Biology

Understanding biology

One of the so-called natural sciences, biology concerns the study of two main topics. The first is life itself. This is the processes – chemical and otherwise – that all living things go through that distinguish them from non-living materials. The second is the wider study of living organisms, including animals, plants, fungi and bacteria. Biologists tend to focus on the physiologies of such organisms as well as their chemical processes, molecular interactions, their development and their evolutionary processes. The word biology is Greek in origin. Bio essentially means life, while ology refers to a field of knowledge.

Biology is used in many aspects of environmental management. It is only by understanding how flora and fauna flourish that we can manage the environment properly to preserve them. Biology is also used extensively in farming where the environment is adapted to provide optimised growth of certain crops or livestock. Understanding and manipulating the biology of wheat plants have played a big part in human consumption, for instance. The same goes for crops grown for non-food purposes, such as cotton. In addition, biology plays a significant role in life sciences, including nearly all aspects of modern Western medicine.

Although many people understand the connection between chemistry and biology very well, the intersection between it and physics can be a little harder to grasp. However, the field of so-called biomechanics is a good example of where the two disciplines come together. Understanding the physics of a knee joint, for instance, allows biologists to come up with better treatments for them. When the DNA double helix was first discovered, it was a technique developed in physics – x-ray diffraction - which was behind it. Life scientists now routinely make use of both fields of study together.

There are a number of sub-disciplines with biology. Structural biology deals with science from the molecular level and includes fields like genetics and the study of cells. Physiology deals with the structure of entire beings, from plants to humans. It can also look into biological systems, such as the nervous system, for example. Evolutionary research is yet another field that deals with the changing nature of species. Other classes of the science include ecology and zoology.

Most biologists would agree that there is no consensus within the science as to what causes ageing. Although this is a widely studied topic, no single answer has yet been put forward to explain it. Biology only has loose answers to explain the origins of life on Earth, too. Although it is known certain conditions need to exist to sustain it, no explanation of what might have kicked-started it has been proven. Lastly, some of the geometric patterns found in nature have no explanation from the point of view of which biological processes are responsible for them.