Biology

The science of living organisms and the processes of life.

Subcategories

• Ecology — The interactions of organisms with each other and their environment.
• Genetics — Heredity: genes, their transmission, and their variation.

Articles (12)

• Bioluminescence
  How living organisms produce cold light through luciferin-luciferase chemistry, why most glowing things live in the deep ocean, and how biologists borrowed the reaction.
• Fermentation: How Microbes Preserve and Transform Food
  Fermentation explained: how yeasts, bacteria, and molds convert sugars into acids, alcohol, and aroma — the oldest biotechnology and the basis of bread, beer, cheese, and more.
• The Human Microbiome
  The trillions of microbes that live on and in the human body, what they do for digestion and immunity, and why the microbiome is an organ you can influence but not sterilize.
• Cheese Making: The Controlled Spoilage of Milk
  How milk becomes cheese: acid and enzymes curdle it, microbes ripen it, and the entire diversity of cheese follows from four controllable variables.
• Honey Bees and Beekeeping
  The biology of Apis mellifera — one queen, tens of thousands of workers, and a communication system based on dance — and what managed hives actually give the world.
• Cellular Respiration
  The metabolic process by which cells harvest energy from glucose as ATP through glycolysis, the citric acid cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation.
• DNA Replication
  The semiconservative process by which cells duplicate their DNA before division, driven by helicase, polymerases, and Okazaki fragments.
• Natural Selection
  The evolutionary mechanism by which heritable traits that improve survival and reproduction become more common in a population over generations.
• Enzymes
  Biological catalysts that accelerate biochemical reactions by lowering activation energy, without being consumed in the process.
• Photosynthesis
  The process by which plants, algae, and some bacteria convert light energy into chemical energy, releasing oxygen as a byproduct.
• CRISPR-Cas9
  A programmable genome-editing tool derived from a bacterial immune system that makes targeted DNA changes possible.
• Citric Acid Cycle
  The central metabolic cycle that oxidizes acetyl-CoA into carbon dioxide, harvesting electrons and energy for aerobic organisms.

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