Chapter 1
This field is defined as the systematic study of life, past and present.
What is biology?
This subatomic particle has a negative charge and occupies electron shells surrounding the nucleus.
What is an electron?
The building blocks that make up proteins and differ by their R-groups.
This macromolecule is a polymer made of nucleotide monomers and includes DNA and RNA.
What is a nucleic acid?
This type of carbohydrate is the simplest form and is also called a “simple sugar.”
What is a monosaccharide?
According to the characteristics of life, all organisms must acquire and use this to survive.
What is energy?
This type of bond forms when atoms share pairs of valence electrons, creating molecules like water and methane.
What is a covalent bond?
This type of side chain is hydrophilic, can form hydrogen bonds, and often contains oxygen or nitrogen atoms.
What is a polar R-group?
This type of chemical bond links nucleotides together by joining the 5′ phosphate of one nucleotide to the 3′ hydroxyl of another.
What is a phosphodiester linkage?
This reaction joins two monosaccharides together by removing water to form a covalent bond.
What is a dehydration reaction?
In this type of selection, humans choose which individuals reproduce, causing changes in the characteristics of a population over generations.
What is artificial selection?
This property of water explains why large bodies of water resist temperature change and help stabilize Earth’s climate.
What is specific heat?
This reaction forms a peptide bond by releasing a molecule of water when two amino acids join.
What is a dehydration reaction?
DNA strands run in this orientation, allowing complementary base pairing between A–T and G–C.
What is antiparallel orientation?
This bacterial cell wall polymer consists of alternating monosaccharides cross-linked by short peptide chains, providing rigidity and shape.
What is peptidoglycan?
Darwin and Wallace proposed that evolution occurs because populations change over time through this process, driven by heritable variation and differential reproductive success.
What is natural selection?
These atoms have identical chemical behavior because they share the same number of protons, but they differ in mass due to variation in the number of neutrons; some forms are unstable and release energy over time.
What are isotopes?
This type of bond forms between two cysteine side chains and is the only covalent interaction stabilizing tertiary structure.
What is a disulfide bond?
This feature of DNA’s primary structure allows each strand to serve as a template during replication, ensuring accurate copying of genetic information.
What is complementary base pairing?
This plant structural polysaccharide is made of β-glucose monomers linked by β-1,4 glycosidic bonds, forming strong fibers through hydrogen bonding.
What is cellulose
Carl Woese compared organisms using ribosomal RNA, which is made of four chemical units symbolized by A, U, C, and G, to determine evolutionary relationships.
What are nucleotides?
This type of chemical system stabilizes the pH of living cells by reversibly binding excess H⁺ or OH⁻ ions, preventing large pH shifts despite the addition of acids or bases.
What is a buffer?
Heat, pH changes, or salts cause this process, which disrupts hydrogen bonds, unfolding proteins and destroying function.
What is denaturation?
This property of DNA explains why it is an excellent long-term storage molecule for genetic information but a poor catalyst.
This structural difference distinguishes an aldose from a ketose monosaccharide.
What is the location of the carbonyl group?