What is Life

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Running head: WHAT IS LIFE

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What is Life? Dennis Koenig BIO/101 January 12, 2012 Lisa Hogue

WHAT IS LIFE

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What Is Life?

Read each statement. Write a 100-word summary explaining how that media piece supports that statement and include reference citations.

1. Find a media piece—article, video, presentation, song, or other—related to the scientific method, creating hypotheses, or designing experiments. Include the link or reference citation for the piece and describe how it helped you better understand how the scientific method is used to create hypotheses and experiments.

An educational website called Brightstorm had an informative video about the scientific method (Brightstorm, 2011). The video was straight to the point, presenting detailed information about each of the five steps in the scientific method. The speaker applied the scientific method to everyday life, making the steps easy to understand. An important fact that was presented was that a hypothesis must have the possibility of being proved wrong. This is done by creating an experiment to test the hypothesis and refining it until the hypothesis is proved right or wrong. Eventually, a hypothesis that proves to be right starts to become a theory.

2. Find a media piece—article, video, presentation, song, or other—that recognizes the fundamental concepts of chemistry in biology. Include the link or reference citation for the piece and describe how it helped you better understand how fundamental concepts of chemistry affect biology.

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In Organic Chemistry: An Introduction, Anthony Carpi (2003) explains the relationship between chemistry and biology. Life is made possible because of the carbon-hydrogen bond that all organic molecules have. Every living thing is made up of organic molecules, which makes us carbon-based life forms. There reason there is so much diversity among living things is attributed to versitality of the carbon atom. Carbon can bond to itself and many different atoms in many different ways, making it possible to form complex organic chemicals. This is just the basic effect of chemistry on biology, explaining how life started with simple organisms. The chemistry make-up of organisms today is much more complex and every process that helps sustain life is done in some form of a chemical reaction.

3. Find a media piece—article, video, presentation, song, or other—that describes the energy metabolism of cells. Include the link or reference citation for the piece and describe how it helped you better understand the energy metabolism of cells.

Metabolism - How Your Cells Make Energy (2009) gives detailed information about the cellular metabolic process. This is where digested fats, carbohydrates, and proteins are turned into energy by a series of chemical reactions. All three are eventually transformed into acetyl co-A, which allows them all to undergo the same process used to make energy in the mitochondria. Inside the mitochondria, acetyl co-A is transformed into the energy, which will be stored as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). When needed, the energy is released by splitting the ATP molecule into adenosine diphospate (ADP) and inorganic phosphorus. One very important point made in the reading was that some of the chemical processes require certain nutrients in order for the reactions to occur, which explains why nutritional deficiencies lead to a lack of energy, among other things.

4. Find a media piece—article, video, presentation, song, or other—that compares structures and functions of different cell types. Include the link or reference citation for the piece and describe how it helped you better compare structures and functions of different cell types.

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Cells: Discovery and Basic Structure, (Carl Shuster, 2003) describes the basic structures and functions of different cell types. Cells are divided into two main cagetories; eukaryotic cells and prokaryotic cells. Eukaryotic cells have a nucleus and prokaryotic cells do not. All cells share three main features; a plasma membrane, a cytoplasm enclosing organelles, and genetic material that stores the information for protein production. Some major differences between cells in different organisms are how they produce food and how they maintain their shape. Cells within the same organism also vary greatly, depending on whatever functions they serve. The cell structure and function in humans is immensely diverse because everything humans do is ultimately controlled by cells. Everything we see, feel , taste, hear, and smell is accomplished because of the cells serving those particular functions.

5. Discuss what life means to you after completing questions 1–4.

Every living thing is connected in some way or another. We are all made up of atoms that have been moving throughout the universe since the beginning of time. The atoms are absorbed, transformed, expelled, and recycled. For example, leaves fall off trees then decompose and give the soil nutrients needed for other plants to survive. It is a little more complicated than that, but that is the basic concept of life. When we perish, our bodies decompose and over time, our molecules are re-distributed throughout the universe to be recycled again. Every living thing shares the same molecules that have been passed on since the beginning of time. Although some life forms may be more complex than others may, no single life form is more important than the other is.

WHAT IS LIFE References

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Bibliography
Metabolism - How Your Cells Make Energy. (2009). Retrieved January 12, 2012, from Sound Formulas: http://soundformulas.com/page9.html Scientific Method. (2011, December). Retrieved January 12, 2012, from Brightstorm: http://www.brightstorm.com/science/biology/foundation-of-biology/scientific-methodsteps Anthony Carpi, P. (2003). Organic Chemistry: An Introduction. Retrieved January 12, 2012, from Visionlearning: http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php? mid=60&l=&c3= Carl Shuster, M. (2003). Cells: Discovery and Basic Structure. Retrieved January 12, 2012, from Visionlearning: http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=64

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