Biology- a system of sciences, the objects of study of which are living beings and their interaction with the environment. Biology studies all aspects of life, such as: origin, growth, evolution, functioning, structure, distribution of living organisms on Earth and much more. Describes and classifies living beings, the origin of their species, and their interactions with each other and with the environment.
As a separate science, biology emerged from the natural sciences in the 19th century, when scientists of those years discovered that living organisms have common characteristics for all. The term " biology" was introduced independently by several authors: Friedrich Burdach, Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus and Jean Baptiste Lamarck (all around 1800).
At the core modern biology There are five fundamental principles: cell theory, evolution, genetics, homeostasis and energy. Currently, biology is a standard subject in secondary and higher educational institutions in all countries of our planet. More than a million articles and books on biology, medicine and biomedicine are published annually.
Five principles that unite all biological disciplines into a single science:
- Cell theory - teaching about everything related to cages (not the ones, of course, in which birds and animals are kept in the zoo, and not the cage that is drawn in notebooks). All living organisms consist of at least one cell, the main functional unit every organism. The chemistry and basic mechanisms of all cells in all organisms on our planet are similar (scientists have not encountered, but believe that there are also living organisms on other planets or comets); cells come only from pre-existing cells that reproduce through cell division (though the question arises: “how did the first cell appear?”). Cell theory describes the structure of cells, their division, interaction with external environment, compound internal environment And cell membrane, mechanism of action individual parts cells and their interactions with each other.
- Evolution(author - Charles Darwin, as you probably know). Through natural selection and genetic drift are the hereditary characteristics of a population that change from generation to generation.
- Gene theory. The characteristics of living organisms are passed on from generation to generation along with genes that are encoded in DNA. Information about the structure of living things, or genotype, is used by cells to create a phenotype, the observable physical or biochemical characteristics of an organism. Although the phenotype expressed through gene expression may prepare an organism for life in its environment, information about the environment is not passed back to the genes. Genes can change in response to environmental influences only through the evolutionary process.
- Homeostasis. Physiological processes, allowing the body to maintain the constancy of its internal environment regardless of changes in the external environment.
- Energy. An attribute of any living organism that is essential to its condition.
In the presented lectures you can find answers to almost any questions on any biological discipline. Five main directions are highlighted above, but in reality there are many more of them, just as a person seems to have only five basic senses, although in reality scientists believe that there are more of them. Let me remind you that all online lectures on biology are presented completely free of charge, each of them is supported by a module of terms and definitions, moreover, each lecture can be downloaded in your favorite format: DOC or PDF. Please do not forget to share the link to the lectures in in social networks or on your blogs!
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biology is a field of natural science, a complex of scientific disciplines about life in all its manifestationsbiology is a field of natural science, a complex of scientific disciplines about life in all its manifestations
Term "biology"(Greek bios - life, logos - word, doctrine, science) proposed at the beginning of the 19th century. J.-B. Lamarck and G. Treviranus to designate the science of life as a special natural phenomenon. Over the past two centuries, biology has traveled a fruitful path of development. Currently it represents a complex of disciplines. The subject of study remains life as a phenomenon of the surrounding world, others - manifestations of life at one or another level of the organization or in one or another segment of it, that is, all alive on the planet in its specific spatio-temporal embodiment.
Each biological discipline is characterized subject of research (cognition), predominantly used methods of scientific analysis, general ideas, formulated in the form of theories or hypotheses, and methodological approaches, reflecting the researcher’s attitude to the subject of knowledge (Table 1.1).
Table 1.1. The process of scientific knowledge: subject, methods, general ideas and methodological principles
In English educational literature name two more methodological approaches characteristic of modern biology - inductive and deductive. Inductive approach is generalizations arising from the results of studying “particulars”. In European science, it became dominant in the 17th century, which is associated with the names of F. Bacon and I. Newton, who laid the basis for the laws they formulated on the results of specific experiments (see the law of universal gravitation - “an apple falling from an apple tree on the head of a scientist”) . Deductive the approach is based on the ability to predict “particulars”, having ideas about general characteristics object of knowledge.
Classic biological disciplines include general and systems biology, zoology, botany, mycology, protistology, microbiology, virology, morphology (anatomy, histology, cytology - depending on the structural level), physiology, biochemistry and biophysics, ethology, developmental biology (embryology, gerontology), paleontology, anthropology, genetics, ecology.
