The topic of chapter 1 is Biology today. In this chapter, the author states that biology is the scientific study of life and comprises of a wide scale as well as a huge variety of life both past and present. It is stated that biologists explore life at various levels, which range from the biosphere to the smallest molecules that make up cells. Further, the chapter focuses on characteristics of living organisms and states that these are the organism that respond to stimuli and have the capacity to reproduce, growth, as well as development ( Simon, Dickey, Hogan, & Reece, 2016) . The author also states that living organisms have the capacity to maintain homeostasis as a stable whole. Further, all living organisms are capable of utilizing energy to be alive and continue with their life. On the other hand, living organisms use energy both for sustenance and growth, and the main source of energy is the sun. It is also stated that organisms continue to interact continuously with the ecosystem, which comprises of both the living and the non-living factors in the environment.
In living organisms, the cell is regarded as lowest level of an organism's structure. As such, cell is regarded as the subunit that makes up the multicellular organisms, such as human being. All cells share various characteristics. For instance, they are enclosed by a membrane. In an article by Carl Zimmer, “Unveils New Tree of Life,” the author explains how scientists unveiled a new tree of life, which outlines the evolution of all living things. As such, this also explains the diversity of living things. In the article, the evidence that is provided is that the invention of DNA sequencing revolutionized what biologists could state to be the relationship among species is encoded on the genetic makeup (Zimmer, 2016). The conclusion made in the article is that there are over 3000 species of living organisms which all bring together a representative sample of life’s diversity.
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References
Simon, E. J., Dickey, J., Hogan, K. A., & Reece, J. B. (2016). Campbell essential biology . Boston: Pearson
Zimmer, C. (2016). Scientists Unveil New "Tree of Life." The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/science/scientists-unveil-new-tree-of-life.html