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<p><strong><font size="3">Biology</font></strong> (from Greek: &beta;&Icirc;&macr;&omicron;&sigmaf;, <em>bio</em>, &quot;life&quot;; and &lambda;&Iuml;Œ&gamma;&omicron;&sigmaf;, <em>logos</em>, &quot;knowledge&quot;) is the study of life.&nbsp;<br />

Biology is an information science that is close to computer science and mathematics.&nbsp;Biologists collect information through experiments on how molecules pass signals and regulate genetic elements through feedback systems.&nbsp;<br />

The outcomes are usually databases and new gene markers and drug targets. The purpose of biology is to understand life in terms of how they process information in the physical world. The major application of biology is medicine. Therefore, biology is sometimes called the basic sience of medicine.<br />

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<h3><span class="mw-headline">Interactions of organisms</span></h3>

<p>Ecology studies the distribution and abundance of living organisms, and the interactions between organisms and their environment. The environment of an organism includes both its habitat, which can be described as the sum of local abiotic factors such as climate and ecology, as well as the other the organisms that share its habitat. Ecological systems are studied at several different levels, from individuals and populations to ecosystems and the biosphere. As can be surmised, ecology is a science that draws on several disciplines.</p>

<p>Ethology studies animal behavior (particularly of social animals such as primates and canids), and is sometimes considered a branch of zoology. Ethologists have been particularly concerned with the evolution of behavior and the understanding of behavior in terms of the theory of natural selection. In one sense, the first modern ethologist was Charles Darwin, whose book &quot;The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals&quot; influenced many ethologists.</p>

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<h2><span class="mw-headline">History</span></h2>

<p>Although the concept of <em><strong class="selflink">biology</strong></em> as a single coherent field arose in the 19th century, the biological sciences emerged from traditions of medicine and natural history reaching back to Galen and Aristotle in ancient Greece. During the Renaissance and early modern period, biological thought was revolutionized by a renewed interest in empiricism and the discovery of many novel organisms. Prominent in this movement were Vesalius and Harvey, who used experimentation and careful observation in physiology, and naturalists such as Linnaeus and Buffon who began to classify the diversity of life and the fossil record, as well as the development and behavior of organisms. Microscopy revealed the previously unknown world of microorganisms, laying the groundwork for cell theory. The growing importance of natural theology, partly a response to the rise of mechanical philosophy, encouraged the growth of natural history (though it entrenched the argument from design).<sup class="reference" id="_ref-3">[4]</sup></p>

<p>Over the 18th and 19th centuries, biological sciences such as botany and zoology became increasingly professional scientific disciplines. Lavoisier and other physical scientists began to connect the animate and inanimate worlds through physics and chemistry. Explorer-naturalists such as Alexander von Humboldt investigated the interaction between organisms and their environment, and the ways this relationship depends on geography&mdash;laying the foundations for biogeography, ecology and ethology. Naturalists began to reject essentialism and consider the importance of extinction and the mutability of species. Cell theory provided a new perspective on the fundamental basis of life. These developments, as well as the results from embryology and paleontology, were synthesized in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. The end of the 19th century saw the fall of spontaneous generation and the rise of the germ theory of disease, though the mechanism of inheritance remained a mystery.<sup class="reference" id="_ref-4">[5]</sup></p>

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<h2><span class="mw-headline">See also</span></h2>

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