[Biology Tips] Surprise? Life is organized.

Hi student,

Welcome to the Biology Tips Daily - give us a minute and we share with you one tip a day.

Yes, life is organized! Each level of organization has its own properties and each level is more than the sum of the levels beneath it. This means that to understand how a cell membrane functions, you must understand its structure as well as the properties of the molecules which compose that structure.

In this case the lower level is "molecules" and the higher level is "cell membrane". Why higher and lower? This is because molecules compose cell membranes.

Many of the molecules of the cell membrane have one of their ends attracted to water and the other end repelled by water. Knowing this fact, could one predict the existence of cell membranes? Probably not, but this property of molecules underlies the fact that cells have an "inside" and an "outside".

So the higher level, the cell membrane, has a property (inside/outside) that the lower level does not. Inside/outside is not a property of molecules. The message is that if you put lower level stuff together you get new higher level stuff with new properties. Cell membranes, of course, are important components of cells.

It would be impossible to understand the vertebrate brain, an organ, without understanding that it is composed of cells called neurons, specialized to conduct electrical impulses. Knowing that there are cells specialized to conduct electrical impulses does not predict the existence of an organ that is capable of consciousness. Consciousness is not a property of neurons; it is a property of that extraordinary organ, the brain.

However we would be hard pressed to understand consciousness (and we are!) without understanding that the brain is composed of cells that conduct electrical impulses. Again, if you put lower level stuff together (neurons) you get, in this case, higher level stuff (the brain) with new properties (consciousness). Wow, that's pretty impressive!

More to the point, life is organized hierarchically and new and different properties emerge at higher levels based on, though very different from, the properties of the lower levels.

Life is not always messy as it seems. To think like a biologist, you must consider the hierarchical organization of life.

Until then, stay tuned for more biology tips.

Seize the Day!
Dr. Wayne Huang
"The Rapid Learning Coach"
BioTips@RapidLearningCener.com

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