CHAPTER 11

INTRODUCTION TO LIFE SCIENCE

CONCEPT OF LIFE
WHAT MAKES LIFE AMAZING?

 Life on Earth began more than 3 billion years

ago, evolving from the most basic of
microbes into a dazzling array of complexity
over time
 But how did the first organisms on the only
known home to life in the universe develop
from the primordial soup?
Primordial soup
 Life and living things, including the laws that
govern the phenomena of life the study of life
itself, is a vast subject, with many sub-
disciplines that concentrate on specific
aspects of BIOLOGY
 Every aspect of life from the smallest sub-
microscopic living particle to the largest and
most imposing plant and animal species is
included
 It is usually easy to recognize life, but it is
often much harder to define it.
 All living things are made of CELLS
 Some organisms are unicellular and consist of
only a single cell that carries out all life
processes
 Other organisms are multicellular and are
composed of many cells which perform
specialized and specific functions
Different unicellular
organisms
 A living entity, regardless of its structure, size, or behavior is an
ORGANISM that possesses characteristics that most biologists have
agreed upon.
 These are:
1. Locomotion
2. Irritability
3. Metabolism
4. Growth
5. Reproduction
6. Cellular organization
7. Adjustment
8. Integration
9. Coordination
 Seven characteristics of life
1. Nutrition
2. Reproduction
3. Excretion
4. Growth
5. Movement
6. Respiration
7. Sensitivity
 Living things react, or respond, to their environment
 The ability to respond to an environment stimulus is called
IRRITABILITY
 Irritability – is the ability of living things to react to the
factors of the environment such as:
1. Life
2. Temperature
3. Pressure
4. Tension
5. Chemicals
6. Gravity
 The sunflower, for example, responds to light
by facing the sun
 The fruitfly is attracted to electric light and
grows in fruit media
 LOCOMOTION – refers to the ability of
organisms to move
 Organisms have structures such as cilia,
flagella, pseudopodia, and muscles which
help them move
Sunflower
LOCOMOTION AND MOVEMENT
 You can see birds flying, fish swimming, and
earthworms burrowing into the earth
 There is in these organisms, a living substance
called PROTOPLASM which shows an
intracellular movement called CYCLOSIS
 METABOLISM – refers to the sum total of the
chemical reactions taking place in an organism
 The building up reaction called ANABOLISM is
shown by respiration
Protoplasm
Cyclosis of Chloroplast
Metabolism
Anabolism
 GROWTH – is the increase in size and number of cells
 The growth in living things is called
INTUSSUSCEPTION
 Growth in all animals begins when zygote starts to
develop
 Successive cell divisions take place then the cells
become differentiated
 It elongates and develops a nerve cell or skin cell,
bacterial cell, or simply an undifferentiated cell like
the egg cell and sperm cell
Growth
zygote
 REPRODUCTION – is the ability of living things
to produce new individuals closely resembling
them
 Examples are cats giving birth to kittens, dogs
having puppies and seeds giving rise to seedlings
 CELLULAR ORGANIZATION – refers to the parts
and functions of the cells in an organism
 An organism may have one or more box-like
compartments called CELLS
Plant reproduction
Cellular Organization
 A CELL is the basic unit of living things
 Some organisms are composed of only one cell and
yet they function as other complex organisms do
 The living matter in a cell is the PROTOPLASM which
consists of a:
1. Cell membrane
2. Cytoplasm
3. Nucleus
Each part contributes to the general function of the cell
Parts of the cell
 Adjustment, integration and coordination – refer
to the ability of a living organism to live in
harmony with other organisms in the environment
 It can make adjustment which call for adapting
itself in a given situation
 By the process of integration, an organism can act
harmoniously with and relate itself to the
environment
 The kangkong, for example, can survive in moist
conditions but thrives better in water
CONCEPT OF LIFE VIDEO

Introduction to the Characteristics of life.mp4