{"id":904,"date":"2026-07-19T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/2026\/07\/19\/science-word-of-the-day-autotroph\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T08:00:00","slug":"science-word-of-the-day-autotroph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/2026\/07\/19\/science-word-of-the-day-autotroph\/","title":{"rendered":"Science word of the day: Autotroph"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<p><strong>Science word of the day: <\/strong>Autotroph<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pronunciation:<\/strong> <em>AW&#8217;-tuh-trohf<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>What it means: <\/strong>Autotrophs are organisms that can feed themselves with inorganic substances such as light (for plants) or methane (certain microbes). Autotrophs were the first single-celled life-forms to colonize the planet, thriving on chemicals bubbling up from the subsurface at deep-sea vents or figuring out how to harness the sun for energy. Heterotrophs (like you, me and all fungi), arrived on the scene later to feast on these DIY-ers. <\/p>\n<p><strong>How to use it in a sentence: <\/strong>Stromatolites, microbial mats built by cyanobacteria, are <em>autotrophs<\/em> that thrived in ancient shallow seas. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Can you crack our science word of the day puzzle, <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/chain-science-word-of-the-day-puzzle\"><u><strong>Chain Word<\/strong><\/u><\/a><strong>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"min-height: 250px\">\n<div class=\"kwizly-quiz kwizly-W2rM4W\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Science word of the day: Autotroph Pronunciation: AW&#8217;-tuh-trohf What it means: Autotrophs are organisms that can feed themselves with inorganic substances such as light (for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bkbc.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}