Biology/Citable Version

(from Greek βίος λόγος)

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Biology is the science of life.

History of the word "biology"

Formed by combining the Greek βίος (bios), meaning 'life', and λόγος (logos), meaning 'study of', the word "biology" in its modern sense seems to have been introduced independently by Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (Biologie oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur, 1802) and by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (Hydrogéologie, 1802). The word itself is sometimes said to have been coined in 1800 by Karl Friedrich Burdach, but it appears in the title of Volume 3 of Michael Christoph Hanov's Philosophiae naturalis sive physicae dogmaticae: Geologia, biologia, phytologia generalis et dendrologia, published in 1766.

History

Major discoveries in biology include:

• Cell theory
• Germ theory of disease
• Genetics
• Evolution
• DNA

External links

• [1] The American Institute of Biological Sciences (ABIBS) Virtual Library is free to all visitors