The first chapter doesn't have very much for me to comment on. Firstly it mentions that human bio is related to a whole range of fields of study, such as cytology (study of cells), anatomy, molecular biology etc. Different fields generally study different "levels" of human beings: for instance molecular biology or biochemistry focuses on the chemical level, cytology focuses on cells, etc. The second important thing mentioned is how species are all classified into different groups in a hierarchical system, from Kingdom all the way down to Species or Sub-species (actually Wikipedia and about.com says that there's a level higher than Kingdom known as "domain," based on differences in RNA structure). You've probably already heard all of that but I'll provide a brief run-down anyway.
The highest level of classification (a.k.a. "taxonomic rank" but that's just too technical for my taste) consists of several large groups, each of which consist of lots of living organisms. As you move down the levels of classification, however, the number of organisms in each group as well the differences between the organisms become smaller and smaller as the requirements for being classified into that particular group become more stringent. There is hardly any difference between members of the same species or sub-species (the lowest rank on the food chain classification system). I mean that compared to the differences between members of two different species there are RELATIVELY small differences between members of the same species, so don't go on about how you have absolutely nothing in common with [insert other person here] or whatnot.
As an example, here's how the human being is classified:
Our kingdom is "animalia," because we have a helluva lot more in common with animals than with plants, fungi, bacteria or whatever else is in the other kingdoms.
We're in the "chordata" phylum. This is because we have a "hollow, dorsal nerve chord." Now I have no idea what "dorsal" means so I just looked it up. First attempt didn't work well because a long time ago I changed the language on Google to Chinese. Then I searched up "dorsal nerve chord" and came up with http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/iho.da.pdf which says that a dorsal nerve chord is "A spinal cord that runs down the back of an animal, attached to its brain at one end." Yup, we definitely have one of them, so we're in the "chordata" phylum.
Our subphylum is "vertebrata" which seems like it just encompasses everything with a backbone. Including us.
Then our class is "mammalia" which encompasses mammals- y'know, those warm-blooded hairy creatures that produce milk (well the females do, anyway).
Our order is "primates": forward-facing eyes and nails instead of claws.
Suborder- "anthropoidea"- human-like primates. How they objectively classify something as "human-like" is beyond me, so maybe there's something else to it. Monkeys and apes are in here with us humans.
Superfamily- Hominoidea. No external tail. Just apes and us now.
Family- Hominidae- extinct ancestors of humans as well as modern humans.
Genus- Homo- some extinct ancestors of humans as well as modern humans. As my year 8 science teacher put it to our rather immature class, "Yes, we're all homos together."
Species- sapiens- modern humans.
Next chapter is on working scientifically, i.e. how to plan an experiment, make a hypothesis, use a microscope, set out data etc. This probably warrants a few posts on its own, but not for a while because I can't be bothered.
And now we're onto the meaty stuff!
Chapter 2: The Chemistry of Life
(They didn't give a chapter number to the "working scientifically" chapter. Hence this is Chapter 2 :) )
A lot of stuff in this chapter is basic chemistry which I have already covered on this blog. Here are some links:
Elements, compounds and ions:
- Atomic Structure and Periodic Table (Probably a bit more info than you really need for human bio.) (P.S. I still don't really understand the difference between a molecule and a compound so if someone could explain that would be great :) )
- Atomic Structure and Periodic Table, take 2 (the 3AB Chem version, builds on the stuff in the first post)
Solutions:
- Classification of Matter (Explains homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures)
- Solutions (Probably also more info than you need)
- A Bit More on Solutions (Calculating the concentration of solutions. From what I've read in this chapter it looks like this post might be the most useful)
Acids, bases and pH
(Since the Chemistry course does quite a bit on acids and bases, all these links might be way more than you need. For example the Human Bio book I have in front of me right now uses the Arrhenius theory of acids and bases which is simpler to understand than the Bronsted-Lowry theory preferred in the Chem course, but doesn't explain the behaviour of bases that don't contain OH- ions.)
- Acids and Bases part 1 (physical differences, Arrhenius and Bronsted-Lowry theories, indicators, strong and weak acids, standard reactions involving acids)
- Acids and Bases part 2 (standard reactions with amphoteric- i.e. can act as either acid or base- substances, complex ions, monoprotic and polyprotic acids, calculating pH, properties of metal and non-metal oxides)
Organic Compounds
- Basics of Organic Chemistry
- Naming and Drawing Organic Compounds (not that relevant, but might help you to see those funny chemical names didn't come out of nowhere)
- [insert a whole bunch of posts that I was meant to write but didn't. Including one about functional groups which is still a draft.]
This leaves us with only a few more topics to cover:
- Diffusion and osmosis
- Organic compounds relevant to human biology (carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, nucleic acids)
- Enzymes
This post is getting somewhat long, though, so I'll split it into two posts. Second post will contain those three topics above. I'll begin writing soon. I'll begin after I've had a shower. I promise. *nervously sweats*
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