What Is Biology?

Biology, an important branch of Science.

We may have learnt to classify a rose or a human as ‘living’, rock and water as 

‘non- living’. But why is this so? If we say that ‘living’ is something that moves but then flowing water can be called living, right? That’s not entirely true. Life has a set of properties that an organism has to follow to be called ‘living’. And a wonderful discipline of science studies life in great detail it. It is called biology. The word bio means "living" and logy means "study".


So biology means the study of living things. 

Simply put, anything which interacts with its environment, use energy and reproduce are known as living things. For example, we humans eat food to get energy, feel and respond to our environment and reproduce to make more of ourselves. Many other living things like insects, birds, and animals have the same properties like us so they are all living organisms. Now the question arises how many types of living things are there? And how they are different from us? Biology is a field which answers these questions and many more questions related to living things. 

Characteristics:

There are seven characteristics that a living thing follows and therefore we study this in the vast field of biology. These are:

1) Order:

If you examine a rose from near, you will notice it is very ordered; the petals are whorled around each other with the centre bearing seeds. This illustrates the highly ordered structure that typifies life. Living cells are the basis of this complex organization.

2) Reproduction:

Organisms reproduce their own kind. A mother giant panda will always give birth to a panda not a horse (we all have known that from Kang Fu Panda too).

3) Growth and development:
Inherited information in the form of DNA controls the pattern of growth and development of all organisms. You most probably look like your parents or a close relative, thanks to the genes.

4) Energy processing: 
Humans eat food to get energy. The food they eat has also eaten some food to utilize its chemical energy stored in order to power its own activities and chemical reactions. 

5) Response to the environment:
All organisms respond to environmental stimuli. This is why we laugh when we are tickled. 

6) Regulation:
Many types of mechanisms regulate an organism’s internal environment, keeping it within limits that sustain life. This is also called homeostasis. A lemur sunbathes to help raise the animal’s body temperature on cold 

mornings.

7) Evolutionary adaptation: 
Lions use camouflage 

to blend in with the savannah so they can easily hunt down an animal. Such adaptations 

evolve over many generations. Some new concept like ‘genes’ and ‘DNA’.