The branch of science that studies the characteristic mechanisms, processes and phenomena of living organisms from the molecular to the functional levels of organisation. While the boundaries and sub-divisions within it are fluid, it can be depicted as covering biophysics, cellular biology, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, functional biology and molecular biology, and more recently bioinformatics. The introduction of the term ‘biology’ is usually accredited to Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (1744-1829), but it also appeared in the same year (1802) in the writings of Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (1776-1837). Even earlier claims for having coined the term are assigned to Karl Friedrich Burdach (1776-1847) in 1800, and Michael Christoph Hanov (1695-1773) in 1766.
See Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Biophysics, Developmental biology, Developmental genetics, Discipline, Evolutionary biology, Levels of organization, Life sciences, Mechanism, Model systems, Molecular biology, Palaeontology, Process