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Welcome to the biology portal. Biology, from the Greek words bios (life) and the suffix -ology, meaning study of, is a branch of science. It is concerned with the characteristics and behaviors of organisms, how species and individuals come into existence, and the interactions they have with each other and with their environment. Biology encompasses a broad spectrum of academic fields that are often viewed as independent disciplines. Together, they study life over a wide range of scales.

Blue has been chosen as the colour for this portal to emphasise that life on Earth relies on the unique chemistry of water. A photo of Darlingtonia californica, the cobra lily, was chosen as the portal icon because of this species' dependency on a humid habitat, as well as illustrating both autotrophy (in this case, photosynthesis) and carnivory. Finally, it superficially resembles young shoots, with their tips curved in, symbolising growth, a feature of all life.

Selected article

A prion (pronounced /ˈpriːɒn/ ( listen); derived from the first two syllables of the words proteinaceous and infectious, with -on by analogy with virion) is a poorly-understood hypothetical infectious agent that, according to one hypothesis, is composed entirely of proteins. Prions are thought to cause a number of diseases in a variety of mammals, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as "mad cow disease") in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. All hypothesized prion diseases affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue, and all are currently untreatable and are always fatal. In general usage, prion can refer to both the theoretical unit of infection or the specific protein (e.g. PrP) that is thought to be the infective agent, whether or not it is in an infective state.

Prions are hypothesized to infect and propagate by refolding abnormally into a structure which is able to convert normal molecules of the protein into the abnormally structured form. All known prions induce the formation of an amyloid fold, in which the protein polymerises into an aggregate consisting of tightly packed beta sheets. This altered structure is extremely stable and accumulates in infected tissue, causing cell death and tissue damage. This stability means that prions are resistant to denaturation by chemical and physical agents, making disposal and containment of these particles difficult.

Proteins showing prion-type behavior are also found in some fungi and this has been quite important in helping to understand mammalian prions. However, fungal prions do not appear to cause disease in their hosts and may even confer an evolutionary advantage through a form of protein-based inheritance.

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Louis Pasteur (27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist best known for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and prevention of disease. His experiments supported the germ theory of disease, also reducing mortality from puerperal fever (childbed), and he created the first vaccine for rabies. He was best known to the general public for inventing a method to stop milk and wine from causing sickness - this process came to be called pasteurization. He is regarded as one of the three main founders of microbiology, together with Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch. He is also credited with dispelling the theory of spontaneous generation with his experiment employing chicken broth and a goose neck flask. He also made many discoveries in the field of chemistry, most notably the asymmetry of crystals.^[1] He is buried beneath the Institut Pasteur, an incredibly rare honor in France, where being buried in a cemetery is mandatory save for the fewer than 300 "Great Men" who are entombed in the Panthéon.

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Major topics

General	Life | species | biology
Evolution (Intro)	Natural selection | genetic drift | sexual selection | speciation | mutation | gene flow
Tree of life	Cladistics | Animals | plants | fungi | protists | bacteria | archaea | prokaryote | eukaryote | three-domain system | angiosperms | insects | molluscs | nematodes | viruses
Classification of man	Primate | mammal | vertebrate | craniata | chordate | deuterostome | animal
History of biology	Great Chain of Being | omne vivum ex ovo | timeline of biology and organic chemistry
History of...	ecology | evolutionary biology | geography | model organisms | molecular biology | paleontology
Biochemistry	DNA | RNA | protein | enzyme | protein folding | carbohydrate | lipid | glycolysis | citric acid cycle | electron transport chain | oxidative phosphorylation | photosynthesis | protein structure
Genetics (Intro)	Gene | genome | karyotype | transcription | translation | recombination | chromosome | Mendelian inheritance | phenotype | genotype | epigenetics | splicing | mutation | genetic fingerprint | chromatin | classical genetics | ecological genetics | molecular genetics | population genetics | quantitative genetics
The cell	Cell wall | cell membrane | cytoskeleton | mitochondrion | chloroplast | nucleus | endoplasmic reticulum | Golgi apparatus | cell cycle | mitosis | metabolism | cell signaling | protein targeting
Life cycle	DNA replication | reproduction | ploidy | spermatogenesis | alternation of generations | oogenesis | parasitism | evolution of sex | meiosis | senescence
Development	Tissues | fertilization | embryogenesis | gastrulation | neurulation | organogenesis | differentiation | morphogenesis | metamorphosis | ontogeny
Lab techniques	Genetic engineering | transformation | gel electrophoresis | chromatography | centrifugation | cell culture | DNA sequencing | DNA microarray | green fluorescent protein | vector | enzyme assay | protein purification | Western blot | Northern blot | Southern blot | restriction enzyme | polymerase chain reaction | two-hybrid screening | in vivo - in vitro - in silico
Life history	Altricial - precocial | sex ratio
Behaviour	Altruism - cooperation - foraging - learning - parental care - sexual conflict - territoriality
Ecology	Biomass | food chain | indicator species | extinction | habitat | species distribution | Gaia theory | metapopulation
Conservation	Biodiversity | biodiversity hotspot | nature reserve | edge effect | Allee effect | corridor | fragmentation | pollution | invasive species | in situ - ex situ | seedbank | environmental economics
Field techniques	Belt transect | mark and recapture | species discovery curve
Other fields	Anatomy | astrobiology | biological anthropology | botany | bioengineering | bioinformatics | environmental science | ethology | human biology | marine biology | microbiology | natural history | origin of life | paleontology | parasitology | pathology | pharmacology | phylogenetics | physiology | systems biology | taxonomy | zoology
Assessment	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
See also	Template:History of biology

