SUMMARY OF THE COURSE The purpose of this course was to introduce the vast world of biology to the inquiring student. Biology, as you have come to understand in this course, is simply the study of living things. In this course, you learned about what constitutes a “living thing” versus nonliving organisms. Each of the main categories of living things were discussed, including the biology of viruses, bacteria, protists (including fungi), animals, and plants. You have also come to learn that biology is also concerned with genetics, evolution, and ecology—each of which is important to the way that biological organisms appear to us in today’s time and in the future, which is why they were covered in this course. Chapter one in the course began the discussion of living things by explaining what constitutes a living thing. There are certain characteristics of living things that make humans, plants, and even viral particles called living things. The biochemistry of life is something that unifies life and involves molecules that are only seen, at least in concert, in things that are considered living organisms. Life exists, for the most part, in an aqueous environment and so the physiology of life in relation to water was discussed as part of this chapter. Virus anatomy and function were the focus of Chapter two in the course. Viruses are the most basic structures in life and, some would argue, they barely qualify as truly representing life. As you saw in the first chapter, however, viruses are basic living things that have structure and that replicate. The way viruses multiply and cause disease in other living things was introduced as part of this chapter. Chapter three covered the topic of bacteria. Bacteria are single-celled organisms that, compared to viruses, are remarkably complex. These are prokaryotes as opposed to the typical animal and plant eukaryotic cells with the ability to divide and grow independently of other organisms. You learned that there are many types of bacteria, some of which are motile. The physiology of bacteria, particularly the way they can become motile, was discussed in this chapter.
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