General Biology 2 Overview

General Biology 2 Study Notes

• Biology: The scientific study of life.
• Scientific study of life: Scientists continually discover new species. Extinction rates are accelerating.
• Living and Nonliving things: Atoms are the fundamental building blocks of all matter. Molecules are associations of two or more atoms. Unique properties of life emerge from the interactions of these components.
• Components: atoms, molecules, cells, organisms and more.
• Cell: Smallest unit of life, consists of 1 or more cells.
• Organism: An individual consisting of 1 or more cells..
• Levels of organization: Population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere.
• Energy sources: Producers make their own food and consumers get energy from other organisms.
• Respond to change: Organisms sense and respond to changes inside and outside themselves via homeostasis.
• Respond to stimulation: Organisms respond to stimulation.
• Grow and reproduce: Organisms grow, develop, and reproduce by increasing cell size, volume and number.
• Reproduction: A process by which individuals make offspring.
• Inheritance: The transmission of genetic material (DNA) to offspring.
• Energy and nutrients: Energy is needed to do work, nutrients are necessary for survival. Organisms can't create nutrients.
• Biodiversity: The variations among living organisms.
• Prokaryotes: Single-celled organisms without a nucleus. Examples are bacteria and archaea.
• Eukaryotes: Organisms with DNA contained within a nucleus. Examples are protists, plants, fungi and animals.
• Taxonomy: The practice of naming and classifying species.
• Species: A unique kind of organism with a unique two-part scientific name (genus and species). Members of a species can interbreed, produce fertile offspring.
• Taxonomic rank: Domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.
• Scientific Method: Observing, hypothesizing, predicting, experimenting, analyzing the results, and drawing conclusions.
• Scientific theory: A hypothesis that has not been disproven after rigorous years of testing.
• Law of Nature: A phenomenon observed to occur every time, without failure.
• Hypothesis: Testable explanation.
• Scientific method: A systematic way of making, testing, and evaluating hypotheses.
• Model: Analogous system used to test hypotheses.
• Cell Cycle: A series of events from when a cell forms until its cytoplasm divides. Includes Interphase, Mitosis and Cytoplasmic Division.
• Mitosis: A nuclear division mechanism maintaining chromosome number in daughter cells. The process involves a series of phases (prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase).
• Interphase: The interval between mitotic divisions.
• Homologous chromosomes: Members of a chromosome pair with the same length, shape and genes. One member comes from the female parent and the other comes from the male parent.
• Cell division: Reproduction by division into two cells.
• Cells reproduction: Cells reproduce by dividing in two, Each daughter cell receives a complete set of chromosomes.
• Cell Division Gone Wrong: Neoplasm - accumulation of abnormally dividing cells, Tumor- Neoplasm that forms a lump and Oncogenes - promotes mitosis (a mutation that causes a normal cell to become cancerous).
• Tumor suppressor: Genes that inhibit mitosis.
• Cancer: Malignant neoplasms that break free and invade other issues (metastasis). Characteristic features include grow and divide abnormally, abnormal plasma membrane, cytoskeleton, chromosome number, metabolism and deficient adhesion proteins.
• Telomeres: Non-coding DNA sequences that are located at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes providing a buffer and protection against the loss of crucial genetic information.
• Sex and Alleles: Paired genes on homologous chromosomes might vary slightly in DNA sequence and forms of a gene with subtly different versions of the gene's product.
• Asexual reproduction: Offspring arise from one parent, and offspring are genetic clones; and Sexual reproduction produces offspring that inherit genes from two parents and exhibit diversity of offspring.
• Meiosis: A type of cellular division that halves the genetic material, a necessary part of sexual reproduction, and it produces four haploid cells from one diploid cell.
• Meiosis I and Meiosis II: Meiosis involves two rounds of cell division; Meiosis I separates homologous chromosomes, and Meiosis II separates sister chromatids resulting in four haploid daughter cells.
• Punnett Squares: A tool to calculate probability of genotype and phenotype of offspring from crosses.
• Patterns of inheritance: Monohybrid crosses and Dihybrid crosses.
• Mendel's laws: Established principles of inheritance.
• Alleles: Different forms of a gene.
• Genotype: Genetic makeup, and Phenotype: Observable trait.
• Dominant and recessive alleles: Dominant alleles mask the effect of recessive alleles.
• Homozygous: Identical alleles of a gene, and Heterozygous: Unidentical alleles of a gene.
• Incomplete dominance: One allele is not fully dominant over another, so the heterozygous phenotype is intermediate.
• Codominance: Two alleles are both fully expressed in heterozygotes.
• Pleiotropy: A single gene influences multiple traits.
• Epistasis: A trait is influenced by the products of multiple genes.
