Ecology
The naturally preserved remains or traces of a plant or animal that lived a very long time ago
What is a fossil
Organisms that are too small to be seen with the Naked eye
What is a microorganism or microbe
The four nucleotides that make up DNA
These sub-atomic particles make up the nucleus of an atom
What are protons and neutrons
This morning while I was driving, I was stuck behind a car with, unsurprisingly, this university's bumper sticker. It is also ranked second highest in Michigan based on amount of students
What is Michigan State University
The parts of Earth where life exists
What is the biosphere
An organism that cannot make its own food
The element isotope used to determine the age of ancient organic materials
What is carbon-14
A substance that speeds up a chemical reaction without being used up or changed by the process
What is a catalyst
The first decentralized digital currency, introduced in 2008 and launched in 2009, has risen by more than 11 billion percent since its first established value
What is Bitcoin
The conversion of atmospheric nitrogen to nitrates by bacteria
A relationship in which one organism benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed
What is commensalism
The eight taxa that classify living things
What are domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species
A scientific measure of the disorder, randomness, or spreading out of energy and matter in a system
What is entropy
Recently I have been getting into cryptozoology. My personal favorite is this cryptic, characterized by its rabbit body and antlers
What is the jackalope
A method used to build phylogenetic trees based on the principle of simplicity.
What is maximum parsimony
Mild heat-treatment process that destroys harmful pathogens
These five elements make up ~97.5% of the human body
What are oxygen, calcium, hydrogen, calcium, and nitrogen
The name for this compound: CH3COOH
What is acetic acid
During my morning drive, I was listening to this British rock band formed in 1996, most well known for their hit 2000 single "Yellow"
Who is Coldplay
The reproductive unit of a fungus
What are spores
The thickness of this polymer that forms the cell wall of bacteria determines whether a bacterium is gram positive or gram negative
What is peptidoglycan
The three laws of thermodynamics
What are
1. Energy cannot be created or destroyed
2. Spontaneous processes lead to an increase in the total entropy of the universe
3. The entropy of a substance approaches zero as its temperature approaches absolute zero (0K)
The geometric property of a molecule not being superimposable on its mirror image
What is chirality
A part of my job is pushing boxes on a conveyer belt. When two boxes hit each other, they move in a predictable pattern based on their speed and mass. This physics concept describes the behavior of two bodies following a collision
What is the principle of conservation of linear momentum