- Settore: Biology
- Number of terms: 15386
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Terrapsychology is a word coined by Craig Chalquist to describe deep, systematic, trans-empirical approaches to encountering the presence, soul, or "voice" of places and things: what the ancients knew as their resident genius loci or indwelling spirit. This perspective emerged from sustained ...
Gardening; growing fruits, vegetables, and ornamental plans. Indigenous societies once believed on the brink of starvation until "civilized" by monoculturalists (e. G. , the California Indians and the Spanish Mission System) are now known to have supported themselves with food grown horticulturally in mixed crops similar to those now studied by permaculture.
Industry:Biology
Characteristic of roughly 10% of any population. Recent evidence suggests a genetic component. Those who argue that homosexuality is "unnatural" are apparently unaware of the behavior in birds, sheep, beetles, bats, penguins, dolphins, orcas, macaques, bonobos (some 75% of whom are thought to be bisexual), black swans, orangutans, and roughly 1,500 species.
Industry:Biology
A long, threadlike structure that carries the bearer's genetic code (DNA), among other things. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, 46 in all: 44 autosomes and two sex chromosomes, the X (female) and less complex Y (male). Offspring acquire half their chromosomes from the biological mother and half from the biological father. Each chromosome is shaped like an X, with a dot in the center (the centromere) and arms reaching out to the ends (the irreplaceable telomeres that keep chromosomes from sticking together accidentally; their gradual shortening from replication after replication during cell division sets the biological limit to a life). See Gene, DNA.
Industry:Biology
Gardening; growing fruits, vegetables, and ornamental plans. Indigenous societies once believed on the brink of starvation until "civilized" by monoculturalists (e. G. , the California Indians and the Spanish Mission System) are now known to have supported themselves with food grown horticulturally in mixed crops similar to those now studied by permaculture.
Industry:Biology
A microorganism that makes its host sick. Certain viruses, bacteria, and authoritarian flag-waving fanatics are common examples of pathogens. They tend to be parasites that weaken the organisms they feed upon until self-protective systems get rid of them.
Industry:Biology
Extremely complex molecules of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and other elements joined in chains of amino acids (peptides). Protein constitutes the bulk of living matter, gives it structure, and has something to do in almost every aspect of cell operation.
Industry:Biology
The outward, bodily manifestation of the genotype (genetic constitution). Phenotypes are the aspect visible to natural selection: echo location makes some dolphins more viable, so the genes those dolphins carry are passed on. The phenotype extends to the organism's environment: coral for eels, nests for birds.
Industry:Biology
A relatively new discipline operating on an ancient assumption: the deepest levels of the psyche are tied to the Earth (unlike environmental psychology, which looks in linear fashion at the impact of surround on psyche). Theodore Roszak, for instance, posits an “ecological unconscious” at the core of the psyche; Stephen Aizenstat describes a “world unconscious” similar to what early philosophers described as the anima mundi or world soul. As with deep ecology, ecopsychology insists that to be healthy, our relations with the Earth must be reciprocal, not exploitive. "Ecopsychology is the effort to understand, heal, and develop the psychological dimensions of the human-nature relationship (psychological, bio-social-spiritual) through connecting and reconnecting with natural processes in the web of life. At its core, ecopsychology suggests that there is a synergistic relation between planetary and personal well being; that the needs of the one are relevant to the other. " -- Robert Greenway, Amy Lenzo, Gene Dilworth, Robert Worcester, Linda Buzzell-Saltzman.
Industry:Biology
Formulated by philosopher Edward Goldsmith as corrections to the reductive laws of thermodynamics. The Laws postulate that living things seek to preserve their structure, grow toward climax (maturity) rather than entropy (nonexistence), move into mutualism and wholeness, and survive and flourish through spontaneous, adaptive self-regulation.
Industry:Biology
A chunk of DNA that allows organisms to pass on adaptations and acquired features by making a protein through codon sequences. DNA duplication errors often create new genes. Gregor Mendel discovered genes and wrote about them--he called them "factors"--in 1865, but his work was ignored for 45 years. See DNA.
Industry:Biology
