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NASA's 2015 strategy for astrobiology aimed to solve the puzzle of the origin of life – how a fully functioning living system could emerge from non-living components – through research on the prebiotic origin of life's chemicals, both in space and on planets, as well as the functioning of early biomolecules to catalyse reactions and support inheritance.
Also called functionalism. The Darwinian view that many or most physiological and behavioral traits of organisms are adaptations that have evolved for specific functions or for specific reasons (as opposed to being byproducts of the evolution of other traits, consequences of biological constraints, or the result of random variation). adaptive radiation The simultaneous or near-simultaneous ...
The example of king crabs (family Lithodidae) evolving from hermit crabs has been particularly well studied, and evidence in their biology supports this theory. For example, most hermit crabs are asymmetrical , and fit well into spiral snail shells ; the abdomens of king crabs, even though they do not use snail shells for shelter, are also ...
The tree of life or universal tree of life is a metaphor, conceptual model, and research tool used to explore the evolution of life and describe the relationships between organisms, both living and extinct, as described in a famous passage in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). [1]
Modus vivendi (plural modi vivendi) is a Latin phrase that means "mode of living" or "way of life". In international relations , it often is used to mean an arrangement or agreement that allows conflicting parties to coexist in peace.
Biology is the scientific study of life. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] For instance, all organisms are composed of at least one cell that processes hereditary information encoded in genes , which can be transmitted ...
In biology, evolution is the process of change in all forms of life over generations, and evolutionary biology is the study of how evolution occurs. Biological populations evolve through genetic changes that correspond to changes in the organisms' observable traits.
"NASA's definition" refers to life as a phenomenon, not a living individual, which makes it incomplete as living individuals do not evolve. [27] Thus alternative, definitions based on the notion of life as a phenomenon and a living individual have been proposed as continuum of a self-maintainable information , and a distinct element of this ...