Biology 1001A Lecture Notes - Liposome, Stanley Miller, Hydrogen Cyanide
1 May 2013
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Document Summary
Life is defined by a list of attributes that all life and forms of life possess: All life displays order, harnesses and utilizes energy, reproduces, responds to stimuli, exhibits homeostasis, grows and develops, and evolves. Some biological systems straddle the line between the biotic and abiotic worlds. E. g. a virus: small, infectious agents that display many of the properties of life, including the ability to reproduce & evolve over time; however, characteristics are based on its ability to infect cells. They lack the cellular machinery & metabolism to use the dna and rna that it contains to synthesize their own proteins. They must infect living cells & hijack their translational machinery & metabolism to reproduce. Each of the characteristics of life reflects a complexity resulting from a hierarchy of interactions that begins with atoms and progresses through molecules to macromolecules & cells. Hierarchy may continue to become more complex and include organelles, tissues and organs.
