PRIMATES

 

What are Primates?

Introduction

Mammals are regarded as highly developed and advanced animals. They have four limbs with vertebral column, endothermic and bear mammary glands. If primates are mammals what makes them distinguish from most mammals? Primates including humans have some unique features. Some adaptive behavior of primates make them able to survive in certain habitats such as trees. Some other features help them to survive in complex social and cultural situations.

Key Features of Primates:

Most of the primates are omnivores. The order primates contains all the species commonly related to lemurs, monkeys and apes and humans. Following are the diagnostic characteristics of primates:

• They have five fingers known as pentadactyl.

• They have several type of teeth

• They have eye orbit ( bone that runs the eye socket).

• They have an opposable thumb that helps to hold and grip the things

Big Brain:

Talking about the brain and its part, primates have a large size of cerebrum. A larger cerebrum allows primates to develop a high level of intelligence. Hence they have the ability to learn new behaviors and adapt in complex social interactions such as fighting and play.

Social Relationships:

Old World(Monkeys of Africa and Asia) species of apes and monkeys tend to have significant differences in the size of sexes. This condition is also called sexual dimorphism. Male tend to be slightly bigger than females( maybe twice).

New World (Tamarins, Marmosets) Species form pair bonds which is a partnership between a mating that lasts at least one season. The pair cooperatively raise the offspring and generally do not show significant size difference between the sexes. New World Species represents monkeys of Americas

Habitats of Non Human Primates:

Non human primates are mostly found in Central and South America, Africa and South Asia. Most of these primates live in trees since they evolved from the animals living in trees. Only a few animals live on land such as Gelada and Humans.

Adaptive Features:

The Combination of opposable thumbs, short fingernails, and long inward closing fingers allows the primates the ability to move, swing from one branch to another branch. The expanded finger like parts help some of the primates like Tarsiers helps in grasping

Few species such as Proboscis Monkeys have webbed fingers which help them to swim and live in aquatic habitats. 

Some species like Rhesus  macaque and Human langur can survive in City by eating human garbage

Click Here for the classification of Primates

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

 CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

Introduction

The ability to do work is called Energy. An object does the work when the force is exerted and displaces an object. Simply energy is that force that causes an object to move. The SI unit  and CGS unit of energy are joule and erg respectively.

There are several forms of energy but the first recognized form of energy is Kinetic Energy(KE) which is defined as the energy possessed by an object due to its motion. 

When the force is exerted in an object it is displaced and work is done so, at this case energy contained in a body is equal to work done by the system and hence both of them same unit

Energy of interacting bodies or particles in a closed system remains constant.

Conservation of Energy

Energy neither can be created nor destroyed but simply can be converted from one form to another where the total amount of energy remains unchanged.

For example, when a freely suspended pendulum swings its potential energy(PE)gets converted into KE. After reaching a certain height the bob of a pendulum stops for a fraction of second and its KE now converts into PE. Due to the effect of gravity the bob of the pendulum comes back to its initial position and hence the PE is converted into the KE. In this case the total amount of KE and PE are equal and the energy is conserved. The sum of KE and PE is constant.

Let us consider an example where two identical balls are rolling towards each other with the equal velocity. They bounce back after colliding and if there is no loss in speed. The collision is regarded as perfectly elastic as there is no loss in energy. In this case both KE and momentum are conserved quantities.

In physics the term conservation means the value doesn't change, meaning the value remains the same before and after an event. These conserved quantities are used in predicting in case of some complicated situations. The three conserved quantity used in mechanics are energy, momentum and angular momentum

 Cell and Cell Theory

Cell theory

The cell theory developed in 1839 by microbiologists Schleiden and Schwann describes the properties of cells. It is an explanation of the relationship between cells and living things. The cell theory states :

1. All living thighs are made of cells and their products

2. New cells are created by old cells dividing into two

3. Cells Are the basic building blocks of life

The cell theory is applicable to all living things, however big or small. The modern understanding of cell theory extends the concepts of the original cell theory to include the following:

1. The activity of an organism depends on the total activity independent of cells.

2. Energy flow occurs in cells through the breakdown of carbohydrates by respiration

3. Cells contain the information necessary for the creation of new cells. This information is known as the hereditary information and is contained within DNA

4. The contents of cells from similar species are basically the same

Eukaryotic Cells:

1. They have membrane bound structures called cell organelles

2. Eukaryotic Cells includes cell of fungi, animals, protists and plants

3. These cells are more specialized than prokaryotes

Prokaryotic Cells:

1. The cells are usually smaller and simpler than prokaryotic

2. Prokaryotic cells do not have membrane bound structures

3. The DNA or genetic material, forms a single large circle  that coils up on itself

4. Prokaryotic cells  belong to the domain of Bacteria or Archaea.

Organelles  in the Cytoplasm:

A cell is like a factory. Just as a factory is made up of many people and machines, a cell has many different parts, each with a special role. The different parts of the cell are called organelles, which means "small organs." All organelles are found in eukaryotic cells, but most are NOT found in prokaryotic cells. Pay attention to which ones are included in prokaryotic cells.

Below are the main organelles found in cells:

1. The nucleus of a cell is like a safe containing the factory’s trade secrets, including information about how to build thousands of proteins.

2. The mitochondria are powerhouses that create ATP (adenosine triphosphate), which provides the energy needed to power chemical reactions. Plant cells have special organelles called chloroplasts that capture energy from the sun and store it in the bonds of sugar molecules, using a process called photosynthesis 

3. The vacuoles are like storage centers. Plant cells have larger ones than animal cells because they need to store water and other nutrients.

4. The lysosomes are like the recycling trucks that carry waste away from the factory. Inside lysosomes are enzymes that break down old molecules into parts that can be recycled into new ones.

5. Eukaryotic cells also contain a skeleton-like structure called the cytoskeleton. Like our bony skeleton, a cell’s cytoskeleton gives the cell its shape and helps the cell to move. 

6. In both eukaryotes and prokaryotes, ribosomes are where proteins are made. Ribosomes are like the machines in the factory that produce the factory’s main product. Proteins are the main product of the cell.

7. Some ribosomes can be found on folded membranes called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). If the ER is covered with ribosomes, it looks bumpy and is called rough endoplasmic reticulum. If the ER does not contain ribosomes, it is smooth and called the smooth endoplasmic reticulum. Proteins are made on the rough ER. Lipids are made on the smooth ER.

8. The Golgi apparatus works like a mailroom. The Golgi apparatus receives the proteins from the rough ER,

Word Search _Life Science

 FIELDS IN THE LIFE SCIENCES - Level 1

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FIELDS IN THE LIFE SCIENCES - Level 2

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