Scientists notes

Francesco Redi-1686

Experimented with jars (sealed and not sealed) with meat in the jars. He proved that the maggots came from fly eggs not the meat. He disproved spontaneous generation.

John Needham (1745)

He heated broth in a sealed flask. The broth became cloudy and had microorganisms. He supported spontaneous generation. He did not boil the broth for long enough (didn’t kill all the microorganisms.

Lazzaro Spallanzani (1768)

He boiled the broth for longer than Needham. Only unsealed flasks became cloudy. He disproved spontaneous generation

Louis Pasteur (1859)

He worked with flasks with s shaped tubes that were open to the air. Only flasks that were tilted and broth was exposed to dust became cloudy. He disproved spontaneous generation

Alexander Oparin-1924

He said elements in the atmosphere were combined by heat to make the complex compounds found in living things.

Stanley Miller/Harold Urey 1953

They experimented to prove Oparin’s ideas. Their experiments did not support Oparin’s experiments-it did not prove that life began in that way.

Robert H. Whittaker

American biologist, came up with a five-kingdom system for classifying organisms. Those kingdoms are Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia.

Carolus Linnaeus

Swedish physician and botanist, classified organisms based on similar structures.

Aristotle

A Greek philosopher lived more than 2,000 years ago. He was one of the first people to classify organisms.

Dichotomous Key

is a series of descriptions arranged in pairs that lead the user to the identification of an unknown organism

Classification

system of organization based on shared characteristics or qualities

Species

is a group of organisms that have similar traits and are able to produce fertile offspring

Genus

A group of similar species

Systematics

the branch of biology that deals with classification

Binomial Nomenclature

gives each organism a two-word scientific name

Biodiversity

variety of life that can be found on Earth