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Biology

ClearlyExplained.Com
8 June 2004

by Richard Conan-Davies BSc Dip Ed

A straightforward and fast information
guide and overview to biology from
ClearlyExplained.Com

updated: 29 June 2004


The | What | Why | News | How | History | Future | of biology

What is biology?

Biology is the study of living things. It also includes the places and the way things live and even the way they die. It also concerns the way living things can affect the environment.

 

A more amusing definition might be the study of of things that wriggle, squirm, react and reproduce and adapt. It really comes down to defining what is life.

worm

 

The word "biology" comes from the Greek "bios" meaning life and the suffix "_ology" meaning "study of".

koala, earth, mushroom, beach

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Why is biology important?

Biology, as with many sciences has value in three important ways: It has a cultural, technological and scientific value.

Biology has an impact on culture because the objects of the study of biology are so very familiar to us and and yet have a sense of mystery that provokes our sense of imagination. Almost every poem and creative work relates to something that biology studies. For example flowers such as roses are part of the shakespearean sonnets and in a countless other poems.

The way people study biology can also be thought of as a cultural value. The culture of biology or of the people who study biology, ie biologists.

Applications of biology

Why should we care about biology? what value does it have? One of the most important areas of biology is how it helps to control and change nature. The most classic examples are that of genetic engineering and biotechnology in general.

Also just having an understanding of how living things work can help us to deal better with diseases. The whole of medicine for example relies on knowing how different parts of the living body works.

Biology has a major impact on the economy of the world. In particular the development of new drugs for treating either symptoms or the prevention of diseases.

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News about biology.

Search Google News for biology

Many reports that arrive in the news are about biology relate to either new animal, plant discoveries or about health discoveries or issues.

  • New genes discovered in plants or animals
  • the behaviour of animals or of people
  • some extreme aspect of the living world, the largest or smallest creature recently found

biology news often is about pioneering efforts and collaborations with other countries.

biology related stories available at
Nature & Science News
ClearlyExplained.Com

 

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How biology is studied or classified

Biology is often classified or studied depending on the scale of the living thing but also on the types of living things.

For example the study of the very small parts like the individual chemicals of livingsmall DNA image systems is often refered to as biochemistry. But then this can be specified further to a particular creature or type of biological thing. For example the biochemistry of frogs would be concerned with the chemicals that frogs produce or are special to them.

The next level up from chemicals is looking at large groups of chemicals or moleculesorganic worm that make up living things. For example looking at what molecules cells are made of and the shapes of proteins is called molecular biology.

Further up the level are biological tissues, like skin, muscles. This then leads to up to whole organs like the liver, or kidneys or brains. Then biology considers the whole organism. For example the biology human beings, biology of fish biology of mammals.

But it doesn't stop there. Biology looks at the interactions of groups of organisms with each other and with their environments.

 

 

Another more recent tool in biology is plain old mathematics and with it computers to deal with the huge amount of data that is collected. This is because life contains huge amounts of DNA. Using computers to analyse large amounts of DNA sequences is something called bioinformatics.

Biology, as with all sciences uses the technique of the scientific method. This essentially means being very careful about what different things to measure and how one part of an organism might influence another.

Biology is also a study that relies on other fields of study. For example

biophysics- is about the physics of biology for example it deals with the physical requirements of biology such as the forces, speed and motions involved in biology.

astrobiology - is about the biology, or biological aspects that may occur outside of earth in space or on other planets.

 

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What is the history of biology?

    The history of biology is really about the history of the discovery of some of the theories and principles of biology. It is about the personalities and even entire cultures that investigated biology.

    A useful strating point for the history ofaristotle biology is Aristotle, a Greek Philosopher who is credited with being one of the first people to write down in detail and classify living things into groups.

    The univeristy of Berkley provides a good overview of Aristotle and some of his works

     

 

Some other famous or notable people from the history of biology include: Robert Koch , Charles Darwin, James D. Watson.

 

A more complete timeline of biology is available from Wikepedia.

 

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The future of biology?

The future of biology is definitely something to look forward to. Due to the incredible diversity of life and the way life changes and adapts it is certainly a field of study that has constant growth and potential.

New species are still being discovered even today, new forms of life a evolving as we watch them. New bacteria are evolving that can resist antibiotics for example.

 

The biggest scientific challenges probably lie in biology and no other field simply due to the complexities of life itself.

 

What are some of the key aspects or open questions in biology?

This is really about some of the basic principles of biology. Will we be able to simulate or even create living creatures or sponatenously create DNA or RNA from simple organic substances?

How do we get the principles of evolution from very simple molecules? These are some of the most important things yet to discover.

Physics has it's theory of relativity , quantum mechanics but biology has yet to develop a similar all encompassing theory. Perhaps there is a theory out there, perhaps it is more complex and relies more on several concepts. The closest is the theory of evolution but it does not quite explain how life got started but rather how it progresses.

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