The premise of biology everywhere. As we experience biology, well everywhere. Now, let's go on a journey and explore several ways that we interact with biology and may not realize it. I'm going to take you on a tour of a few ways in which I've experienced biology in my own home. Let's start with waking up in the morning. Do you have windows in your bedroom? I actually don't have windows in my bedroom. Instead, I have a sliding glass door. My bedroom faces east, and during June and July, light pours into my bedroom in the early morning. So we have blackout curtains, why blackout curtains? We have blackout curtains because it helps us sleep better, because when light comes in that window in the morning and it hits our eyes and the signals get to our brain, it tells us that it's time to wake up. It kicks off molecular and biological processes that tell our bodies we need to wake up. So if you look at this image here, it demonstrates how light triggers molecular reactions that make us alert and send messages that we need to use the toilet, it's time to be awake. It helps us get ready for our day and it all starts by when that first light hits our eyes in the morning. Maybe you have heard of glue light filters either in glasses or devices such as cell phones, maybe your phone has a nighttime mode, so to speak. Since the light can trigger us to wake up, this is why it's not a good idea to watch TV in bed at night or to play with your phone in bed. The light from those devices is sending signals to your brain to stay awake. Now, I am awake, it's time to eat breakfast. I like to eat Greek yogurt for breakfast. There's a few biologically important things about yogurt. First off, in terms of my diets, sweetened yogurt provides a nice blast of readily usable sugar to get my day going, gives me that energy I need to get up and get started. Greek style yogurt also has lot of protein as well. So proteins are important because it helps you feel full until lunchtime, and also help stabilize your blood sugars. So all that sugar that you just ate with yogurt doesn't resolve unless spike, and that's important for preventing obesity and sugar crashes as well. So proteins and sugars, which we also call carbohydrates or carbs, alongside fats or lipids and nucleic acids like DNA are known as the macromolecules. We'll come back to the chemistry of eating macro-molecules later in this course, it's part of Module 4. Perhaps you should notice a label like this. That's the toxic of the live and active cultures in your yogurt. Well, what does that mean? Well, my yogurt is full of healthful living bacteria and they help keep my internal microenvironment healthy and they also provide the delicious tangy flavor of yogurt. The tang comes from a biochemical process called lactic acid fermentation. Fermentation can be used to make lots of different foods and beverages like bread, kimchi, kombucha, kefir, and also beer. Now, that we've made it past breakfast, I'm going to go and play with my son. This picture is from my baby shower. In each picture in black and white around the edge is a member of our family, and my son is shown in the center. So who do you think he looks like? Can you pick me out of the lineup? Why is it that we all look similar in the first place? That's because we all share the same genetic material, or DNA. DNA contains all the instructions that tell us who we are and what we look like. My son shares DNA with every individual shown in this picture. How did my son get this DNA? From two cells, a sperm for my husband and an egg from me. These two special cells combine to form a new person. We'll talk more about cells in Chapter 2 and human development in Chapter 4. For now, suffice it to say that it's amazing what you can do with only one out of your 37.2 trillion cells. Well, now my son needs a new diaper or nappy. We use reusable cloth diapers. Deciding to reuse a diaper versus dispose is a question of ecology. Ecology is a sub-discipline of biology concerned with the interconnectedness of life, so the relationships and connections between various life forms and the environment. Although the decision to reuse, whether it's diapers or straws, or bags, or water bottles, seems like a small one. What we choose to do influences those around us, human and non-human, as well as the environment as a whole. For example, reusable products take more energy and more raw materials to produce, but they can be used for much, much longer than their disposable counterparts, and they're not going to end up in landfills, or at least not as much of, there's not going to be as much stuff going into the landfills. Disposable products, particularly disposable plastic products like plastic bags, can leach micro-plastics into the environment, which can eventually work their way into our foods and our bodies. Plastic bags routes to suffocation hazards for us as well as other animals. Either way, there are considerations to make about resources used in production and also what happens to products down the road that influence all of us. What about outside? If you look at the window right now, how many different living things can you identify? How many different plants or animals can you count? We've seen everything in our backyard, from hummingbirds to hawks, house cats to foxes, raccoons, turkeys, and I live in a town of about 100,000 people. Shown behind me is a picture of a Cooper's hawk. If this is a juvenile Cooper's hawk, it just happened to live in our backyard for several months one summer. Don't forget about the plants either, how many different trees or flowers, or bushes, or grasses do you see when you look out your window? Biodiversity is the variety of life in a given area. You don't need to go to a biodiversity hotspot like the Amazon rainforest to experience it either. Next time you look out the window or go for a walk outside, see how many different forms of life you can see. If you want to take this exercise a step forward, consider how all these living things interact. In Course 3, we'll explore ecology, conservation, evolution, and biodiversity in more detail. Well, this concludes the biology everywhere mini-tour of my house. Now, it's your turn. How many ways can you find around your home that exemplify biology everywhere?
