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Biology

A field-notebook for the living world. Cell, organism, ecosystem, biosphere — each level emerges from the one below. Equations are scarce here; pattern is...

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This Shipslides page presents Biology as an interactive HTML presentation deck in the Science catalog with 17 slides. The share page keeps the uploaded deck sandboxed while exposing readable context, topics, and a slide outline for viewers and search engines.

A field-notebook for the living world. Cell, organism, ecosystem, biosphere — each level emerges from the one below. Equations are scarce here; pattern is everything. Key sections include: Biology The four nested scales; Cell · organism · ecosystem · biosphere.; The smallest thing that lives.; DNA → RNA → protein.; How life eats sunlight.; Three domains , many kingdoms.; Tissues to physiology.; Energy flows; matter cycles.; Whose hands opened biology.; Of life and the science of it..

Key sections

  • 01Biology The four nested scales
  • 02Cell · organism · ecosystem · biosphere.
  • 03The smallest thing that lives.
  • 04DNA → RNA → protein.
  • 05How life eats sunlight.
  • 06Three domains , many kingdoms.
  • 07Tissues to physiology.
  • 08Energy flows; matter cycles.
  • 09Whose hands opened biology.
  • 10Of life and the science of it.
  • 11How many species?
  • 12One thin green-blue film.
  • 13What's new in 2026.
  • 14Things we still don't understand.
  • 15Watch & read.

Topics covered

sciencebiology

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Slide outline
  1. 01Biology The four nested scales
  2. 02Cell · organism · ecosystem · biosphere.
  3. 03The smallest thing that lives.
  4. 04DNA → RNA → protein.
  5. 05How life eats sunlight.
  6. 06Three domains , many kingdoms.
  7. 07Tissues to physiology.
  8. 08Energy flows; matter cycles.
  9. 09Whose hands opened biology.
  10. 10Of life and the science of it.
  11. 11How many species?
  12. 12One thin green-blue film.
  13. 13What's new in 2026.
  14. 14Things we still don't understand.
  15. 15Watch & read.
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Presentation Transcript

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Slide 01

Cell · organism · ecosystem · biosphere.

  • P. 01 — the four scales
  • Biology is a science of nested levels. A self-replicating chemistry inside a membrane gives a cell. Cells, by collaboration or differentiation, become an organism. Many organisms together form an ecosystem; all of them, our biosphere.
  • Cell
  • ~10⁻⁵ m
  • Organism
  • ~1 m (a vertebrate)
  • Ecosystem
  • ~km
  • Biosphere
  • ~10⁷ m
Slide 02

The smallest thing that lives.

  • P. 02 — the cell, unpacked
  • All known life is cellular. Two great divisions: prokaryotes (no membrane-bound nucleus — bacteria, archaea) and eukaryotes (organelles inside, including the nucleus).
  • The eukaryotic cell is itself a community. Mitochondria — once free-living α-proteobacteria — were engulfed about 2 billion years ago. Chloroplasts came from cyanobacteria. Endosymbiosis, in Lynn Margulis's word.
  • Plasma membrane — phospholipid bilayer, ~5 nm
  • Nucleus — chromatin, nucleolus, pores
  • Mitochondria — Krebs cycle, ATP synthesis
  • Endoplasmic reticulum — protein/lipid synthesis
  • Golgi apparatus — packaging, sorting
  • Lysosomes — pH 4.5 garbage disposals
  • Cytoskeleton — actin, microtubules, intermediate filaments
  • A schematic eukaryote, 14× life size
Slide 03

DNA → RNA → protein.

  • P. 03 — the central dogma
  • Crick's "central dogma" (1958): genetic information flows from DNA to RNA by transcription, and from RNA to protein by translation. The flow is mostly one-way; reverse-transcription (retroviruses) is the exception.
  • DNA
  • Double helix. 4 bases A, T, G, C. ~3 × 10⁹ base pairs in human genome. ~2 m of it per cell, packed into a 6 μm nucleus.
  • RNA
  • Single strand. mRNA carries code; tRNA carries amino acids; rRNA is structural in the ribosome. Some RNAs catalyze (ribozymes).
  • Protein
  • 20 amino acids form polypeptides that fold into 3D shapes. Catalysis (enzymes), structure (collagen), signaling (hormones), defense (antibodies).
Slide 04

How life eats sunlight.

