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| that part of earth inhabited by living organisms; includes both living and non living components. |
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| all the organisms and their non living environment withing a defined area. |
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one of life's three domains;
consists of prokaryotes that are only distantly related to members of the domain bacteria. |
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| prokaryotic cells have genetic material that is not enclosed in a membrane-bound nucleus; they also lack membrane bound organelles. |
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one of life's three domains;
consists of prokaryotes that are only distantly related to members of the domain archaea. |
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| the proposal that living organisms can arise from nonliving matter. |
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one of lifes three domains;
consists of all eukaryotes (plants, animals, fungi, and protists) |
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a eukaryotic organism that is not a plant, animal, or fungus.
The term encompasses a diverse array of organisms and does not represent a monophyletic group. |
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a non cellular parasitic particle that consists of a protein coat surrounding genetic material;
multiplies only within a cell of a living organsim (the host) |
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| an organic milecule composed of nucleotide subunits; the two common types of nucleic acids are ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleicacid (DNA) |
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| a protein that, in mutated form, acts as an infectious agent that causes certain neurodegenerative diseases, including Kuru and Scrapies. |
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Negative feedback
vs
Positive feedback |
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Definition
negative: a situation in wich a change initiates a series of events that tend to cuonteract the change and restore the original state.
positive: a situation in which a change initiates events that tend to amplify the original change |
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Autotroph
vs.
Heterotroph |
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Autotroph: "self feeder" normally a photosynthetic organism; a producer.
Heterotroph: literally "other feeder", an organism that eats other organisms; a consumer. |
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absorbtion: the process by which nutrients are taken into cells. |
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| a group of organisms of the same species. |
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| the process by which organisms with specific traits that help them cope with the rigors of the environment reproduce more successfully than do others that lack these traits. |
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| states that modern organisms descended with modification, from preexisting life-forms. |
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the accuracy of the DNA copying process is astonishingly high:
in people about 25 mistakes
occur ever billion bits of info copied
(UV, Radioactive particles, cig smoke = damage.) |
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| the maintenance of a relatively constant environment requires for the optimal functioning of cells, maintained by the coordinated activity of numerous regulatory, endocrine, circulatory, and excretory systems. |
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| According to your textbook, the three components required for a negative feedback mechanism 9such as thermostat) are a control center with a set point, a ____ and an ____? |
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| According to your textbook, the ____ is the part of the brain that serves as a control center for shivering and other responses involved in thermoregulation? |
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| True or False: The hypothalamus acts as a part of a positive (as aposed to a negative) feedback loop during labor? |
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| A Venus flytraps (and similar carnivorou plants) prey on animals in order to obtain _____. |
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| Although the electrical signals involved are similar to the nerve impulses that you use to trigger your own movements, the rapid structural change that cause the flytrap to close are very different from those that occur when your muscles contract. As your textbook explains, the leaves of the flytrap apparently "pop" when particular cells (in the "mesophyll" layer) swell due to the ______. |
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| True or False. According to the assigned website, a well-fed" venus flytrap does not require sunlight because te prey that it consumes can provide all of its energy needs. |
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| True or False. A typical venus flytrap consumes about a dozen insects per hour. |
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| Features of an organizm that help it to survive and reproduce (long limbs of deer, wings of an eagle, mighty trunks of the redwood) are called ____. |
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| True or False. All unicellular organisms are prokaryotic. |
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| True or False. The first scientists to speculate that species had, in fact changed over time (evolved) were Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. |
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| True or False. The most important feature of the evolutionary theory proposed by Darwin (and also Wallace) is the idea that organisms evolve through the inheritance of acquires characteristics. |
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| Certain superficially similar structures, such as the wings of birds and insects, or the sleek shape of penguins and sels, are considered to be______, rather than homologous, because they "do NOT stem from common ancestry" |
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| a phenomenon know as the _____ is responsible for the high prevelance of a genetic disease known as Ellis -vancreveld syndrome among the Amish population in Lancaster Country, Pennsylvania. |
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| The fruit fly species known as Rhagoletis pomonella appears to be splitting into two distinct groups: one that lays eggs on the fruit of the American hawthorne tree, and another that uses apples. Assuming these eventually become two different species, this represents an example of _______ speciation. |
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| Certain superficially similar structures, such as the wings of birds and insekcts, or the sleek shape of penguins and seals, are considered to be analogous, tather than homologous, because they "do not stem from common ancestry" the evolution phenomenon that gives rise to analogous structure is known as ____. |
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| Two significant causes of genetic drift, one is _____, responsible for the remarkably low amount of genetic diversity among the northern elephant seals. |
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| many South American mammals went extinct, and were replaced by mammals that came from North America, following the appearance of the isthmus of Panama (which created a land bridge that permitted the migration, intermixing and competition between previously isolated species from the two continents) |
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| According to professor Orr, which two scholars are the "scientific leaders" of the design movement, and what are their professional areas of expertise? |
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Michael Behe (biochemist)
William Dembski (mathematician, philosopher, and theologian) |
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| A mousetrap is an everyday objectwith "irreducible complexity" because it has many distinct parts that are all absolutely required for the function of the whole. What bacterial structure was proposed by Behe (and accepted by Orr and other biologists) as a BIOLOGICAL example of IC |
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| Orr argues (contra Behe) that irredicible complexity can arise through evolutionary processes, and is therfore not (by itself) proof of "design". To illistrate the general idea of how a part that is (currently) indispensable can evolve from one that was previously only desirable, Orr mentions a "nice" automotive accessory that is today merely optional, but that may become absolutely essential to the operation of cars in the future. What is this device? |
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| Orr considers Debski's two arguments to be invalid because 1) Organisms arent trying to match any "independently given pattern". evolution has no _____, and the history of life isnt trying to get anywhere and 2) these theorums dont hold in the case of ____, in which, and most evolution is surely just that. |
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| True or False. According to Orr, each of the five "founding fathers" of 20th century evolutionary biology was a declared atheist. |
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