Exam 1: A View of Life

A researcher reports he has conducted many experiments where a galvanometer (lie detector) was hooked up to detect a plant's responses. He reports that when a spider was released near the plant, the spider's decision to escape was picked up by the plant, "causing a reaction in the leaf." When other researchers repeated the experiment, they could not get any galvanometer responses. The researcher then concluded that plants could be put into a faint by humans.

Dr. James performed another experiment. Instead of inoculating the test tubes with Staphylococcus, he used the bacterium, Streptococcus. He found that Streptococcus grew better at body temperature than at room temperature. This is a replicate of the first experiment.

Living things must obey the laws of chemistry and physics.

Single-celled prokaryotes

An earlier classification grouped organisms by whether they inhabited the air, land or sea. However, the five-kingdoms-of-life and three-domains system divided into class-order-family-genus-species as described in this chapter is superior because it

Which of the following domains contains the most primitive prokaryotes that live in extreme environments?

Which of the following features are present at the ecosystem level?

A cell is to a tissue as an atom is to a

Both living and nonliving entities are organized at the cellular level.

Living organisms are made up of cells.

Choose which of the the following statements is a hypothesis for an experiment.

A study is conducted to determine the average length and weight of loblolly pine tree needles in the southeast United States. Is this data obtained through observation or experimentation?

An elementary student decides to conduct an experiment comparing the effectiveness of two commercial soaps as cleaning agents, using each in paired tests of different types of stains and colors of cloth, where the only variable was the soap used. The student will use the judgment of classmates to decide if the stains remain equal or if soap one cleans better than the other in each test run. However, the student makes no prediction of which soap is expected to perform best.

The expected outcome of an experiment is known as

Organisms belonging to the same _____ would be the most closely related.

From Kansas to central Indiana to Pennsylvania, many people believe that they have water moccasins (also called "cottonmouths") in their ponds. Some assert they have seen them, although they are certainly not so foolish as to try to capture one alive. Meanwhile, the fish and game offices and the range maps in the herpetology books indicate that this poisonous snake does not breed this far north. What is the most scientific attitude to assume on this issue?

The classification system most commonly used by biologists today contains five domains.

What type of information does science provide for society?

Extinction can occur if a species is unable to adapt to a changing environment.

Dr. James considers the bacteria grown at body temperature to be the control group and room temperature the experimental group. Do you agree with this reasoning?