| A | B |
|---|
| science | organized way of using evidence to learn about the natural world; also, the body of knowledge that scientists have built up after years of using this process |
| observation | use of one or more of the senses - sight, hearing, touch, smell, and sometimes taste - to gather information |
| data | evidence; information gathered from observation |
| inference | logical interpretation based on prior knowledge and experience |
| hypothesis | possible explanation for a set of observations or possible answer to a scientific question |
| spontaneous generation | hypothesis (disproven) stating that life could arise from nonliving matter |
| controlled experiment | a test of the effect of a single variable by changing it while keeping all other variables the same |
| manipulated variable | factor in an experiment that a scientist purposely changes; also known as independant variable |
| responding variable | factor in an experiment that a scientist wants to observe, which may change in response to the manipulated variable; also known as a dependent variable |
| theory | well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations |
| biology | science that seeks to understand the living world |
| cell | collection of living matter enclosed by a barrier that separates the cell from its surroundings; basic unit of all forms of life |
| sexual reproduction | process by which cells from two different parents unite to produce the first cell of a new organism |
| asexual reproduction | process by which a single parent reproduces by itself |
| metabolism | set of chemical reactions through which an organism builds up or breaks down materials as it carries out its life processes |
| stimulus | a signal to which an organism responds |
| homeostasis | process by which organisms maintain a relatively stable internal environment |
| evolution | change in a kind of organism over time; process by which modern organisms have descended from ancient organisms |
| metric system | decimal system of measurement based on certain physical standards and scaled on multiples of 10 |
| microscope | device that produces magnified images of structures that are too small to be seen with the unaided eye |
| compound light microscope | microscope that allows light to pass through a specimen and uses two lenses to form an image |
| electron microscope | microscope that forms an image by focusing beams of electrons onto a specimen |
| cell culture | group of cells grown in a nutrient solution from a single original cell |
| cell fractionation | technique in which cells are broken into pieces and the different cell parts are separated |
