Science

"The basis for modern day genetics was discovered in a 19th century Austrian monastery garden containing peas, and tended by a keenly observant monk named Gregor Mendel, who had training in mathematics and biology. Mendel cross-pollinated plants with 2 differing traits, a strain of homozygous wrinkled and yellow peas, with homozygous round and green peas, for two generations.

As background, a brief history is presented of what new information caused the classification of living things to evolve from the original 2 Kingdom classification of Animals and Plants by Linnaeus in the 18th century to the present day 6 Kingdoms: Animal, Plant, Fungi, Protista, Eubacteria, and Archaebacteria.

The key concepts in Part 1 are briefly reviewed. Organisms in the Protista Kingdom are virtually all single-celled. Most are heterotrophic, some are autotrophic like algae, a few like euglena are both. Most reproduce asexually, but occasionally some also sexually which produces genetic variation and long term evolutionary benefits.

The astronomer Hubble laid the foundations of the Big Bang Theory of the universe in 1929 when he found that distant galaxies were receding from the earth. The theory holds that the origin of our universe was some 14 billion years ago in a cataclysmic explosion of radiant energy of unknown cause, which formed into atomic particles of hydrogen and helium.

Mitosis in plant and animal cells

Protista Kingdom, the amoeba, the paramecium

In the six kingdom classification, the Protista Kingdom contains all single celled organisms which are eukaryotic, meaning which have a nucleus. They are called protists.

Euglena is a protist whose behavior is both plant-like and animal-like (protozoan). Structures Like a mobile protozoan, its structures include a flexible outer membrane called a pellicle (not a plant-like rigid cell wall), and a flagellum for locomotion).