Living things form a part of surroundings. As we go about our daily lives, we come cross over them and interact with them. We see plants in the school garden, in ponds, in fields and in the forest. We see people, relatives, friends and classmates and talk, laugh or work with them. We see animals such as birds, butterflies and dragonflies flying around and fish in ponds and in a aquaria. Of course, there are the microorganisms or microbes or living things we do not see. Microbes live everywhere. They live in soil, rock, air, in the other living things, in ponds, in canals, and in other bodies of water.
Living things play an important role in our lives. Our food comes from plants and animal. The materials we use for housing, furnature, utensils and clothing may also comes from plants. Vitamins and medicines which are essential for our health mostly come from plant sources.
Because of their importance, we try to find out how to make our crops produce bigger and better yield. We find ways of getting the most from our farm animals. We want to know the best way to propagate medicinal and ornamental plants. We want to know how to create the conditions favorable to the growth of useful microorganisms.
We try to understand how the human body works so that we can prevent and cure diseases. We try to understand how living things affect one another and how they interact with the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere and the other components of the non living world. All these and more concerns of biology. Biology is a process of inquiry which attempts to find answers about many living things. Biology, therefore is tied up with our lives, our very existence.
The role of biology in our lives will be better appreciated when we discuss the advances in biotechnology and other new biologicaltechniques.
Biotechnology is probably 3000 years old. It has existed ever since people learned to change carbohydrates into alcohol. Today, modern biology employs techniques that make use of the more recently discovered informationin DNA to improve materials used in food, in medicine and in industry..
The first successful experiments in genetic engineering were done in 1973. Through genetic engineering, scientist insert into microorganisms totally foreign pieces of cell structure that contain hereditary information. Many valuable substances can be obtained from genetically engineered microorganisms.
Beautiful creatures