1.1 The World of Biology

1.
1 The World of
Biology
CHAPTER 1: THE SCIENCE OF LIFE
Student Objectives
1. Relate the relevance of biology to a person’s daily life.

2. Describe the importance of biology in human society.
3. List the seven characteristics of life.
4. Summarize the hierarchy of organization within complex
multicellular organisms.
5. Distinguish between homeostasis and metabolism and between
growth, development and reproduction.
6. Describe why viruses are not considered living organisms.
Biology and you
• Biology = the study of life
• Biologists use a organized and scientific framework to answer
questions as:
• How living things work
• How they interact with the environment
• How they change over time
• Biologists study tiny organisms, such as bacteria, to very large

organisms, such as elephants.
• Biologists investigate subjects that affect you and the way you live.
• Biology can help you make informed decisions on issues that impact
you and our society.
7 Characteristics of life
1.Organization and Cells

2.Response to Stimuli
3.Homeostasis
4.Metabolism
5.Growth and Development
6.Reproduction
7.Change over time (Evolution)
1. Organization and
Cells
• Organization is the highest degree of order
within an organism’s internal and external
parts and its interactions with the living world.
• All living organisms, whether made up of one
cell or many cells, have some degree of
organization.
1. Multicellular organisms
2. Unicellular organisms
• A cell is the smallest unit that can perform all
life’s processes:
• Organelles: tiny structures that carry out functions for
the cell to stay alive.
• Biological molecules: chemical compounds
that provide physical structure and bring
movement, energy use, and other cellular
functions.
• Atoms: the simplest particle of an
element that retain its properties.
2. Response to Stimuli
• Organisms can respond to a stimulus – a physical or
chemical change in the internal or external
environment.
• Organisms must be able to respond and react to
changes in their environment.
3. Homeostasis
• Homeostasis is the maintenance of a

stable level of internal conditions
even though environmental
conditions are constantly changing.
• Temperature
• Water content
• Uptake of nutrients by the cell
4. Metabolism
• Living organisms use energy to power all

the life processes, such as repair,
movement, and growth.
• Metabolism is the sum of all the chemical
reactions that take in and transform energy
and materials from the environment.
• Photosynthesis
• Chemosynthesis
• Obtaining food from other organisms
5. Growth and Development
• All living things grow and increase in size by the division
or/and enlargement of cells.
• Cell division is the formation of two new cells from an
existing cell.
• Development is the process by which an organism becomes a
mature adult. Development involves cell division and cell
differentiation, or specialization.
6. Reproduction
• All organisms produce new organisms like

themselves in a process called reproduction.
• Not essential to the survival of a individual
species, but critical for continuation of a
species.
• During reproduction, organisms transmit
hereditary information to their offspring.
• DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is a large
molecule where hereditary information is
encoded in.
6. Reproduction
• In sexual reproduction,
hereditary information recombines
from organisms of the same
species. The resulting offspring
are similar, but not identical, to
their parents.
• In asexual reproduction, original
organisms and the new organisms
are genetically identical.
7. Change over Time
(Evolution)
• Populations of living organisms evolve or change
over time.
• The ability of organisms to change over generations
is important for survival in a changing world.
Viruses
• The Latin root for the word virus means "poison".
• A virus is a nonliving particle made up of nucleic acid
and a protein coat or nucleic acid and a lipid-protein
(lipoprotein) coat.
• Viruses are not living organisms, but they are still
interesting to biologists because:
• Cause many diseases
• Useful for genetic research
'A kind of borrowed life'
• Viruses are not considered alive, because they lack some of the key characteristics of living
organisms.
• No cytoplasm or organelles
• No metabolism
• No homeostasis
• Do not grow as cells
• Cannot reproduce outside host cell.
• Viruses have genetic material, or a genome – either DNA or RNA.
• They must enter a living cell and use the host’s cell ribosomes, ATP, enzymes, and other
molecules to reproduce.

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1.

1. Relate the relevance of biology to a person’s daily life.

• Biologists study tiny organisms, such as bacteria, to very large

1.Organization and Cells

• Homeostasis is the maintenance of a

• Living organisms use energy to power all

• All organisms produce new organisms like

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