colourless fluid derived from tissue fluid that transports digested fats, drains excess extracellular fluid, and contains lymphocytes for immunity.

Xylem

A vascular tissue in plants responsible for the unidirectional transport of water and dissolved minerals upward from roots to leaves.

Phloem

A vascular tissue in plants responsible for the bidirectional transport of food (sucrose) from leaves to all other plant parts.

Translocation

The active transport of soluble photosynthetic products (sucrose) through phloem according to the pressure-flow hypothesis.

Transpiration

The loss of water vapour from aerial parts of plants (mainly through stomata), generating a suction pull for upward water transport and cooling.

Excretion

The biological process responsible for removing metabolic nitrogenous wastes such as ammonia, urea, and uric acid from an organism's body.

Nephron

The fundamental structural and functional unit of the kidney responsible for filtering blood and forming urine.

Haemodialysis

A medical procedure that uses an artificial kidney machine (dialyzer) to filter nitrogenous wastes and excess fluid from the blood in patients with kidney failure.