Awesome Insights into the Living World
We have discussed the story of biology for a long time without getting technical. At this point, it would help to introduce some knowledge regarding what building blocks are used by living organisms. This will help us better understand exactly how we are able to create such complexity out of the raw materials provided by Earth. We now begin to dive into the most fundamental topic of biology: macromolecules.
The most common idea of death involves an organism ceasing to exist as a functional entity. However, it is important to remember that for each macroscopic creature, there are billions to trillions of microscopic cells that allow the creature to survive. While death seems to mean an “end to all things” for us, the microscopic world begs to differ. At the cellular level, death is quite necessary. Cellular death can simply be considered a recycling of molecules in order to reduce energy organisms spend making them. We are talking about apoptosis.
Since the advent of life on Earth, the struggle for survival is the driving force of all biology. We have established the problems associated with maintaining complexity and various ways organisms regulate their responses to the environment. These developments are a result of the process we call evolution. It is time to describe exactly how evolution occurs. We know it is the result of cumulative changes in the characteristics in an organism. This is explained by differences in protein formation. However, we also know that DNA is the ultimate unit of life. DNA is the molecule that seeks to replicate and codes for proteins. Thus, this must be the level at which evolution takes place. It does this through a unique process: DNA mutation.