Life science
Life Science (also called Biology [bye-oh'-luh-jee]) is the study of life and what happens to it. The word biology was first used in the late 1700s. The French scientist of nature Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (usually known simply as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck) is often given credit for inventing the word, but see [[1] for details.
A life scientist studies about how living things work alone or with one another:
One of the key ideas in life science is the theory of evolution, first explained by Charles Darwin. The history of the evolution of an organism, i.e., species changes, is called its phylogeny [fye-loh'-jee-nee]; one studies it with methods of molecular life science by examining biopolymer sequences of genes and proteins, and by investigating very old forms of life in paleontology. There are different ways to study life science, including phylogenetics [fye-loh-jeh-neh'-tiks], phenetics [feh-neh'-tiks], and cladistics [kla-dis'-tiks]. An evolutionary timeline highlighting the more important happenings in the evolution of life on Earth is available.
The classification of living things is called systematics [sis-tehm-ma'-tiks], or taxonomy [tak-son'-nuh-mee], and should reflect the evolutionary trees (phylogenetic trees) of the different organisms. Taxonomy piles up organisms in groups called taxa, while systematics seeks their relationships. The dominant system is called Linnaean taxonomy, which includes ranks and binomial nomenclature. How organisms are named is governed by international agreements such as the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN), the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), and the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB). A fourth Draft BioCode was published in 1997 in an attempt to standardize naming in the three areas, but it does not appear to have yet been formally adopted. The International Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature (ICVCN) remains outside the BioCode.
Traditionally, living things were divided into five kingdoms:
However, this five-kingdom system is now considered by many to be outdated, and if one does not want to hyperinflate the number of kingdoms, one can use the three-domain system. These domains reflect whether cells have nuclei or not as well as differences in cell membranes / cell walls.
- Archaea -- Eubacteria -- Eukaryota
- viruses -- Viroids -- Prions
- Aerolife science -- Anatomy -- Astrolife science -- Biochemistry -- Bionics -- Biogeography -- Bioinformatics -- Biophysics-- Biotechnology -- Botany -- Cell life science -- Chorology -- Cladistics -- Cytology -- Developmental life science -- Ecology (Symlife science, Autecology)-- Ethology --Entomology-- Evolution (Evolutionary life science) --Evo-devo (Evolution of Development) -- Freshwater life science -- Genetics (Genomics, Proteomics) -- Histology -- Immunology -- Infectious disease (Pathology, Epidemiology)-- Limnology -- Marine life science -- Microlife science (Bacteriology) -- Molecular life science -- Morphology -- Mycology / Lichenology -- Neuroscience -- Oncology (the study of cancer) -- Ontogeny -- Paleontology (Palaeobotany, Palaezoology)-- Phycology (Algology) -- Phylogeny (Phylogenetics, Phylogeography) -- Physiology -- Phytopathology -- Structural life science -- Taxonomy -- Toxicology (the study of poisons and pollution) -- Virology -- Zoology
- Medicine -- Physical anthropology
- Famous life scientists -- History of life science -- Nobel prize in physiology or medicine -- Timeline of life science and organic chemistry