Author: Philip Harman

Biology is an intensely practical subject and both individual and group investigations are carried out, some being assessed for public examinations. The National Curriculum is broadly followed but with a pattern of progress which the department believes to be more logical, interesting and demanding. Biology is the fascinating study of life on Earth.

Come along with us, as we become microscopic and journey inside a cell, discover new types of life forms, and play biology games. Biology is rich in examples of science as a human endeavor, its historical perspectives, and the development of scientific understanding. As concepts are developed this strand can be interwoven to create an in-depth understanding.

Biology is the broadly based study of living organisms and has become an increasingly dynamic and wide-ranging discipline. It may be approached by focus on cell and molecular processes, development, organismal physiology and morphology, natural history, evolution, conservation, or ecology. Biology is essential and chemistry, physics or maths are most useful. Admissions officers may look sympathetically at other combinations if the grades are good.

Biochemical and microscopic testing is conducted to determine the type and possible origin of biological materials prior to DNA analysis. In addition, trace evidence is removed from the submitted items and can be forwarded to the Trace Section for further analysis. Biological systems also operate at many different spatial and temporal scales.

These range from the very small scales of biochemistry to the very large scales of ecology. Biology is the study of life and comprises all levels from the molecular to the global. In biology we study living organisms, their organisation and their functions.

Biochemistry is influenced by the external environment, by interaction with pathogens, and by other stimuli. Putting genomic and biochemical data together into quantitative and predictive models of biochemistry and physiology will be the work of a generation of computational biologists.

Biologists consider the existence of biological evolution to be a fact . It can be demonstrated today and the historical evidence for its occurrence in the past is overwhelming. Bioterrorism is therefore a real issue in synthetic biology, and perhaps the most important other than pure research to identify the elements of driving living systems.

Viruses cannot reproduce or express their genes without the help of a host. Viruses that kill their infected host cell are called virulent.

The DNA in these type of viruses is reproduced through the lytic cycle.

In the lytic cycle, the virus breaks open, or lyses, their host cell, resulting in the destruction of the host.

Human biology is an interdisciplinary academic field of biology, biological anthropology, and medicine which focuses on humans; it is closely related to primate biology, and a number of other fields. The human biology major was founded in 1970 at Stanford University.

Biodemography is a new branch of human (classical) demography concerned with understanding the complementary biological and demographic determinants of and interactions between the birth and death processes that shape individuals, cohorts and populations. The biological component brings human demography under the unifying theoretical umbrella of evolution, and the demographic component provides an analytical foundation for many of the principles upon which evolutionary theory rests including fitness, selection, structure, and change.

Whereas biodemographers are concerned with birth and death processes as they relate to populations in general and to humans in particular, population biologists specializing in life history theory are interested in these processes only insofar as they relate to fitness and evolution.