Themes in the Study of Life - Chapter 1 Flashcards

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Chapter 1: Themes in the Study of Life, foundational concepts in biology, feedback mechanisms, cell theory, genomics, and experimental variables.

Biology

The scientific study of life, including the nature of life's diversity and complexity.

Properties of Life

The core characteristics shared by living organisms, which include order, regulation (homeostasis), energy processing, growth and development, reproduction, response to environment, evolution, and cellular structure.

Reductionism

An approach in biology that studies the isolated components of a living system to understand its basic mechanisms.

Systems Biology

An approach to studying biology that complements reductionism by analyzing the interactions among the parts of a biological system to explore emergent properties.

Emergent Properties

Properties that result from the specific arrangement and interactions of parts as biological complexity increases.

Cell Theory

The fundamental biological principle stating that the cell is the fundamental structural and functional unit of all living things.

Eukaryotic Cell

A type of cell that contains membrane-enclosed organelles and a membrane-enclosed nucleus housing its DNA.

Prokaryotic Cell

A cell structure that lacks a nucleus and membrane-bound organelles, with its DNA stored without a membrane enclosure.

Chromosomes

Structures within cells that contain genetic material in the form of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).

Genes

The units of inheritance contained within DNA that provide instructions for cell functions and products.

Gene Expression

The process of converting information from a gene into a functional cellular product.

Genome

All the genetic material of an organism, including whole DNA sequences, all chromosomes, and plasmids.

Proteome

The entire repertoire of proteins produced by an organism, organ, tissue, or cell.

Positive Feedback

A mechanism in which an accumulating product speeds up the process that creates it, resulting in increased production of that product.

Negative Feedback

A mechanism in which an accumulating product slows down the process that creates it, decreasing production of that product.

Natural Selection

An evolutionary process where environmental factors influence differences in individual reproductive success, driving the evolution of adaptations in a population.

Inductive Reasoning

A form of logical thinking where individual observations lead to broader scientific generalizations.

Deductive Reasoning

A form of logical thinking that uses general premises to make specific predictions.

Independent Variable

The factor in an experiment that is manipulated by researchers (also called the explanatory variable).

Dependent Variable

The factor measured in an experiment that is predicted to be affected in response to changes in the independent variable (also called the response variable).

Controlled Variables

Experimental factors or conditions that are kept constant by researchers throughout an experiment.

Scientific Theory

An explanation that is broader in scope than a hypothesis, general enough to lead to many new testable hypotheses, and supported by a large body of evidence.

Levels of Biological Organization

The hierarchical framework of life ranging from the biosphere, ecosystems, communities, populations, organisms, organs, tissues, cells, organelles, down to molecules.

Human Genome Size (Homo sapiens)

An estimated total genome size of 2.9 billion base pairs, encoding approximately 20,000–25,000 protein-encoding genes.

Yeast Genome Size (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)

An estimated total genome size of 12 million base pairs, encoding approximately 6,000 protein-encoding genes.