  • P. 04 — energy in & out
  • Photosynthesis
  • 6 CO2 + 6 H2O + light → C6H12O6 + 6 O2
  • Light reactions in thylakoids split water, pump H⁺, make ATP and NADPH. Calvin cycle (RuBisCO) fixes CO₂ into 3-carbon sugars in the stroma.
  • Earth's atmospheric O₂ is the cumulative byproduct of ~3 billion years of photosynthesis.
  • Respiration
  • C6H12O6 + 6 O2 → 6 CO2 + 6 H2O + ~30 ATP
  • Glycolysis (cytoplasm) → pyruvate → mitochondrial Krebs cycle → electron transport chain. Each glucose yields up to 30–32 ATP.
  • Anaerobic versions: lactic acid fermentation (muscles), ethanol fermentation (yeast).
Slide 05

Three domains, many kingdoms.

  • P. 05 — the tree
  • Carl Woese, 1977: ribosomal RNA sequences split prokaryotes into two anciently divergent domains. Today: Bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya. Eukaryotes nest inside the Archaea — we are an Asgard archaean lineage that swallowed a proteobacterium.
  • Bacteria — E. coli, Streptomyces, cyanobacteria
  • Archaea — methanogens, halophiles, thermophiles, Asgard
  • Eukarya — animals, plants, fungi, protists
Slide 06

Tissues to physiology.

  • P. 06 — the organism
  • An animal body is roughly 11 organ systems: integumentary, skeletal, muscular, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, urinary, reproductive. Plants run on three tissue systems (dermal, ground, vascular) and four organs (root, stem, leaf, flower).
  • Homeostasis is the central physiological idea (Claude Bernard, 1865; Walter Cannon coined the word, 1926): self-regulation around set-points — pH 7.4, T 37 °C, blood Na⁺ 142 mM.
  • Negative-feedback loop
Slide 07

Plate I

  • Temperate canopy, Pacific Northwest. ~30 m above the forest floor; light intensity ~5 % of incident.
Slide 08

Energy flows; matter cycles.

  • P. 08 — the ecosystem
  • Producers (autotrophs) capture sunlight at ~1 % efficiency. Herbivores eat them at ~10 % transfer; carnivores ~10 % again. Hence the 4–5-link cap on most food chains.
  • Matter — C, N, P, S, H₂O — cycles between abiotic reservoirs and biotic compartments. Biogeochemistry. Ecology in the Vernadsky / Lindeman / Odum tradition reads the planet as a metabolism.
  • Net primary productivity, terrestrial: ~56 PgC/yr
  • Marine NPP: ~48 PgC/yr
  • Standing biomass, all life: ~550 GtC
  • Plants: ~450 GtC · animals: ~2 GtC · humans: 0.06 GtC
Slide 09

Whose hands opened biology.

  • P. 09 — naturalists, microbiologists, ecologists
  • Linnaeus
  • 1707–78. Binomial nomenclature. Systema Naturae, 1735.
  • Darwin
  • 1809–82. Natural selection; HMS Beagle; Origin of Species, 1859.
  • Mendel
  • 1822–84. Particulate inheritance, peas in Brno.
  • Pasteur
  • 1822–95. Germ theory; vaccination; pasteurization.
  • Mary Anning
  • 1799–1847. Lyme Regis fossils; ichthyosaur, plesiosaur.
  • Carl Woese
  • 1928–2012. rRNA tree; Archaea as third domain.
  • Lynn Margulis
  • 1938–2011. Endosymbiotic theory; Gaia.
  • Barbara McClintock
  • 1902–92. Transposable elements; Nobel 1983.
Slide 10

Of life and the science of it.

