Week 1

        In this week was my first class for biocell and I was very excited about it. I came to the class 15 minutes early and the class was conducted by the only indian lecturer in my course, Dr.Parameswary. At first, I thought that I will learn more about cell and its application but the first topic that I learned was hidrory which is the evolution of life and the story of Charles Darwin and his discoveries.

       I studied that Charles Darwin was a naturalist and in 1831, when je was just only 22 years old, he embarked on a five year survey voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle. His studies and specimens around the globe led him to formulate his theory of evolution and his views on the process of natural selection.  Darwin's theory of evolution is based on key facts and the inferences drawn from them, which was summarised in the video "Endless Form Most Beautiful" dr.Parames was given to me. From that video, I learned that every species is fertile enough that if all offspring survived to reproduce, the population would grow. Despite periodic fluctuations, populations remain roughly the same size. Then, resources such as food are limited and are relatively stable over time and individuals in a population vary significantly from one another.

           Next, much of this variation is heritable which means that Individuals which are less suited to the environment are less likely to survive and less likely to reproduce; individuals more suited to the environment are more likely to survive and more likely to reproduce and leave their heritable traits to future generations, which produces the process of natural selection. This slowly effected process results in populations changing to adapt to their environments, and ultimately, these variations accumulate over time to form new species.

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