Awareness that living things are represented by forms grouped together (taxa), whose representatives differ in the degree of historical kinship or are not related at all, gave taxonomy. The latter classifies the organism as a certain type, genus, family, order, class, type, order. With the advent of new data, the position of a group of living beings in the system of the organic world is being revised. So, using methods macromolecular systematics (“molecular clock”) showed that the genetic distance between the orangutan and African apes (chimpanzees, gorilla), classified by primatology as one family Pongidae, exceeds the named distance between the latter and the person. The question has been raised about separating orangutans into a separate family.
Patterns historical development life in the form of her separate forms or their natural assemblages are studied within the framework evolutionary direction (evolutionary theory or teachings).
In real time, life is organized in the form of alternating generations of organisms. The mechanisms providing this phenomenon are studied reproductive biology.
Second half of the twentieth century. marked by successes in understanding the fundamental mechanisms of life. The flow of biological information in living systems is described in detail and understood in basic terms
molecular mechanisms energy supply life processes. Research in these areas is the task of such biological disciplines, which took shape in the second half of the twentieth century, as molecular biology And molecular genetics, bioinformatics, bioenergetics. A young discipline is cell biology, arose at the turn of the third and last quarters of the last century as a consequence of the development of cytomorphology, cytochemistry and cytophysiology in the first half to mid-twentieth century.
The combination of molecular genetic, cell biological, population cell and systems approaches gave rise to modern immunology, the subject of study of which is the mechanisms of immunological surveillance with the function of protecting the integrity and biological individuality of the body, including the reaction to the release of its own cells from under general body regulatory influences (oncological transformation), penetration into it infectious agents(bacteria, viruses) and foreign proteins (blood group compatibility facts AB0, Rhesus, etc.)
Developments in the field of molecular biology, genetics and cell biology, focused on solving practical projects in the interests of industry, medicine and agriculture, took shape in scientific and practical biotechnological(Greek bios- life, techne- craft, art, skill) direction- genetic, cell, tissue engineering. Biotechnological direction, at least in part genetic engineering based on the principles natural phenomenon- horizontal (lateral) gene transfer between representatives of different systematic groups. This phenomenon is common in nature, especially in the world of prokaryotes. There are a number of uses in healthcare medicines genetically engineered nature, for example insulin.
Prospects for the development of biotechnology in the foreseeable future are associated with nanotechnology, including medical purposes. They are based on structures that do not exceed tens to hundreds of nanometers in size (1 nm = 10-9 m) and, therefore, are capable of “working” as diagnostic, therapeutic or “supervising” (nanorobots) agents with individual cells and intracellularly. Nano approach It is also used in the creation of new medicines.
At the turn of the XX-XXI centuries. events occurred in biology, the culmination of which was the project "Human Genome". As a result
its implementation nucleotide sequences established
In addition to nucleic acids, the carriers of genetic information in a cell include proteins or proteins (Greek: protos- first; simple proteins are the first functionally significant products of the activity of many genes; Proteins are the fundamental basis of any biological function. Patterns of implementation of genetic information at the protein level are the subject of study of the “supernova” biological discipline proteomics(proteome is a set of proteins formed by the cells of organisms of a certain species).
The number of structural (sense) genes encoding amino acid sequences of proteins in the human genome is less than the number of specific proteins found in cells (see here, below). This sparked an interest in transformation or processing. processing- processing, processing; lat. procedo- passing, moving forward) pre-RNA transcripts formed as a result of reading information from DNA. The result is a “supernova” in the biological discipline transcriptomics(transcriptome is a set of messenger RNAs formed by the cells of organisms of a particular species based on the corresponding genome).
Research in the field of transcriptomics and proteomics cannot be carried out in isolation from research in the field of genomics. The human genome contains 30-35 thousand (according to some recent reports - 20 thousand) sections of DNA encoding the structure of polypeptides and some types of RNA, that is, genes in the understanding of classical genetics. The number of proteins in human cells is already confidently estimated at 200-300 thousand. The expected quantity, according to preliminary estimates, is at least 1 million. In this regard, proteomics should
consider as an element functional genomics. In this case, transcriptomics serves as a “link” between genomics itself (structural genomics), providing information about the nucleotide sequences of DNA, and proteomics, which gives an idea of the “complete proteomic portrait” or the assortment of proteins produced by a cell (organism). The competence of functional genomics also includes obtaining answers to the questions: when, where, under what conditions and with what intensity different genes are expressed in the body (different proteins are formed).
