Chapter 3 - Water And The Fitness Of The Environment

Three Main Questions
- How important is water to life?
Water is an important substance to life. 3/4 of Earth surface is water. Human and other living organisms need water to stay alive. Most number of cells are surrounded by water. Human body consists 70% of water.
- How is the quality of water on Earth?
Its getting worse due to the heavy pollution. Human activities are the main reason that effect the water quality for example: human and factory wastes flow directly into rivers.
- What is the pH scale?
pH scale is a measure of the acidity of a solution.

Five Main Facts
- Water is an important substance to sustain life.
- Cohesion happens when two substance is hold together by hydrogen bond.
- A substance that produces hydrogen ions in a solution is called acid.
- A substance that reduce hydrogen ions in a solution is called base.
- Anything that moves has kinetic energy which is the energy of motion.

Diagram



This diagram represents a hydrogen bonds between water molecules. The part that has been charged of a water molecule are attracted to oppositely charged parts of the neighbor molecules. A molecule can hydrogen-bond to multiple partners. This bond is constantly changing over time.

Summary
Water is an important substance to life. Three quarters of Earth's surface is covered by water. It is one of the most important thing for human and other living organisms to sustain their life. Water surrounded most cells and cells themselves are 70%-95% water. Albeit water is important to life, it's being polluted.
A liquid that is a mixture made up of two or more substances is called a solution. Solvent is a substance that can dissolve other substances and what is dissolved is called solute. Scientists tried to find an universal solvent and they found that nothing works better than water. However, water is not an universal solvent because there are things and substances that water can not dissolve.

Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERy18NwemVc

10 Key Terms
- Cohesion: the binding together of like molecules, often by hydrogen bonds.
- Adhesion: the attraction between different kinds of molecules.
- Surface tension: a measure of how difficult it is to stretch or break the surface of liquid.
- Kinetic energy: the energy of motion.
- Solution: a liquid that is a completely homogeneous mixture of two or more substances.
- Solvent: the dissolving agent of a solution.
- Solute: a substance that is dissolved in a solution.
- Aqueous solution: a solution in water is the solvent.
- Hydrophilic: having an affinity for water.
- Hydrophobic: having an aversion to water; actually repel water.

Chapter 2 - The Chemical Context Of Life

Three Main Questions
- What are organisms consist of?
Organisms are consist of matter. Matter is anything that has mass and take space. Its occurs in many forms such as: rocks, gases, metals,...
- What is an element?
Element is a substance that is impossible to brake down by chemical reaction. There are 92 elements that were discovered by scientists.
- What is element's properties depend on?
Element's properties are mainly depend on the structure of its atoms.

Five Facts
- The study of biology is somehow connected to chemistry.
- A compound is a substance consisting of two or more different elements combined in a fixed ratio.
- Isotopes are atoms with the same number of protons but different number of neutrons.
- Atom is consists of even smaller part called subatomic particles.
- There are two types of bond called: covalent bonds and ionic bonds.

Diagram The periodic table is the diagram that display the chemical elements. Each box contains information held about a certain element. The periodic table is arrange into several groups who have similar chemical properties. The number on top refers to the number of protons present in the atom. The letter represents the chemical formula of that atom. Finally the number at the bottom of the box is refers to the mass of an atom.

Summary
Chapter 2 is an introduces about some basic information of how chemistry simply apply throughout our study of life and biology. An element's properties is mostly depend on the structure of its atoms. There is an unit that even smaller than atom which is subatomic. Atom is made up of subatomic particles.
The number of protons in the nucleus of a atom is called atomic number. We can calculate the mass number by finding the sum of protons and neutrons. Isotopes are a different atomic forms of the element. Most of the atoms have the same numbers of protons. Chemical bonds are the result of two atoms staying close to each others and was held by attractions. There are two types of chemical bond called covalent bond and ionic bond.

Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERy18NwemVc

10 Key Terms:
- Element: the substance that cannot be broken down to other substances by chemical reaction.
- Compound: a substance consisting of two or more different elements combined in a fixed ratio.
- Atom: the smallest unit of matter that still retains the properties of an element.
- Atomic number: the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom.
- Mass number: the sum of protons plus neutrons in the nucleus of an atom.
- Atomic mass: the total mass of an atom.
- Radioactive isotope: is one in which the nucleus decays spontaneously, giving off particles and energy.
- Isotope: one of several atomic forms of an element, each with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons.
- Energy: the capacity to cause change for instance by doing work.
- Hydrogen bond: forms when a hydrogen atom covalently bonded to one electronegative atom is also attracted to another electronegative atom.

Chapter 1 - Introduction: Themes in the study of life.

1) What is the main theme of Biology?
Evolution is the main theme of Biology. All living organism that we know about are related to evolution. This is the only idea that makes sense and explain clearly about living things.

2) What are some properties of life?
- Response to the environment: Organisms detect and response to stimuli from their environment.
- Energy processing: All organisms must take in energy to grow, develop, reproduce and maintain its life.
- Reproduction: Living things reproduce which mean that they produce new organisms

3) What are the levels of Biological Organization?
- The Biosphere: includes most regions of land, bodies of water and the atmosphere.
- Ecosystems: consists of both living and non-living things of the environment.
- Communities: the society that living in the forest such as trees, a diversity of animal,... are a community.
- Populations: includes of all species living within a specific area.
- Organisms: Every individual living things are called organisms.
- Organs and Organ Systems: Organ are a part inside an organism. Its helps to carry out a particular function in the body.
- Tissues: group of similar cells that perform a particular function.
- Cells: Life most basic unit of structure and function.
- Organelles: a structure that performs important function in a cell.
-Molecules: a smallest unit that consisting of two or more chemical units called atoms.

Five Main Facts
- Life is what all living things do.
- The core theme of biology is evolution.
- We are able to reproduce based on a heritable information in the form of DNA.
- There are three domains of life: Bacteria, Archae and Eukarya.
- Biological Organization consists of 10 levels from the most simple to the most complex levels.

Diagram


This diagram represent the classify of life in an order. There are 8 levels and was organized from the most general to the most specify stage. This system is named Linnaen followed the name of the scientist who created it. Species that are closely related are placed in the same group.

Summary
Chapter 1 is mainly introduce about the study of life and biology. Throughout the chapter, the author was giving a lot of examples and facts to explain more about the concept. All living things have a common properties of life such as reproduction, growth and develop, energy processing,... Evolution is the core theme of biology. This is a very important thing that helps us to understand clearly about living organisms.
DNA(Deoxyribonucleic acid) is the substance of genes that is needed for living things to reproduce. Its main function is to transfer information from the parents to their offspring. The Linnaean system helps to organize the diversity of life. Its make it easier for us to understand which animals are related to other.

Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1biuNl90380

10 Key Terms
- Evolution: the process of change that has transformed life on Earth from its earliest beginnings to the diversity of organisms living today.
- Biology: the scientific study of life.
- Emergent properties: new properties that arise with each step upward in the hierarchy of life, owing to the arrangement and interactions of parts as complexity increases.
- Systems biology: to construct models for the dynamic behavior of whole biological systems
-DNA: the substance of genes, the units of inheritance that transmit information from parents to the offspring.
- Bioinformatics: the use of computational tools to store, organize, and analyze the huge volume of data that result from high-throughput methods.
- Hypothesis: a tentative answer to a well-framed question - an explanation on trial.
- Eukaryotic cell: a type of cell with a membrane-enclosed nucleus and membrane-enclosed organelles.
- Prokaryotic cell: a type of cell lacking a membrane-enclosed nucleus and membrane-enclosed organelles.
- Data: recorded observations.