A genetically modified organism, or GMO, is any organism that has had its genetic code tampered with or altered by people with modern technology. GMO’s are useful for producing large quantities of food and other goods as they can be configured to provide higher crop yields, resist pesticides or have other favorable traits. The Doritos featured above are one such product that includes these modified crops.
List #53
An amniotic egg is the egg of an amniote, a clade of tetrapod vertebrates that includes mammals, birds and reptiles. These eggs are either laid on dry land (like a bird’s nest) or stay within the mother after being fertilized (like a human). Above we see the eggs of chickens, a type of bird amniote.
List #5
Dispersing ones child seeds is always a challenge for a stationary plant. One way to overcome this is to develop adaptions to hijack animal’s freedom of movement as this Huckleberry bush has done. The Huckleberry grows berries around its seeds, which are just the right size for birds to snack on. The birds then fly to another location while digesting the berries and poop out the indigestible seeds at the new site. In this way the birds and the bushes have developed a symbiotic relationship where the bushes feed the birds and the birds spread the bushes.
List #2
Cold environments can be a pressing challenge for any organism. Above we can see a very common adaptation to cold weather: the fur coat. This golden retriever uses his fur to trap air close to his skin, effectively creating an insulating layer between him and the outside environment and making it harder for his body heat to dissipate.
List #1
Angiosperms (aka flowering plants) are a group of plants that produce carpel-enclosed seeds and have flowers. This group includes various shrubs, trees, mosses and grasses, and is very diverse with over 295,000 known species. Pictured above are the flowers of several different types of angiosperms in various sizes.
List #7
Cellulose is the most common organic compound on earth. It is a polysaccharide made of several chains of glucose monomers. Cellulose is what builds very strong plant cell walls and makes plant fibers and stems so strong. We can see this in the thin stem shown above that is holding up dozens of leaves.
List #23
Conifer leaves are those of coniferous plants and trees, which unlike deciduous trees do not lose their leaves annually. Conifer leaves are generally firm and scalelike, and generally remain green year round. Shown above are leaves of a coniferous cedar tree in the grand forest.
List #28
Deciduous trees and plants shed their leaves annually, usually in autumn before winter. This falling action is a characteristic of the season, so much so we gave it another name- “Fall.” Pictured above is a fallen deciduous maple leaf that has begun the decomposition process.
List #32
Insects are a class of invertebrates within the arthopod phylum. Insects have six legs, an exoskeleton, a three part segmented body, two head antennae and very often one or two pairs of wings. Insects are extremely plentiful on earth, with over 10 quintillion individuals alive at any given time and over 925,000 species having been identified. Accordingly, insects are diverse and come in all shapes, sizes and behaviors. Above we can see several ants forming a trail near their colony.
List #60
Blackberry plants, like the one pictured above, are known for their painful and annoying thorns. These thorns are part of the stems of the blackberry bush, and are a modification of the stem for defense. Nobody wants to eat a plant with a mouthful of thorns, right?
Patrick Ledoux's AP Biology Blog 