• Complex variations in traits: Influenced by many genes and other factors that result in continuous distribution of phenotypes.
• Continuous variation: A range of small increments of phenotype.
• Human Genetic Analysis: Standardized charts illustrating phenotypes of family members and their genetic connections used to follow inheritance patterns in humans.
• Chromosomal mutations: Abnormalities occur due to incorrect separation of chromosomes during cell division.
• Genetic screening: Potential parents with risk of transmitting harmful alleles have screening options and treatments.
• Types of tissues: Epithelial, connective, muscular, and nervous tissues.
• Epithelial tissues: Sheet-like tissues that form the covering of organs or line body cavities. Cells are tightly connected with a basement membrane.
• Connective tissues: The most diverse tissue in animals. Support, connect or separate and protect different parts of the body. Matrix is the extracellular portion composed of collagen protein and an amorphous ground substance, which surrounds a variety of cells.
• Muscular tissues: Characteristically elongated muscle cells. Responsible for movement. They contract to generate force and movement.
• Nervous tissues: The communication system. They control body functions.
• Organs: Structural unit composed of different tissue types that carry out specific tasks.
• Complex traits: Traits influenced by many genes.
• Organ systems: Groups of organs working together to perform particular functions.
• Homeostasis: The maintenance of internal conditions within a tolerable range.
• Temperature regulation: Maintaining a stable temperature (endotherms) or the ectotherm whose body temperature fluctuates with the surrounding environmental temperature.
• Feedback mechanism: A change in one direction triggers a response that reverses the change.
• Cellular respiration: The process by which organisms obtain energy from carbohydrates.
• Aerobic respiration: Respiration using oxygen, and anaerobic respiration respiration without oxygen.
• Metabolic diversity: Organisms obtain energy and carbon from different sources.
• Autotrophs: Organism that create their own food.
• Heterotrophs: organisms that get carbon from other organisms.
• Photoautotrophs: Organisms that get energy from light and use carbon dioxide to make food.
• Chemoautotrophs: Organisms that obtain energy from chemicals.
• Photoheterotrophs: Organisms that get energy from light and carbon from organic molecules.
• Chemoheterotrophs: Organisms that get both energy and carbon from organic molecules.
• Decomposers: Organisms that break down organic compounds into inorganic ones.
• Protists: A diverse group of eukaryotes that are neither plants, fungi, nor animals. Heterotrophic protists are characterized by their feeding method.
• Cellular slime molds: They live as single-celled organisms but aggregate to form a fruiting body.
• Plasmodial slime molds: Heterotrophic protists that move and feed as a multinucleated mass.
• Flagellated protists: Heterotrophic lineage of unwalled, single-celled protists.
• Foraminiferans: Single-celled predators that secrete calcium carbonate shells.
• Ciliates: Single-celled heterotrophs that use cilia for movement and feeding.
• Amoebas: Single-celled heterotrophic amoebozoans that move and feed by extending pseudopods.
• Diatoms: Single-celled organisms that have two-part silica shells.
• Brown algae: Multicellular organisms ranging in size from microscopic filaments to giant kelps.
• Red algae: Single or multicellular photosynthetic protists
• Green algae: Single-celled, colonial, or multicelled photosynthetic protists.
• Dinoflagellates: Single-celled aquatic organisms with two flagella.
• Virus: A non-cellular, infectious particle consisting of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) inside a protein coat.
• Viral replication: Processes that viruses undergo to reproduce inside a host cell.
• Lytic cycle: Virally replicates inside a host cell, and then breaks open the plasma membrane to release newly generated viruses.
• Lysogenic cycle: Virus becomes integrated into the host's genetic material.
• Bacteria: Prokaryotic organisms.
• Archaea: Prokaryotic organisms.
• Prokaryotes characteristics: Typical bacterial cell; no nucleus, no other organelles, cytoplasm, ribosomes, and a single circular chromosome (DNA).
• Prokaryote reproduction: Binary fission, asexual reproduction that forms two identical descendant cells.
• Ebola: An enveloped RNA virus that emerges in Africa, a disease transmitted by nonhuman primates and fruit bats.
• Influenza: A disease-causing enveloped RNA viruses.
• HIV (human immunodeficiency virus): An enveloped RNA virus that infects human white blood cells. Reverse transcriptase is an enzyme that transforms viral RNA into DNA and integrate it into the host chromosome, and hosts' cell proteins and RNA form new viral particles.
• Viruses and human health: Some viruses are beneficial; other viruses are human pathogens.

Dive into the intricate study of life with this General Biology 2 quiz. Learn about the fundamental building blocks of life, levels of organization, and how living organisms interact with their environments. This quiz covers essential concepts including cells, energy sources, and biological responses.