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Homochirality is an obvious characteristic of life on Earth, yet extraterrestrial samples contain largely racemic compounds. [7] It is not known whether homochirality existed before life, whether the building blocks of life must have this particular chirality, or whether life must be homochiral at all.
Direct reciprocity was proposed by Robert Trivers as a mechanism for the evolution of cooperation. [1] If there are repeated encounters between the same two players in an evolutionary game in which each of them can choose either to "cooperate" or "defect", then a strategy of mutual cooperation may be favoured even if it pays each player, in the short term, to defect when the other cooperates.
Parasitism is a relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or in another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. [20] The parasite either feeds on the host, or, in the case of intestinal parasites, consumes some of its food.
An example is the assertion by Maturana and Varela that "We do not see what we do not see and what we do not see does not exist". [44] According to Razeto-Barry, the influence of Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living in mainstream biology has proven to be limited. Razeto-Barry believes that autopoiesis is not commonly used as ...
Although cellular respiration is technically a combustion reaction, it is an unusual one because of the slow, controlled release of energy from the series of reactions. Nutrients that are commonly used by animal and plant cells in respiration include sugar , amino acids and fatty acids , and the most common oxidizing agent is molecular oxygen ...
A mathematical example of "survival of the fittest" is given by Haldane in his paper "The Cost of Natural Selection". [62] Haldane called this process "substitution" or more commonly in biology, this is called "fixation". This is correctly described by the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype.
Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. [1] A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, and metabolism.
This glossary of biology terms is a list of definitions of fundamental terms and concepts used in biology, the study of life and of living organisms.It is intended as introductory material for novices; for more specific and technical definitions from sub-disciplines and related fields, see Glossary of cell biology, Glossary of genetics, Glossary of evolutionary biology, Glossary of ecology ...