The Study of Life
This process involves an organism’s ability to maintain a relatively constant internal environment, such as body temperature or blood sugar levels, despite changes in the surroundings.
What is homeostasis?
This property of water, caused by hydrogen bonding, allows it to resist temperature changes and helps organisms maintain a stable internal temperature.
What is high specific heat?
These are the monomer subunits that make up proteins, each consisting of a central carbon, an amino group, a carboxyl group, and a unique R-group.
What are amino acids?
These are the three components that make up a single nucleotide: a phosphate group, a five-carbon sugar, and one of these.
What is a nitrogenous base?
Also known as "simple sugars," these are the monomers of carbohydrates, with glucose and fructose being the most common examples.
What are monosaccharides?
In the biological hierarchy, this level of organization consists of all the individuals of a single species living within a specific area.
What is a population?
Because oxygen is more of this than hydrogen, it pulls shared electrons closer to its nucleus, creating the partial charges that make water a polar molecule.
What is electronegative (or electronegativity)?
This level of protein structure is characterized by the sequence of amino acids in a polypeptide chain, determined by genetic information.
What is primary structure?
In a DNA double helix, adenine always pairs with thymine, and guanine always pairs with cytosine, a concept known by this two-word name.
What is complementary base pairing?
This specific type of covalent bond forms between two hydroxyl groups during a condensation reaction to link monosaccharides together.
What is a glycosidic linkage?
: This type of reasoning, common in the scientific method, uses specific observations to arrive at a general conclusion or principle.
What is inductive reasoning?
This is the specific name for the type of bond formed between the oxygen atom of one water molecule and the hydrogen atom of a different water molecule.
What is a hydrogen bond?
Formed through a condensation reaction, this specific type of covalent bond links the carboxyl group of one amino acid to the amino group of another.
What is a peptide bond?
Unlike DNA, which uses deoxyribose, RNA contains this sugar, which has an extra hydroxyl (-OH) group on the 2' carbon, making it more reactive.
What is ribose?
While plants use starch for energy storage, animals store sugar in their liver and muscle cells in the form of this highly branched polysaccharide.
What is glycogen?
These are the three distinct domains into which all living organisms are classified based on their cellular characteristics.
What are Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya?
Organic molecules with the same molecular formula but different structures—and therefore different properties—are known by this term.
What are isomers?
This term describes the unfolding of a protein due to heat, pH changes, or chemicals, which typically results in the loss of the protein's biological function.
What is denaturation?
This hypothesis proposes that the first self-replicating molecule was not DNA or protein, but a molecule that could both store information and catalyze reactions.
What is the RNA World hypothesis?
This structural polysaccharide is the primary component of plant cell walls and is likely the most abundant organic compound on Earth.
What is cellulose?
This "unifying theory of biology" explains both the incredible unity and the vast diversity of life through the process of descent with modification.
What is the theory of evolution?
This specific functional group, consisting of a nitrogen atom bonded to two hydrogen atoms (−NH2), acts as a base and is a key component of amino acids.
What is an amino group?
These specialized proteins act as biological catalysts, increasing the rate of chemical reactions by lowering the activation energy required.
What are enzymes?
These specific RNA molecules function like proteins by acting as biological catalysts, capable of breaking or forming phosphodiester bonds.
What are ribozymes?
On the outer surface of cells, these short carbohydrate chains are often attached to lipids or proteins to act as "ID badges" for cell-to-cell recognition.
What are oligosaccharides? (Also accepted: Glycolipids/Glycoproteins)