The need to represent the phenomenon of the implementation of genetic information in life processes not so much in biochemical terms (DNA, RNA, proteins, metabolites), but by revealing the contribution of this information to the structure and function of real biological objects (cilium, flagellum, mechanochemical contractile system of muscle) led to the emergence of modern science about life directions systems biology (systems biology), within the framework of which the reductionist methodological principle (see here, above), which dominated biology in the 20th century, is replaced by integrative and systemic principles.
The study of intracellular metabolism (metabolism) as an essential component of the flow of information, energy and substances is carried out within the framework of a “supernova” biological discipline meta-bolomics(Greek metabole- change, transformation; metabolism or metabolism - a set of processes of biochemical transformations of substances and energy in a cell, organism, ecosystem) or biochemical profiling. Metabolomics studies chemical interactions, including protein-protein interactions, in the process of metabolism or, what is the same, in the process of life. In this case, the metabolome is defined as the totality of all metabolites present in a cell or tissue under known conditions.
The flow of biological information in its structural and temporal design is impossible outside cellular organization, which gives reason to expect the emergence of life science in the 21st century. another discipline - cellulomics(lat. cellula- cell) or cytomics(Greek cytos- cell). In contrast to cell biology, which focuses on revealing essential features cellular structure and functions, as well as patterns of organization and dynamics of cellular tissue systems(cell populations), the task of cytomics (cellulomics) is seen in deciphering the mechanisms of genetic support and control of cell differentiation and histogenesis, as well as genotyping
pictorial and phenotypic basis of the diversity of cells of one morpho-functional type in the light of genomics, transcriptomics and proteomics data.
Biology (from Bio... and...Logia) is a set of sciences about living nature. The subject of biology's study is all manifestations of life: the structure and functions of living beings and their natural communities, their distribution, origin and development, connections with each other and with inanimate nature. The tasks of biology are to study all biological laws and reveal the essence of life and its manifestations for the purpose of understanding and controlling them. The term "B." proposed in 1802 independently by two scientists - the Frenchman J. B. Lamarck and the German G. R. Treviranus. Sometimes the term "B." used in a narrow sense, similar to the concepts of Ecology and Bionomy.
Introduction
Basic methods of biology: observation, which allows one to describe a biological phenomenon; a comparison that makes it possible to find patterns common to different phenomena(for example, individuals of the same species, different types or for all living beings); an experiment, or experience during which the researcher artificially creates a situation that helps to identify the deeper properties of biological objects; finally, a historical method that makes it possible, based on data about the modern organic world and its past, to understand the processes of development of living nature. In modern biology, no strict boundary can be drawn between these basic research methods; The once justified division of biology into descriptive and experimental sections has now lost its meaning.
Biology is closely related to many sciences and practical human activities. To describe and study biological processes, biology uses chemistry, physics, mathematics, and many technical and earth sciences—geology, geography, and geochemistry. This is how biological disciplines arise that are adjacent to other sciences - biochemistry, biophysics, etc., and sciences in which biology is included as component, for example, soil science, which includes the study of processes occurring in the soil under the influence of soil organisms, oceanology and limnology, which includes the study of life in the oceans, seas and fresh waters.
In connection with the emergence of biology at the forefront of natural science, the growing importance and relative role of biology among other sciences, in particular as a productive force of society, in the 2nd half of the 20th century. often called the “century of B.” B. is of enormous importance for the formation of a consistently materialistic worldview, for proving the natural historical origin of all living beings and humans with their inherent higher forms of rational activity, for eradicating belief in the supernatural and primordial expediency (theology and teleology). B. plays an important role in understanding man and his place in nature. According to K. Marx, biology and the evolutionary doctrine developed in its depths provide a natural historical basis for materialistic views on the development of society. The victory of the evolutionary idea in the 19th century. science has done away with the belief in the divine creation of living beings and humans (Creationism). B. proves that life processes are based on phenomena that obey the laws of physics and chemistry. This does not exclude the presence of special biological patterns in living nature, which, however, have nothing to do with the idea of the existence of an unknowable “life force” - vis vitalis (see Vitalism). Thus, thanks to the progress of B., the main pillars of the religious worldview and philosophical idealism are collapsing. The methodological basis of modern biology is dialectical materialism. Even researchers who are far from affirming materialism in philosophical concepts, with their works confirm the fundamental knowability of living nature, reveal objectively existing patterns and verify the correctness of knowledge by experience and practice, that is, they spontaneously take a materialistic position.
