Grade 12 Biology Short Notes Unit 1 PDF

UNIT 1: [APPLICATIONS OF BIOLOGY IN DAY TO DAY LIFE] ---------------------------------------------------------------- - - APPRECIATION OF NATURE ---------------------- **[Nature] is the phenomena of the physical world including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and produ...

UNIT 1: [APPLICATIONS OF BIOLOGY IN DAY TO DAY LIFE] ---------------------------------------------------------------- - - APPRECIATION OF NATURE ---------------------- **[Nature] is the phenomena of the physical world including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth.** **Nature : ranges from the subatomic to the cosmic. It encompasses living plants and animals, geological processes, weather, and physics, such as matter and energy.** - **We learn and appreciate the beauty of nature through:\ A. *Planting a tree.\ B. Hugging a tree.\ C. Making a garden.\ D. Going for hiking trails.\ E. Watching sunrises & sunsets.\ F. Protecting nature.\ G. Reducing pollution*** - [Conservation of natural resources] ----------------------------------------------- - **[Conservation] is the careful maintenance and wise use of natural** resources **to prevent them from disappearing.** - **[Natural resources] are physical supplies\ that exist in nature. These include soil, water, air, plants, animals, and energy. Ethiopia has many natural resources, such as),gold, platinum, potash, limestone, natural gas, coal, etc.** - ***[Renewable resources]* are mainly living things and their products. When managed carefully, they can be used, reused and replaced. Examples of renewable resources are crop plants, trees, cattle and chickens.** - ***[Nonrenewable resources]* are not living things, and when they are used, they cannot be replaced.\ Examples of non-renewable resources include metals such as gold and iron and fossil fuels such as gas, coal and gas oil** - [Food security] --------------------------- **[Food security] is a state in which when all the people have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life at all times.** ***[Biology plays a key role in improving food security by :]*** - **producing high-nutrient staple crops and** - **Developing new products that can combat malnutrition, and thereby improving food** **utilization.** - Development of career ===================== **[CAREER DEVELOPMENT] is about setting goals and acquiring the skills to achieve those goals or personal improvement, which one undertakes to, achieve their career plan.** - **In an organization, there are different types of development programs to enrich different skills of human resource.** - **Biology graduates are prepared to pursue many career paths including academic research and teaching, medical and public health, biotechnology, industrial research, environmental sciences, and agricultural research.** - [Medicine] ---------------------- - The application of biology in medicine includes: - *Fast diagnosis tools,* - *drug and vaccine production,* - *Gene therapy,* - *immuno-diagnosis,* - *immunotherapy,* - *transplantation, medicinal plants*, - [Waste treatment] ----------------------------- ***[Biotechnological processes]*** **are used for wastewater treatment and reuse. This area involves engineers, biologists, chemists. Appropriately designed waste management system can be utilized to remove hazardous wastes from the environment and to produce of renewable energy such as biofuels and hydrogen.** - **Particularly, for preventing environmental pollution through environmental engineering:** - ***activated sludge process,*** - ***trickling filters*** - ***bio-trickling filters*** - ***oxidation ponds*** - ***anaerobic treatment*** - ***composting units and biogas reactors are used extensively among the waste treatment technologies.*** - **[Biotechnology]** ***Biotechnology is the \"science and technology of harnessing the natural and biological capabilities of plants, animals, and microbes for the benefit of people\". This means the application of biological knowledge, techniques and use of living organisms to make a product or run a process for human use.*** *** Biotechnology contributes much towards the growing public and global health needs. It has revolutionized the lives of humankind since its existence.*** APLLICATIONS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY ----------------------------- *** It has provided effective diagnostics, prevention and treatment measures including the production of novel drugs and recombinant vaccines.*** *** It gives effective drug delivery approaches, new methods for therapeutics*** *** Nutritionally enriched and genetically modified crops and efficient methods for environmental cleanup.*** *** Accordingly, life quality and expectancy have been increased worldwide through the services provided by biotechnology.*** *** Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a broadly applied laboratory test for the diagnosis of a wide variety of central nervous system (CNS) diseases, including genetic and autoimmune diseases, malignant neoplasms, and infections.*** *** Biotechnology has also offered modern diagnostic test kits, rickettsial, bacterial, and viral vaccines along with radiolabeled biological therapeutics for imaging and analysis.*** *** Vaccination by making recombinant vaccines has the potential to eradicate non-communicable diseases like cancer. Naked DNA vaccines, viral vector vaccines and plant-derived vaccines are found to be the most effective against a number of bacterial and viral diseases.*** TYPES OF BIOTECHNOLOGY ---------------------- - **Generally, biotechnology is divided into traditional and the new or modern biotechnologies.** - **[Traditional applications of biotechnology] involve the domestication and traditional fermentations (brewing beers, making wines, making bread, and** **making cheese and yoghurt).** - **[Modern applications of biotechnology] include using genetic engineering to change crops and animals; producing new medicines; and helping to provide new energy sources. It has enormous significance in helping people to improve and control their lives.** MODERN applications of biotechnology: ------------------------------------- - ***Biological engineering*** - ***Forensic science*** - ***Soil fertility, tissue culture, animal breeding and transgenic animals, plant, and disease, and pest management*** - ***Food, brewery, pharmaceuticals, tannery, and textile, single cell production, preservation*** - ***Biological warfare*** **[Biological engineering:]** - **is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically viable products.** - **Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number of pure and applied sciences such as organ transfer, biocatalysts, bioinformatics, separation and purification processes, bioreactor design, and polymer science** [KEY TERMS IN BIOTECHNOLOGY ] ----------------------------------------- - **[Bio-process engineering:]** **is the planning, construction, execution, and revision of the biological and mechanical processes required to create new products within the life sciences.** - **[Bioinformatics:]** **is a sub-discipline of biology and computer science concerned with the acquisition, storage, analysis, and dissemination of biological data, most often DNA and amino acid sequences.** - **[A model organism:]** **is an organism suitable for studying a specific trait, disease, or phenomenon due to its short generation time, characterized genome, or similarity to humans; examples are a fly, fish, rodent or pig whose biology is well known and accessible for laboratory studies.** - **[Bio-catalysis:]** **is the use of enzymes that have been isolated or enzymes that still reside inside living cells to perform chemical conversions of organic compounds.** - **[A bioreactor:]** **are any manufactured device or system that supports a biologically active reactions.** *[AGRICULTURAL APPLICATIONS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY ]* ----------------------------------------------------------- - **The following are some of the few examples of the advancements [of agricultural production] integrating knowledge of biology and technology:** - ***Soil fertility*** - ***Tissue culture*** - ***Animal breeding and transgenic animals, and plants and disease, and pest management*** Promises of biology to the society ---------------------------------- - **Good understanding of the diverse flora, fauna and microbial resources together with the underlying biological principles is required for the development and sustained use biological wealth.** - **Along with biological resources, there is a wealth of indigenous biological knowledge that could be systematically introduced into the modern science. This can be achieved by training army of competent biologists and introducing biological literacy campaign.** - **Effective control of land degradation, biodiversity loss, diseases and other menaces, as well as the development of the biological and agricultural potentials needs to be used.** - **Biologists take positions in different fields including in teaching/education, research, agriculture, medical areas, fisheries, conservation, industry, natural resource development biodiversity and genetic resources conservation and the control of pest sand diseases.** - **Much contribution to the growth and advancement of biological knowledge is expected, since the country has important biological materials regarding human evolutionary history and crop domestication, the pattern and abundance of species distribution especially endemic plant and animal species.**