General Science Flash Card Set 67549

Cards 10
Topics Blood Flow, Conduction, Consumers, Domain, Heart, Heredity, Light Waves, Outer Planets, The Sun, Traits

Study Guide

Blood Flow

To provide oxygen to the body, blood flows through the heart in a path formed by the right atrium → right ventricle → lungs → left atrium → left ventricle → body. When blood enters the right side of the heart it is deoxygenated. It enters the left side of the heart oxygenated after traveling to the lungs.

Conduction

Heat is always transferred from warmer to cooler environments and conduction is the simplest way this transfer can occur. It is accomplished through direct contact between materials and materials like metals that transfer heat efficiently are called conductors while those that conduct heat poorly, such as plastic, are called insulators.

Consumers

Most animals consume other organisms to survive. Consumers (heterotrophs) are divided into three types, primary, secondary, and tertiary, based on their place in the food chain.

Domain

The broadest classification of life splits all organisms into three groups called domains. The three domains of life are bacteria, archaea and eukaryota.

Heart

The heart is the organ that drives the circulatory system. In humans, it consists of four chambers with two that collect blood called atria and two that pump blood called ventricles. The heart's valves prevent blood pumped out of the ventricles from flowing back into the heart.

Heredity

Heredity is the passing on of physical or mental characteristics genetically from one generation to another. Heredity is made possible via large strings of chromosomes which carry information encoded in genes.

Light Waves

Unlike mechanical sound waves that require a physical medium for propagation, light waves are electromagnetic and can travel through empty space. Light waves are also much faster, travelling at 186,000 m/s vs. 343 m/s for sound waves.

Outer Planets

In contrast to the solid terrestrial planets, the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) consist of hydrogen and helium gas and water.

The Sun

The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star (G2V) but is informally known as a yellow dwarf star. Composed of 73% hydrogen and 25% helium, the hot plasma that makes up the Sun reaches 9,900°F (5,505°C) at the surface. It formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago and makes up 99.86% of the mass in the solar system.

Traits

The traits represented by genes are inherited independently of each other (one from the male and one from the female gamete) and a trait can be dominant or recessive. A dominant trait will be expressed when paired with a recessive trait while two copies of a recessive trait (one from each parent) must be present for the recessive trait to be expressed.