Biology 1

Bachillerato Bicultural UVM, Campus Querétaro.

Autumn 2012

What is life?

Professor (B. Sc. in Biology) Alejandro Reyes De la Torre

Lab. de genética de transducción de señales, D-04
Instituto de Neurobiología, UNAM Campus Juriquilla
alexz0912@comunidad.unam.mx
 Class participation

• Take a piece of paper, put your name on it and

answer these questions:

1. What are some of the characteristics of living

organisms?
2. What is biology?
3. Write a definition of life.
 Biology

• From the ancient greek βίος “life” and the suffix –λογία
“study of”.

• Definition. The study of living organisms, divided into

many specialized fields that cover their morphology,
physiology, anatomy, behavior, origin, and distribution.
– the plants and animals of a particular area: the biology of
Chesapeake Bay
– the physiology, behavior, and other qualities of a particular
organism or class of organisms: human biology
Oxford English dictionary
 Biology

• But… what is life?

• If it moves… is it alive?
IT’S ALIVE!!!!!

• If it reproduces… is it alive?
 Biology
• There has been a notion of what is
alive… since ancient times

• Aristotle’s Scala naturae

• There’s no life as an abstract

• There’s living organisms!

As we know them…
 A bit of history
• Vitalism vs. Mechanicism

XVII century

• Mechanicism (later reductionism): Life

is special, but not different from the
systems in the non-living world.

René Descartes
cogito ergo sum
 A bit of history
• Vitalism vs. Mechanicism

XIX century

• Vitalism: Life has a “vital spirit” that

defines it

• In living organisms there’s compounds

that cannot be found anywhere else

Louis Pasteur
 A bit of history
• Vitalism vs. Mechanicism

XIX century (1898)

• Buchner brothers isolated an enzyme

that could produce fermentation
outside a living cell

• Nowadays, it is well accepted that

Edward & Hans Buchner living systems obey the laws of physics
and chemistry.
 Characteristics of living organisms

• Evolutionary history

• Open systems that process and

store information

• All living organisms are made up by

cells

• Life perpetuates itself

Evolutionary history
Open systems
 All living organisms are made up by cells

• Different cell types. a) Lactococcus lactis, b) Methanosarcina sp., c) Blood

cells, d) Fossilized dinosaur eggs, e) Volvox aureus, f) Purkinje cells, g) Epithelial
cells, h) Vegetal cells.
 Life perpetuates itself
• Life cycle
Life forms: unity and diversity