adaptation: (in biology) The development of new programs, processes, policies and structures to make communities and their inhabitants better able to head off — or at least withstand — the dangerous impacts of a warming climate. Those impacts may include drought, flooding, wildfires, extreme heat and extreme storms.
archaea: (singular: archaeon) One of the three domains of life on Earth. This group consists of single-celled prokaryotes — organisms without a cell nucleus. Archaea are best known for living in extremely harsh environments, such as very salty water or highly acidic or hot places.
beetle: An order of insects known as Coleoptera, containing at least 350,000 different species. Adults tend to have hard and/or horn-like “forewings” which covers the wings used for flight.
bug: The slang term for an insect. Sometimes it’s even used to refer to a germ.
carbon: A chemical element that is the physical basis of all life on Earth. Carbon exists freely as graphite and diamond. It is an important part of coal, limestone and petroleum, and is capable of self-bonding, chemically, to form an enormous number of chemically, biologically and commercially important molecules.
carbon monoxide: A toxic gas whose molecules include one carbon atom and one oxygen atom. (The “mono” in “monoxide” is a prefix from Greek that means “one”.) One common source: fossil-fuel burning.
cell: (in biology) The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. Typically too small to see with the unaided eye, it consists of a watery fluid surrounded by a membrane or wall. Depending on their size, animals are made of anywhere from thousands to trillions of cells. Most organisms, such as yeasts, molds, bacteria and some algae, are composed of only one cell.
chemical: A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (bond) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made when two hydrogen atoms bond to one oxygen atom. Its chemical…
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