BIO153H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Magic 2Ch, Lysis, Plasmid
Document Summary
From aristotle until recently, everything was either a plant or an animal (note that even in modern biology departments, mycologists (people who study fungi) were often grouped in with the botanists!) Microscopy brought new insight (the ability to see unicellular organisms): van leeuwenhoek (1632 . 1723): observed rainwater, his own stools (!) and saw little animalicules (protists); however, these were still classified with plants or animals (depending on plantlike or animal-like traits) Cell theory: arrived at independently by schleiden (1804 1881) studying plants, and schwann (1810. 1882) studying animals: the observation that living things were constructed of cells. The importance of cell structure to taxonomy was not immediately appreciated. Problem with protista : protista included both nucleated & non-nucleated cells. E. g. cyanobacteria (prokaryote) and green algae (eukaryote) were grouped together. Next step: a distinction was made between nucleated and non-nucleated cells: Eucaryotique = cells with a nucleus karyon = kernel pro = before eu = true or good.
