Engineering

Novel process extracts rare earth elements from waste

Rare earth elements (REE), a group of 17 metallic elements, are in nearly every piece of technology, including cell phones, televisions, computers and almost every part of a vehicle. The demand for these elements increases ...

Energy & Green Tech

Enhancing organic solar cells' green glow

Organic solar cells could be made even greener by switching the solvents used in their manufacture. Today's toxic chlorinated solvents can be replaced by plant-derived alternatives without affecting the resulting solar cells' ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Scientists enhance stability of new material for solar cells

New materials that can both harvest and emit light offer exciting potential for technologies that range from solar cells to TV and display screens. In a new study, researchers have developed a new way of enhancing the stability ...

Robotics

Self-organization: What robotics can learn from amoebae

Amoebae are single-cell organisms. By means of self-organization, they can form complex structures—and do this purely through local interactions: If they have a lot of food, they disperse evenly through a culture medium. ...

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Organism

In biology, an organism is any living system (such as animal, plant, fungus, or micro-organism). In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole. An organism may either be unicellular (single-celled) or be composed of, as in humans, many billions of cells grouped into specialized tissues and organs. The term multicellular (many-celled) describes any organism made up of more than one cell.

The terms "organism" (Greek ὀργανισμός - organismos, from Ancient Greek ὄργανον - organon "organ, instrument, tool") first appeared in the English language in 1701 and took on its current definition by 1834 (Oxford English Dictionary).

Scientific classification in biology considers organisms synonymous with life on Earth. Based on cell type, organisms may be divided into the prokaryotic and eukaryotic groups. The prokaryotes represent two separate domains, the Bacteria and Archaea. Eukaryotic organisms, with a membrane-bounded cell nucleus, also contain organelles, namely mitochondria and (in plants) plastids, generally considered to be derived from endosymbiotic bacteria. Fungi, animals and plants are examples of species that are eukaryotes.

More recently a clade, Neomura, has been proposed, which groups together the Archaea and Eukarya. Neomura is thought to have evolved from Bacteria, more specifically from Actinobacteria.

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