Below are sentences containing some vocabulary that you will need to understand the texts in this unit. Examine the words in bold and try to determine their meaning from the context in which they are used. These ten bold words will be assessed in the final exam and end of unit quizzes. When you are ready, take the practice quiz below and check your answers.
Human beings have highly-developed brains which enable them to use logic to understand the world around them and to communicate by using language.
Animals have been domesticated to supply food and transport and plants have been cultivated for food. These plants and animals were, and still are, modified by breeding programs that have relied on artificial selection and hybridization.
There are billions of spatulae in a gecko’s foot. These spatulae interact with the climbing surface at a nano-level and stick to it.
Although the force with which each spatula adheres to a surface is tiny, the billions of spatulae enable the gecko to attach itself strongly to any surface.
If you are building machines at a subatomic level, you are using the science known as nanotechnology.
There is a significant range of processes which have been copied from simple ones, e.g.Velcro, to more advanced ones as in genetic engineering.
His resulting invention in 1951 was made from nylon, a synthetic material that had been invented in 1937.
One of the scientific instruments used to understand the mechanical structure of organisms is the light microscope.