Selected picture

Staphylococcus aureus is the most common cause of staph infections. It is a spherical bacterium, frequently found in the nose and skin of a person. About 20% of the population are long-term carriers of S. aureus. Staphylococcus aureus can cause a range of illnesses from minor skin infections, such as pimples, impetigo (may also be caused by Streptococcus pyogenes), boils, cellulitis folliculitis, furuncles, carbuncles, scalded skin syndrome and abscesses, to life-threatening diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis, osteomyelitis endocarditis, toxic shock syndrome (TSS), and septicemia. Its incidence is from skin, soft tissue, respiratory, bone, joint, endovascular to wound infections. It is still one of the four most common causes of nosocomial infections, often causing postsurgical wound infections. Its scientific name translates as, "Golden Cluster Seed".

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Did you know...

• ...that there are ten times as many microbial cells in your body than there are human cells and that the sum of their genomes is 100 times greater than yours?
• ...that a prokaryotic cytoskeleton has been found in prokaryote organisms by recent advances in visualization technology?
• ...that the Champawat tigress and the Tsavo lions had suffered injuries that disabled them from pursuing their natural prey, leading them to become man-eaters?
• ...that the aphid Brevicoryne brassicae has been called a "walking mustard oil bomb" due to its use of glucosinolates as a chemical defense mechanism against predators?

• ...that Florida has over 20 official state symbols, including a state soil and a state wildflower?
• ...that Adenovirus serotype 14 is an emerging virus, related to the common cold, that has recently caused 10 deaths in the United States, including at least one healthy young adult?
• ...that three out of every seventy-seven rainbow runners (pictured) have five spines rather than the normal six?

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Things you can do

Here are some Open Tasks : Copyedit: Improve: reproductive isolation, species distribution, Template:Humandevelopment, XY sex-determination system, megafauna Requests: Colony hybridization Biographies: Dan Hartl Plants: Caulerpa taxiflora, Collybia butyracea, Elkinsia polymorpha Stubs: Mass flow, Calopterygidae, Eastern Spinebill, Straw-necked Ibis, Cambarus, Nimblewill, Cordulegastridae, Gomphidae, Pohnpei Fantail, imaginal disc, plant taxonomy, Biliphyta Nominate and vote: Science collaboration of the month, Article Improvement Drive

WikiProjects

WikiProjects connected with biology:

• Conservation worldwide
• Ecology
  • Extinction
• Ecoregions
• Evolutionary biology
  • Game theory
• Genetics
• History of Science
• Marine life
• Medicine
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Neuroscience
• Tree of Life
  • Prokaryotes and Protists
  • Plants
  • Arthropods
  • Cephalopods
  • Gastropods
  • Fishes
  • Amphibians and Reptiles
  • Birds
  • Mammals
  • Viruses

A complete list of scientific WikiProjects can be found here. See also Wikispecies, a Wikimedia project dedicated to classification of biological species.