1. the cell - basic unit of life of all things alive
2, the gene - the basis of heredity: we look like our parents (heredity)
3. evolution by natural selection.
4. living organisms are chemical machines: different little bits of the chemistry talk
to other bits of the chemistry and that leads to them behaving as a whole.
5. replication - cells are able to copy themselves.
LIVING THINGS -
- are chemical and informational machines based on cells, and that allows them to make
themselves, to maintain themselves, and to reproduce themselves.
- have a hereditary system based on genes handed down from cell generation to cell generation.
- evolve by natural selection, via genes that exhibit variability that may be selected through
natural selection, acquire new characteristics and behaviors.
- life, which is a physical thing, acquires functions and processes that act as a whole.
- life is based upon DNA, RNA, & proteins, chemical polymers doing the work of the whole.
- so life, from bacteria to humans, is based upon chemistry, especially polymers, which
can encode information (as in sequences of letters in a sentence) and replicate.
All of life is connected because all of life is related to each other with the same polymeric
chemicals that provide the functional chemistry characteristic of life on Earth.