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The Science of Biology

The study of living system.
Biology is an ongoing process
- New information derived from new research techniques is constantly changing our conceptual framework

Reaching across the size scales from submicroscopic molecules to the global distribution of biological communities.
Encompassing life over huge spans of time from contemporary organisms to ancestral life forms stretching back 4 billion years.

Biological diversity is enormous
Estimates of the total diversity is between 5 to over 30 million species.
For all this diversity in biological organisms, they share a set of emergent properties associate associated with life and are all based on cellular organization

Order: organisms are highly ordered
Reproduction: Life comes only from life
Growth and development: heritable programs stored in the DNA which specific processes
Energy utilization: organisms take-in and transform energy in order to do work
Response to the environment: respond to stimuli
Homeostatis: regulation of a "constant" internal environment
Evolutionary adaptation: life evolves in response to interactions between the organisms and the environment

The cell is the basic unit of structure and function of all living organisms.
The cell is the lowest level of structure capable of performing all the activities of life
Cells may exist singly or as subunits of multicellular organisms.

Cells are bounded by a plasma membrane which regulates the passage of material between the cell and the surroundings.
All cells, at some stage in development, contain DNA.

Living systems (organisms and biomes) are organized building process from smaller units
- Atoms to molecules
- Molecules to cells
- Cells to tissues
- Tissues to organs
- Organs to Organisms
- Organism to populations
- Populations to communities
- Communities to biomes
We will begin our studies of the biological sciences by following this hierarchical series, building our understanding of the processes of living systems by integrating concepts from proceeding levels.