Biology

The chemistry that makes life possible: how bonds, water and functional groups shape biological molecules, how cells build and break carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids, how enzymes speed up and regulate reactions, and how membranes control what enters and leaves a cell.

How cells obey the laws of thermodynamics while capturing, storing and spending energy: ATP and redox carriers, aerobic respiration and fermentation, photosynthesis, and how people put microbial and human metabolism to work.

How DNA was identified as the genetic material, how it is built, copied and read into proteins, how genes are switched on and off or changed by mutation, and how genetic technologies work and raise legal and ethical questions in Canada.

How the nervous, endocrine and excretory systems use feedback loops to hold body temperature, blood glucose, pH, water and salt within narrow limits, and what happens when drugs, disease or the environment push those systems off balance.