bio-, bi-, -bia, -bial, -bian, -bion, -biont, -bius, -biosis, -bium, -biotic, -biotical

A terrorist who uses biological weapons: "Not only water supplies are susceptible to such deliberate contamination; so, too, is much of the air we breathe."

"Skyscrapers, tunnels, subways, and their requisite heating and air-conditioning systems provide targets and also ways of attack for would-be bioterrorists."

An older term for suicide.

1. Treatment using biological agents, almost always those made by genetic engineering. Genetic engineering is central to modern biotherapy’s backbone: pharmaceutical biotechnology. Pharmaceutical biotechnology involves using microorganisms, macroscopic organisms, or hybrids of tumor cells and leukocytes.
2. Virtually all biotherapeutic agents in clinical use are biotech pharmaceuticals. A biotech pharmaceutical is simply any medically useful drug whose manufacture involves microorganisms or substances that living organisms produce (e.g., enzymes). Most biotech pharmaceuticals are recombinant‹that is, produced by genetic engineering. Insulin was among the earliest recombinant drugs.
3. In psychology, any form of treatment for abnormal behavior that alters the individual’s physiological processes; such as, electric shock treatment or surgery.
4. The treatment of disease with biologicals, that is, materials produced by living organisms.

Pertaining to the inter-relationship of temperature and living organisms.

An instrument for measuring the vibratory-perception threshold.

1. A reference to common life; secular.
2. Pertaining to life or living organisms; caused by, produced by, or comprising living organisms.

1. The biological factors acting on an organism, which arise from the activities of other living organisms, as distinct from physical factors.
2. The living organisms of a community habitat or environment.

An environmental factor associated with, or resulting from, the activities of living organisms.

1. The maximum possible number, or intrinsic rate of natural increase, of offspring produced by an individual under ideal conditions.
2. The capacity of a population of living organisms to increase under ideal and optimal environmental conditions.

Environmental factors; such as, limitation of resources, predation, and disease mean that the biotic potential is seldom realized.

The science concerned with the functions of life, or vital activity and force.

1. The study of animal and plant structure by dissection; vivisection.
2. A biopsy instrument passed through a catheter into the heart to obtain pieces of tissue for diagnosis.

1. The smallest geographical area providing uniform conditions for life; the physical part of an ecosystem.
2. The smallest geographical unit of the biosphere or of a habitat that can be delimited by convenient boundaries and is characterized by its biota.
3. The location of a parasite within the host’s body.
4. An ecological niche, or restricted area, the environmental conditions of which are suitable for certain fauna and flora. A tree with its associated organisms is a biotope; a forest is a biochore.

A reference to a portion of a habitat characterized by uniformity in climate and distribution of biotic and abiotic components; such as, a tidal pool or a forest canopy.