BIOLOGY MIDTERM ESSAY

1. How does the biologist determine whether a thing is living or nonliving? Or what characteristics do living organisms have that non-living things do not?
They look at it under a microscope and see if it has cells. Basically, if it has cells the it's alive. If it doesn't have cells it is considered nonliving. There are smaller archaebacteria that behave like small parts of cells. These are considered living too, because they have chemical bonds of RNA, which is the singular shorter form of DNA. There is evidence that viruses change with different hosts, but they are generally considered non-living. They are much smaller chemical chains (with some form of movement and reproduction) and do not come from cells …show more content…

This law states that allele pairs separate independently during the formation of gametes. Therefore, traits are transmitted to offspring independently of one another.
Genotype and Phenotype

In Mendel's experiment with pod color and seed color (Figure A) we see that the genotype or genetic makeup of the F1 plants is GgYy. The phenotypes or expressed physical traits are green pod color and yellow seed color. Both of these traits are dominant.

The F2 generation pea plants (Figure B) show two different phenotypes for each trait. Pod color is either green or yellow and seed color is either yellow or green. There are nine different genotypes that result from this type of experiment. The F2 generation genotypes and phenotypes can be seen in the image above.
6. Discuss the major differences between DNA and RNA and how DNA determines the structure of three forms of RNA during transcription.
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is double stranded (double helix) and the two strands are comlementary to each other (G with C and A with T). DNA codes for everything, sometimes directly, but often indirectly. It even codes for RNA.

RNA (ribonucleic acid) is single stranded. RNA is made up of base pairs (so is DNA). 3 base pairs comprise a codon, which codes for different amino acids, which make up proteins. So with the help of ribosomes, RNA makes proteins. Also there are thre types of RNA,