Portal:Biology
Biology is the natural science that studies life and living organisms, including their physical structure, chemical processes, molecular interactions, physiological mechanisms, development and evolution. Despite the complexity of the science, there are certain unifying concepts that consolidate it into a single, coherent field. Biology recognizes the cell as the basic unit of life, genes as the basic unit of heredity, and evolution as the engine that propels the creation and extinction of species. Living organisms are open systems that survive by transforming energy and decreasing their local entropy to maintain a stable and vital condition defined as homeostasis.
Sub-disciplines of biology are defined by the research methods employed and the kind of system studied: theoretical biology uses mathematical methods to formulate quantitative models while experimental biology performs empirical experiments to test the validity of proposed theories and understand the mechanisms underlying life and how it appeared and evolved from non-living matter about 4 billion years ago through a gradual increase in the complexity of the system. See branches of biology.
Selected article
Adenanthos cuneatus, also known as coastal jugflower, flame bush, bridle bush and sweat bush, is a shrub of the family Proteaceae native to the south coast of Western Australia. The French naturalist Jacques Labillardière originally described it in 1805. Within the genus Adenanthos, it lies in the section Adenanthos and is most closely related to A. stictus. A. cuneatus has hybridized with four other species of Adenanthos. Growing to 2 m (6 ft 7 in) high and wide, it is erect to prostrate in habit, with wedge-shaped lobed leaves covered in fine silvery hair. The single red flowers are insignificant, and appear all year, though especially in late spring. The reddish new growth occurs over the summer.
Selected biography
Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was a British fossil collector, dealer and palaeontologist who became known around the world for important finds she made in the Jurassic age marine fossil beds at Lyme Regis where she lived. Her work contributed to the fundamental changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the earth that occurred in the early 19th century.
Anning searched for fossils in the area's Blue Lias cliffs, particularly during the winter months when landslides exposed new fossils that had to be collected quickly, before they were lost to the sea. It was dangerous work, and she nearly lost her life in 1833 during a landslide that killed her dog Tray. Her discoveries included the first ichthyosaur skeleton to be correctly identified, which she and her brother Joseph found when she was just twelve years old; and the first two plesiosaur skeletons ever found. Her observations played a key role in the discoveries that belemnite fossils contained fossilised ink sacs, and that coprolites, known as bezoar stones at the time, were fossilised faeces.
Anning's gender and social class prevented her from fully participating in the scientific community of 19th-century Britain—dominated as it was by wealthy Anglican gentlemen. She struggled financially for much of her life. Her family were poor, and as religious dissenters were subject to legal discrimination. Her father, a cabinetmaker, died when she was eleven. She became well known in geological circles around the world, and was consulted on issues of anatomy as well as about collecting fossils. However, as a woman she was not eligible to join the Geological Society of London, and she did not always receive full credit for her scientific contributions. Indeed she wrote in a letter: "The world has used me so unkindly, I fear it has made me suspicious of everyone." The only scientific writing of hers published in her lifetime appeared in the Magazine of Natural History in 1839, an extract from a letter which Anning had written to the magazine's editor questioning one of its claims. After her death her unusual life story attracted increasing interest. Charles Dickens wrote of her in 1865 that "[t]he carpenter's daughter has won a name for herself, and has deserved to win it."
Major topics
Selected image
Atelopus certus, the Darien stubfoot toad or Toad Mountain harlequin frog, is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae endemic to Panama.
Did you know...
- ...that there are about a million Nephrons in a Human Kidney?
- ... that endemics along the wildlife of Morocco include more than six hundred species of vascular plants and a single species of bird?
- ... that an extract of Alchemilla diademata, a plant endemic to Lebanon, shows antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus?
- ... that more than 5,000 hen fleas were recorded from the nest of a coal tit?
- ... that the semi-aquatic grasshopper Cornops aquaticum is being trialled in South Africa as a biological control agent for the invasive water hyacinth?
- ... that the smallest fish is called Pandaka pygmaea?
- ...that the largest flower, Rafflesia has a very foul odor?
- ... that mesoporous silica nanoparticles are prepared by the Stöber process and are used in preparing biosensors and delivering medications to within cellular structures?
- ... that the p19 protein (dimer pictured) evolved in an arms race between plants and viruses?
- ... that seeds of the fossil fruit Suciacarpa have fossil fungi inside them?
- ... that the fossil ant genus Agastomyrma was described from a single queen, and males of the fossil ant Proceratium eocenicum have a hair fringe?
- ... that in 1981 Bobbi Campbell became the first person to publicly identify as a person living with HIV/AIDS?
- ... that less than 50 years after being discovered, Heterelmis stephani is now presumed extinct?
Things you can do
WikiProjects
WikiProjects connected with biology:
- Computational biology
- Conservation worldwide
- Ecology
- Ecoregions
- Evolutionary biology
- Genetics
- History of Science
- Marine life
- Medicine
- Microbiology
- Molecular and Cellular Biology
- Neuroscience
- Tree of Life
A complete list of scientific WikiProjects can be found here. See also Wikispecies, a Wikimedia project dedicated to classification of biological species.
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Phylogenetics - Physiology - Systems biology - Taxonomy - Toxicology - Virology - ZoologyBiology portals
