What are the five fundamental characteristics of life?
Energy, Cells, Information, Replication, Evolution
Explain the information characteristic of life.
All organisms process hereditary information encoded in genes as well as information from the environment
What is a theory?
An explanation for a very general class of phenomena or observations.
What are the two fundamental components of a theory?
Pattern and Process
Explain the "pattern" component of a theory.
The part of a theory explaining something that occurs in the natural world
Explain the "process" component of a theory.
The part of a theory explaining what is responsible for creating the theory's pattern.
What is a hypothesis?
A proposed explanation for a phenomena or observation.
Do hypotheses tend to address a broad, general question or a tightly focused question?
Tightly focused questions
What is a null hypothesis?
A hypothesis that states a lack of relationship between two factors
What is a prediction?
Something that can be measured and must be correct if a hypothesis is to be valid.
What is the independent variable?
The variable of an experiment being manipulated
What is a dependent variable?
The variable of an experiment that is being measured
Which two scientists proposed cell theory in the late 1660's?
Robert Hooke and Anton van Leeuwenhoek
When was cell theory originally proposed?
The late 1660's
What is a cell?
A highly organized compartment bounded by a plasma membrane that contains concentrated chemicals in an aqueous solution.
What does cell theory state?
All organisms are made of cells. All cells come from pre-existing cells.
What does the pattern component of cell theory state?
All organisms are made of cells.
What does the process component of cell theory state?
All cells come from pre-existing cells.
What did Louis Pasteur's experiment prove?
That cells arise from cells and not by spontaneous generation.
State the 5 basic steps of the scientific method.
1. Make Observations; 2. Formulate a hypothesis; 3. Devise a testable prediction; 4. Conduct a critical experiment; 5. Draw conclusions and make revisions.
What was the main claim of the Spontaneous generation hypothesis?
Cells arise spontaneously from nonliving materials
What two hypotheses did Pasteur consider and test?
The Spontaneous Generation Hypothesis and the All-Cells-From-Cells Hypothesis
Why was the straight necked flask important to Pasteur's experiment?
It showed that the heat sterilization process had not altered the nutrient broth's capacity to support growth.
What effect did Pasteur's work have on the future of the evolutionary theory?
It helped prove that individuals in a population are related by common ancestry.
Which two scientists proposed The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection?
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace
When was The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection proposed?
1858
What are the main two claims of the theory of evolution by natural selection?
All species are related by common ancestry. Characteristics of species can be modified from generation to generation.
What is the pattern component of the theory of evolution?
All species are related by common ancestry.
What is the process component of the theory of evolution?
Characteristics of species can be modified from generation to generation
What did Darwin call the idea that characteristics of species can be modified from generation to generation?
Descent with modification
What is evolution?
A change in the characteristics of a population over time.
What process explains how evolution occurs?
Natural Selection
What two conditions are required for natural selection to occur?
1. Individuals in the population vary in characteristics that are heritable; 2. In a particular environment, certain versions of these heritable traits help individuals survive better or reproduce more than do other versions.
What is a population?
A group of individuals of the same species living in the same area at the same time.
What is artificial selection?
Changes in populations that occur when humans select certain individuals to produce the most offspring
What is an example of artificial selection?
Maize corn engineering
What is fitness?
The ability of an individual to produce offspring
What is an adaptation?
A trait that increases the fitness of an individual in a particular environment
What is speciation?
A divergence process in which natural selection has caused populations of one species to diverge to form a new species
What is the tree of life?
A family tree of organisms that describes the genealogical relationships among species with a single ancestral species at its base.
What is phylogeny?
The actual genealogical relationships among all organisms.
What is the literal translation of phylogeny?
Tribe-Source
Which scientist's work with rRNA redefined the previously conceived notions of phylogeny?
Carl Woese
What molecule did Carl Woese study in order to try and understand the phylogeny of all organisms?
rRNA
What 4 letters symbolize the 4 ribonucleotides of rRNA?
A, U, C, and G
What is the general idea of Carl Woese's work?
rRNA sequences should be very similar in closely related organisms but less similar in less closely related organisms
What interesting fact about fungi did Woese's work illustrate?
Fungi are much more closely related to animals than they are to plants.
What are the three fundamental groups or lineages of organisms?
Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya
What do eukaryotic cells have that prokaryotic cells don't have?
A nucleus
Are most bacteria and archaea unicellular or multicellular?
Unicellular
What is taxonomy?
The effort to name and classify organisms
What scientist established a two-part system for naming species in 1735?
Carolus Linnaeus
Explain the two-part system for naming species established by Carolus Linnaeus
The first part indicates the organism's genus. The second part identifies the organism's species.
What is a genus?
A closely related group of species.
What is a species?
Individuals that regularly breed together or have characteristics that are distinct from those of other species.