what is biology?

[Guest]

i amnew to the site what is biology?
and can anyone tell me what DNA is?

[Chris4]

You dont want to know.
Have you tried searching on this site and google?
Look at the the tutorials. That will show you some of the areas of biology.
Search for DNA in the Dictionary. Top right. DNA - The molecule that encodes genetic information in the nucleus of cells.

P.S. welcome to biology-online.org. The best biology forum, ever. Hope to see you around.

[EmmVeePee]

I'm kinda confused.

I define Biology as the study of life and living organisms. Althought there are so many fields associated with Biology. It can range from studying fossils and rocks to microbes like bacteria and viruses. You can study animal behavior and protein synthesis. It is a very broac field.

DNA is DeoxyriboNucleic Acid. Genetic information is stored this way in cells. It is my from chemicals called nucleotides. Each nucletide is like a simple letter (A for Adenine, C for Cytosine, G for Guanine, T for Thymine, U for Uracil) These letters form 3 letter words called 'codons'. Each 'codon' codes for an amino acid. Amino acids form long chains which are polypeptides. Polypeptides are then altered or combined to form a protein. Protein is how cells 'control' chemical reactions.

[MrMistery]

Hey, take it easy there. You are trying to make a summary of the Alberts book in 5 lines and all you are succiding in doing is getting confused and making others confused.
A nucleotide is not a letter. It is made from a phosphate group, a sugar(dezoxiribose) and a nitrogen base(adenine, cytosine, guanine or thymine). There is no uracil in DNA.
Codons are only present in mature mARN because DNA also contains introns. You can not speak of codons in the structure of DNA. Plus, proteins have many other functions than controlling the chemical reactions in and outsite of the cell(think of hemoglobine, chlorophil)
Regards,
Andrew

[EmmVeePee]

I was trying to give him the high school biology explanation

When someone asks "What is Biology? What is DNA?" you can sense that they haven't really hit 9th or 10th grade Biology yet.

[Poison]

i amnew to the site what is biology?
and can anyone tell me what DNA is?

Try registering first. That will be easier.
And about DNA, you can call it the hereditary material.

@Andrew:
Do you really think he/she will understand that totally?

[MrMistery]

it better not to give any info at all or give more info that he could understand than giving wrong info...
My opinion, that is...

[b_d_41501]

Let's keep it simple for him/her. Biology is the study of life. DNA is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions specifying the biological development of all cellular forms of life (and many viruses).

[MrMistery]

Yes that is probably enough but since some wrong info was given i fel it was my duty to correct it

[b_d_41501]

Yeah, I wasn't referring to just you Mr. Mistery. I just saw some large messages and I just put that it needed to be as simple as possible. lol. It's cool, I read all of the messages and I see what you meant.

[MrMistery]

Ok... glad we finally agreed to what DNA is

[Kevin2k]

Biology is basically the study of life.... Don't know how much more broad you can put it.