The patterns revealed by B. are an important component of modern natural science. They serve as the basis of medicine, agriculture. sciences, forestry, fur farming, hunting and fishing. Man's use of the riches of the organic world is based on the principles revealed by biology. Data from biology related to fossil organisms are important for geology. Many biological principles are used in technology. The use of atomic energy, as well as space research, required the creation and intensive development of radiobiology and space biology. Only on the basis of biological research is it possible to solve one of the most ambitious and urgent tasks facing humanity - the systematic reconstruction of the biosphere (See Biosphere) of the Earth with the aim of creating optimal conditions for the life of the increasing population of the planet.
System of biological sciences The system of biological sciences is extremely multifaceted, which is due to both the diversity of manifestations of life and the variety of forms, methods and purposes of studying living objects, the study of living things at different levels of its organization. All this determines the conventions of any system of biological sciences. One of the first sciences to develop in Bulgaria was the sciences of animals - Zoology and plants - Botany, as well as human anatomy and physiology - the basis of medicine (See Medicine). Other major sections of biology, distinguished by objects of study, are Microbiology - the science of microorganisms, Hydrobiology - the science of organisms inhabiting the aquatic environment, etc. Narrower disciplines were formed within B.; within zoology - studying mammals - Theriology, birds - Ornithology, reptiles and amphibians - Herpetology, fish and fish-like creatures - Ichthyology, insects - Entomology, mites - Acarology, mollusks - Malacology, protozoa - Protozoology; inside botany - studying algae - algology, fungi - Mycology, lichens - lichenology, mosses - bryology, trees and shrubs - Dendrology, etc. The division of disciplines sometimes goes even deeper. The diversity of organisms and their distribution into groups is studied by the Systematics of Animals and the Systematics of Plants. Biology can be divided into neontology (See Neontology), which studies the modern organic world, and paleontology (See Paleontology), the science of extinct animals (Palaeozoology) and plants (Palaeobotany).
Another aspect of the classification of biological disciplines is based on the studied properties and manifestations of living things. The form and structure of organisms are studied by morphological disciplines; way of life of animals and plants and their relationships with environmental conditions - Ecology; the study of various functions of living beings - the field of research in the physiology (See Physiology) of animals and plant physiology (See Plant Physiology); the subject of research in genetics (See Genetics) is the patterns of heredity (See Heredity) and variability (See Variability); ethology (See Ethology) - patterns of animal behavior; patterns of individual development are studied by embryology or, in a broader modern sense, developmental biology; patterns of historical development - Evolutionary doctrine. Each of these disciplines is divided into a number of more specific ones (for example, morphology - into functional, comparative, etc.). At the same time, the interpenetration and merging of different branches of biology occurs with the formation of complex combinations, for example, histo-, cyto-, or embryophysiology, cytogenetics, evolutionary and environmental genetics, etc. Anatomy studies the structure of organs and their systems macroscopically; The microstructure of tissues is studied by Histology, cells - Cytology, and the structure of the cell nucleus - Karyology. At the same time, histology, cytology, and karyology examine not only the structure of the corresponding structures, but also their functions and biochemical properties.
It is possible to distinguish in biology disciplines associated with the use of certain. research methods, for example, biochemistry (See Biochemistry), which studies the basic life processes using chemical methods and is divided into a number of sections (biochemistry of animals, plants, etc.), biophysics (See Biophysics), which reveals the significance of physical laws in life processes, and also divided into a number of industries. Biochemical and biophysical areas of research are often closely intertwined both with each other (for example, in radiation biochemistry) and with other biological disciplines (for example, in radiobiology (See Radiobiology)). Biometrics is of great importance, which is based on mathematical processing of biological data in order to reveal dependencies that escape the description of individual phenomena and processes, experimental planning, etc.; Theoretical and mathematical biology make it possible, using logical constructions and mathematical methods, to establish more general biological laws.
Particular attention should be paid to several fundamental areas of biology that study the most general patterns inherent in all living beings and form the basis of modern general biology. This is the science of the main structural and functional unit of the body - the cell, i.e. cytology; the science of the phenomena of reproduction and continuity of the morpho-physiological organization of living forms - genetics; the science of ontogenesis - developmental biology; the science of the laws of the historical development of the organic world—evolutionary theory, as well as physicochemical biology (biochemistry and biophysics) and physiology, which studies functional manifestations, metabolism and energy in living organisms. From the far from complete list of biological disciplines given, one can see how large and complex the building of modern biology is and how firmly, together with neighboring sciences that study the laws of inanimate nature, it is connected with practice.