Sunday, December 5, 2010

unit 1-Introduction to Biology



1.1   Biodiversity
There are many theories explaining the origin of life. It is now believed that the origin of life occurred over 3.5 billion years ago. Since then life forms have evolved and currently there are over 30 million species and animals in the world ,that continue to evolve, increasing the biological diversity.



1.2 Natural resources and Environment

Simplest definition of natural resources is; resources such as air, coal, water that is supplied by nature. Resources such as wood can be replaced but air and water is considered as non-renewable resources. Therefore the use of natural resources has to be managed properly, to enable the future use of the growing population.

Environmental pollution is another cause of the depletion of natural resources. (E.g.: pollution of underground water).therefore managing natural resources in a way that ensures future use and Prevention of environmental pollution is extremely important to maintain Life on earth. 


One of the basic needs of a population is food. With the population expanding each day, sustainable production of food becomes a necessity. This is where the use of Life sciences plays an important role. Increasing food production is needed to meet the hunger of the growing population. Therefore Production of high yielding varieties of plants, and animals (e.g. cows that produce more milk), Development of disease resistant varieties of plants, alternate methods of energy, Increasing shelf life of fruits and vegetables ;so that they remain fresh for longer periods of time, are some of the methods that have been used.

1.3 Living organisms

Living organisms can be distinguished by several characteristics. They are,
-Order and organization
-Metabolism
-Growth and development
-Irritability and coordination
-Adaptation
-Reproduction
-Heredity and Evolution
Living organisms are diverse, they are of different shapes and size, differ in their distribution(e.g. Terrestrial, aquatic), form (e.g.acellular, unicellular and multi cellular) and so on. The characteristics of living organisms will be explained in detail.

1 comment:

  1. Chronic mercury exposure from occupational, environmental, Detox & Chelation dental amalgam, and contaminated food exposure is a significant threat to public health.Those with amalgam fillings exceed all occupational exposure allowances of mercury exposure of all European and North American countries.

    ReplyDelete