Dissecting Scientific Vocabulary

One of the toughest challenges in science is understanding the long, strange vocabulary terms. Science textbooks are full of crazy words like plasmodesmata, thigmotropism and chemiosmotic phosphorylation. It's really hard to learn science effectively when all these weird words are being thrown in your face. How did scientists come up with these words, anyway? Why do they have to be so unfriendly?

Most of the terms you see in science are combinations of word parts. This is especially true with technical terms. Scientists originally coined the terms by putting together word parts from the Greek and Latin languages. For example, the word 'thigmotropism' comes from a combination of two Greek words: thixis, meaning 'touch,' and tropos, meaning 'turning' or 'direction.' Thigmotropism is the word we use to describe the coiling growth patterns that some plants exhibit in response to touch. Think about vining plants like beans, grapevines and the common morning glory. These plants can climb fences and trellises by coiling their shoots around any object that they touch. You might think it strange that a long, weird word like thigmotropism was ever invented. But, imagine if you were a plant biologist trying to describe a morning glory. How would you talk about its coiling growth pattern? 'The morning glory climbs by using… its ability to turn the direction of its vine growth in response to a touch stimulus.' No, that takes too long! If you were a scientist, you would want to invent your own word to describe this concept. Then you could just say, 'The morning glory climbs by using thigmotropism.' That's exactly why scientists invented the word.

Breaking down scientific terms into word parts can help make them easier to understand.

Most scientific terms refer to Greek or Latin roots. But that doesn't mean you have to know Greek and Latin to understand science terminology. Many word parts are familiar to us in the English and other Romance languages. Take the word 'photosynthesis' for example. It comes from the Greek roots photo, syn and thesis. Photo means 'light,' as you probably already knew from other words like photography, photon and photocopy. The word partsyn means 'with' or 'together.' This might seem like a foreign definition to you. But think about familiar words like sympathy, synagogue, synchronize, system and symbiotic - all these words use a form of the Greek root syn to describe a togetherness of something. So, we've got photo and syn; what about the word part thesis? In Greek, this word means 'setting, putting, or placing.' So 'photosynthesis' means 'light-together-putting' or 'putting together with light.' In other words, photosynthesis is the process by which plants put molecules together using the energy they get from sunlight.

Word Parts and Combinations

As you can see, understanding the meaning of science terms is easier when you break them down into smaller components. This might be a good time to remember the three main parts of a word: the root, theprefix and the suffix. A word root is the primary unit of a word. It's often the longest, most central part of the word that carries the most significant meaning. Both prefixes and suffixes can be added to a word root in order to modify its meaning. Prefixes are word parts that appear before a root, like 'un-,' 'in-,' 'dis-,' 're-' and 'a-.' Suffixes are word parts that come after the root, like '-ed,' '-ing,' '-less,' '-ly' and '-ism.' When prefixes and suffixes show up in science words, they work the same way as they do in regular English. For example, the suffix -ism appears in the word 'thigmotropism.' You don't need to know that -ism is a suffix that indicates a noun. You already know plenty of similar 'isms,' like journalism, optimism and tourism. These are all nouns. So, thigmotropism must also be a noun, even if we're not yet sure what it means.

Try to build connections between words that you already know and words you're just learning. You'll start to get a sense of what the word parts mean, and then you can apply them to other words. For example, the word 'sympetalous' is used to describe a type of flower. Can you figure out what it means? Well, we know that flowers have petals, and we just learned that 'syn' or 'sym' means 'together.' It shouldn't surprise you to learn that 'sympetalous' describes a flower in which the petals are joined together.

Keep learning? Keep earning!

(1) College is just the beginning of a lifelong learning journey. With the rapid advancement of technology, changes in economy and society, you must adapt a learning mindset if you want to succeed. The key to lifelong earning is lifelong learning.

(2) As you embark on this path*, strive always to be a student. Be open to new ideas and information, and be able to adapt. These are essential skills for the new world of work. Some benefits of becoming a lifelong learner are:
 increased self-confidence when approaching new tasks or ideas;
 better decision-making and problem-solving skills;
 the ability to adapt and change with the times;
 greater personal satisfaction;
 higher pay and more employment opportunities.

(3) To become a student for life, start by finding out how you learn best. There are three main ways of learning people tend to follow: hearing (auditory learning), seeing (visual learning) and doing (kinesthetic learning). If you are not sure which type you prefer, ask yourself how you like to be given directions. If you are an auditory learner, you prefer to be told how to get somewhere. If you are a visual learner, you prefer to be shown. If you are a kinesthetic learner, you prefer to drive yourself there first. Another important aspect of learning is whether you are left- or right-brain dominant. “Left-brained” people are good with logic, analysis, math, language, writing and reading. “Right-brained” people are good with imagination, colors, graphics, music and rhythm. Of course, we do have the capability to think both ways. When we are able to tap into both sides* of our brains, we use our full brain potential.

(4) Many famous people used their “whole” brain. For example, Leonardo da Vinci was an artist and innovator. He sketched helicopters hundreds of years ago because he was fascinated by mechanics. He also used his knowledge of how the human body stands and moves to create extraordinary lifelike paintings.

(5) Strive to use your whole brain when studying, working and interacting with others. Also, be selective with what you feed your brain. As the adage says, “garbage in, garbage out.” The same holds true for the programs your brain uses. Only put in positive, healthy and educational programs. Your thoughts, along with the ability to add, change and discard them, are what define your mind.

(6) An ancient Chinese proverb says it best: “To gain knowledge, add things everyday. To gain wisdom, remove things everyday.” Just like a computer needs to delete files and information that are no longer useful, you have to discard old programs and information that no longer serve you. Knowing what is important and what is necessary to do will ensure that you have plenty of space left for learning the next new thing.

(Abridged and adapted from Keep learning? Keep earning! By Michelle L. Casto)

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Why is it necessary to be selective while learning?

Father of bacteriology

1. On December 27, 1822, Louis Pasteur was born in the town of Dole, situated in Eastern France. His father was a tanner (дубильщик). In 1840, Louis earned his Bachelor of Arts degree and in 1842, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the Ecole Normale. He had five kids out of which only two survived into adulthood. Typhoid was the reason for his children’s death. Pasteur’s personal loss led him study the cause for incurable diseases.

2. Louis Pasteur helped resolve the mysteries of several deadly diseases like chicken cholera, anthrax (сибирская язва), rabies and silkworm (шелкопряд) diseases. 

He also contributed to the development of the very first vaccines. Pasteur’s first vaccine discovery was in 1879 with a contagious disease called chicken-cholera. After unexpectedly exposing chickens to the weakened form of a disease, he proved that they became immune to the actual virus. Pasteur continued to extend his “germ theory” to formulate vaccinations for various diseases including anthrax, smallpox and cholera.

3. During Pasteur’s period, the souring (прокисание) of wine and beer caused huge loss of money for wine producers in France. Pasteur, along with other scientists, found that heating up the sugar solutions to high temperatures eliminated the bacteria to avoid spoilage (порча товара). Then he applied the same concept to other products like milk, cheese, and other foods. This is how he came up with pasteurization. Having the name of the inventor, the entire process of pasteurization is still extensively used throughout the world today.

4. Pasteur suffered from brain-strokes which started in 1868. He passed away on September 28, 1895, at Saint Cloud. He was buried in Notre Dame Cathedral. Later, his body was placed in a crypt just below the Pasteur Institute, Paris. Many of his techniques are still in use today.

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How did Pasteur prove that people became immune to the actual virus?