  • P. 10 — a timeline
  • ~3.8 GyaEarliest chemical evidence of life — graphite inclusions in Greenland.
  • ~2.4 GyaGreat Oxygenation Event. Cyanobacteria poison the early atmosphere with O₂.
  • ~1.6 GyaEukaryotic radiation; first reliable fossil eukaryotes.
  • ~600 MyaMulticellular animals (Ediacaran biota); Cambrian explosion at 540 Mya.
  • 1668Francesco Redi's flies-in-jars: spontaneous generation in doubt.
  • 1838Schleiden & Schwann's cell theory.
  • 1859Darwin's Origin of Species.
  • 1953Watson, Crick, Wilkins — DNA double helix; Franklin's Photo 51.
  • 1996Dolly the sheep, somatic-cell nuclear transfer.
  • 2003Human Genome Project: 92 % complete; T2T finished it 2022.
  • 2012Doudna & Charpentier — CRISPR-Cas9 as gene-editing tool.
  • 2024AlphaFold 3 predicts complexes; ~ 2 × 10⁸ protein structures public.
Slide 11

How many species?

  • P. 11 — biodiversity
  • ~ 2.16 M described
  • Catalogue of Life, 2024 update. Mostly insects, plants, fungi.
  • ~ 8.7 M estimated
  • Mora et al. 2011, eukaryotes only. Most still unknown.
  • ~ 10⁹ – 10¹² microbes?
  • Bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses largely uncharacterized.
  • Distribution is wildly uneven: ~25 hotspots (Conservation International) hold ~50 % of plant species and 42 % of land vertebrates on 2.5 % of land. The IUCN Red List, 2024: 46,000+ species threatened with extinction.
Slide 12

Slide 12

  • P. 12 — pull quote
  • "There is grandeur in this view of life..."— Charles Darwin, 1859
Slide 13

One thin green-blue film.

  • P. 13 — the biosphere
  • The biosphere is ~20 km thick: from deep-sea trenches to the upper troposphere where some bacteria still drift. Vladimir Vernadsky in 1926 described it as a geological force; James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis later proposed Gaia, in which life maintains conditions for life.
  • Atmospheric composition by volume: 78 % N₂, 21 % O₂, 0.93 % Ar, 0.043 % CO₂. The non-equilibrium of O₂ and CH₄ together is itself a biosignature.
  • Carbon cycle, simplified
Slide 14

What's new in 2026.

  • P. 14 — frontier
  • Synthetic cells
  • JCVI-syn3A — minimal genome, 473 genes, replicates. Bottom-up cell construction proceeding by modules.
  • Single-cell omics
  • Atlases of human cell types (HCA: ~10⁸ cells profiled); spatial transcriptomics maps cells in tissue.
  • Organoids
  • Brain, intestine, kidney, retina — self-organizing 3D mini-organs from stem cells.
  • Microbiome therapeutics
  • Live biotherapeutic products approved by FDA. C. diff recurrence prevention.
  • Gene drives
  • Self-propagating CRISPR cassettes in mosquitoes — could eliminate malaria. Trials underway.
  • De-extinction
  • Colossal Bio is working toward thylacine, mammoth, dodo proxies. Ethics, ecology fiercely debated.
Slide 15

Things we still don't understand.

  • P. 15 — open questions
  • How did life begin? RNA world? Iron-sulfur world? Off-world panspermia?
  • What is the upper bound on cellular complexity?
  • Are there forms of life with chemistry unlike ours (alternative biochemistry)?
  • How does an embryo turn a single cell into a butterfly with ~5 × 10⁹ cells, in the right places?
  • Why do most species go extinct within ~1–10 Myr of arising?
  • How much of the microbial dark matter — uncultured archaea, bacteriophages, giant viruses — remains undescribed?
  • Is aging a single mechanism or many tangled ones? Is it tunable?
Slide 16

Watch & read.

  • P. 16 — go deeper
  • Kurzgesagt — Cells and Microbes Series
  • Plus PBS Eons for deep time, and Crash Course Biology with Hank Green.
  • Watch ↗
  • References
  • Alberts et al. — Molecular Biology of the Cell (7th ed.)
  • Campbell — Biology (12th ed.)
  • Begon, Townsend, Harper — Ecology
  • Margulis & Sagan — Microcosmos (1986)
  • Wilson — The Diversity of Life (1992)
  • Lane — The Vital Question (2015)
Slide 17

Slide 17

  • — end of notebook —
  • Field notes are a draft of the world. They are always being revised.
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