BSCI 207 Unit 1: Master the Foundations with Verified Q&A | 2025/26 UPDATES, VERIFIED.

BSCI 207 Unit 1: Master the Foundations with Verified Q&A | 2025/26 UPDATES, VERIFIED. About This Study Guide: This BSCI 207 Unit 1 Study Resource is built to help you confidently tackle the first part of Organismal Biology. Covering foundational themes such as evolutionary theory, thermodynamics in biology, and organismal function, this guide includes verified practice questions, clear explanations, and essential concept reviews to help you succeed from day one. A reaction that is exergonic AND spontaneous - -Only occurs if the reactants have enough energy to get over the activation barrier Although Miller and Urey were able to demonstrate abiotic sythesis, what was/were the big uncertainty in their experiments? - -All of the above. a. What kind of energy to input. b. What temperature to hold the solution at. c. What chemicals to start with. An organism that uses inorganic molecules to produce its energy but which can directly fix carbon from simple carbon molecules would be: - -A chemolithoautotroph Antibiotics can be used to fight pathogens. They secrete substances that can - --block nucleic acid synthesis -block protein synthesis -affect cell membrane integrity Are organisms open or closed systems? - -open Are the deposits around hydrothermal vents oxidized or reduced? - -reduced At hydrothermal vents, the annelid Riftia provides _______ to ________________________ that were symbionts. In exchange for safety, the bacteria then produced _________________________ that the worm could use. - --H2S -gamma-proteobacteria -ATP and sugars ATP is a great source of energy that enable organisms to do work. What kind(s) of work is it good for? - -It phosphorylates metabolites to perform chemical work and proteins to perform physical work. Carl Woese studied the phylogenetic relationships using the rRNA gene because there weren't many morphological characters that could distinguish different prokaryotic groups. - -True Challenge: You boil an egg. What is the sign of entropy? - -+ΔS. The entropy increases because an unboiled egg has neatly folded albumen. But when boiled, this protein gets degraded and tangled together. Compare the relative diffusion coefficient of oxygen in the following three habitats in Yellowstone National Park: A. cold spring B. hot spring C. hot, thick, muddy slurry in a mud pot Assume the temperature of the hot regions (hot spring or mud pot) are close to 350 K and the cold spring is around 290 K. Assume the viscosity of the slurries in mud pots is twice that of plain spring water. - -B A C Cyanobacteria had a major impact on the earth's early atmosphere. - -true Diffusion is ______________ because during the movement of molecules, entropy ___________ making the entire diffusional process ____________. - --spontaneous -increases -exergonic Does structural work fall under biological, chemical, or physical work? - -chemical During the class lecture, we did a demonstration using dye dropped into a beaker of water. Using Fick's second law to calculate diffusion times, how do we know that the movement of dye molecules was NOT due to diffusion? - -The dye moved too fast Enzymes are useful in chemical reactions because... - -They lower the activation energy for the reaction. Free energy differs from total energy because: - -It is available to do work. Gibbs came up with his famous equation to determine if a reaction is spontaneous or not: Δ G = Δ H − T Δ S. Which of the following reactions is/are likely to occur at room temperature? - -Reactions A and C A: Δ H (J/mole) = 100; Δ S (J/mole K) = 1 C: Δ H (J/mole) = 100; Δ S (J/mole K) = 1 How did Iwabe et al's study differ from that of Carl Woese? - -B and C B. They compared a different gene that had duplicated for the same organisms. C. They got a gene tree for each gene copy that was rooted. ID 3 differences between alkaline vents and hydrothermal vents. - --alkaline vents maintain lower temperatures, -higher pH, -chemicals (including high levels of H2) that might be more suitable for the formation of life. Identify the striped coralroot's mode of living. - -Most similar to chemoorgano-heterotrophs because they get both ATP and carbon from fungi they "eat" (absorb) from their roots. The official name is myco heterotrophic where "myco" represents fungi because they obtain their carbon and nutrients through parasitic fungal relationships. If a molecule such as oxygen is diffusing into a cell, the magnitude of the diffusive flux __________ as the concentration outside the cell ___________ , as the concentration inside the cell decreases , and the membrane thickness ______________ . - --increases -increases -decreases In a redox reactions - -The acceptor molecul