Diff: 2 Page Ref: 685-686. 18) If the vagal nerves to the heart were cut, the result would be that ________. A) the heart would stop, since the vagal nerves trigger the heart to contract. B) the heart rate would increase by about 25 beats per minute. C) the AV node would become the pacemaker of the heart.
Living things have seven essential processes in common:  movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion and nutrition. All things fall into one of three categories: living, used to be living or not living; the presence of all seven life processes indicates a living thing.
Reproduction â the process by which organisms make more organisms like themselves â is one of the things that set living things apart from nonliving matter. But even though the reproductive system is essential to keeping a species alive, unlike other body systems, it's not essential to keeping an individual alive. In the human reproductive process, two kinds of sex cells, or gametes (pronounced: GAH-meetz), are involved. The male gamete, or sperm, and the female gamete, the egg or ovum, meet in the female's reproductive system. The female needs a male to fertilize her egg, even though it is she who carries offspring through pregnancy and childbirth. When the sperm fertilizes, or meets, the egg, this fertilized egg is called the zygote.