Zombie
When a person is infected with a disease but does not show any visible physical symptoms.
What is Asymptomatic?
Programmed cell death, used during early cell development to eliminate unwanted or damaged cells!
What is Apoptosis?
Any living organism that functions as a carrier for infectious diseases between human populations, or from animals to humans.
What is a Vector?
A state of balance among all the body systems needed for the body to survive and function correctly.
What is Homeostasis?
A living organism that another organism (like a parasite) depends on for survival.
What is Host?
When enough people in an area have immunity from a disease so that it no longer spreads easily or quickly throughout the population.
What is Herd Immunity
The process of a living organism being broken down into simpler organic matter (like minerals (phosphorous, calcium) and other by-products such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water.
What is Decomposition?
Microscopic organisms, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and parasites that can cause diseases in humans, animals, and even plants!
What is Pathogen?
A change in DNA sequence in a living organism and is the primary tool that drives biological evolution and genetic variation.
What is Mutation?
An animal or plant that gets nutrients by living on or inside of an organism of another species (almost always at the harm of the host species!)
What is Parasite?
The study of how often diseases occur in different populations and why.
What is Epidemiology?
A visible symptom of death where the muscles of the decaying corpse stiffen due to the release of calcium from decomposing cells (which prevents the muscles fibers from detaching and relaxing).
What is Rigor Mortis?
The time between the exposure to, or contraction of, an infectious disease and the start of physical symptoms of illness.
What is Incubation Period?
The process when a stimulus (can be environmental, physical, or a chemical substance) triggers a response (brought about via nerve impulses from the nervous system) from a cell, tissue, or organism.
What is Stimulation?
A virus that allows the host to live (does not lyse cells) and instead integrated it's own DNA into the host's genome.
What is a Lysogenic Virus?
Described how effective a microorganism is able to cause severe disease and significantly impact it's host's health.
What is Virulence?
Caused by infections, diseases, or other toxins; it is cell death within living body tissues that severely damages the tissue's structure and function.
What is Necrosis?
Infectious diseases that can jump from a non-human animal to humans; these pathogens can be bacterial, viral or parasitic.
What is Zoonosis?
A process driven by natural selection where a population of organisms becomes better fit for its environment over generations.
(Trait shifts can be structural, physiological, or behavioral; and are meant to make a population more reproductively successful as well as more efficient when interacting with its environment!)
What is Adaptation?
A virus that immediately replicates and lyses (kills/explodes) the host cell.
What is a Lyctic Virus?