What is homeostasis, and why is it important?

Homeostasis is the body trying to maintain a equilibrium for many body elements, such as body temperature, body functions, etc, even with changes in the environment.

For example, the body, in trying to maintain body temperature in a cold area, would burn more calories and "create more heat" to equalize the body temperature.

Another example would be the body sweating so that excess heat would escape on a hot day.

~

they may bind directly to special “promoter” regions of dna, which lie upstream of the coding region in a gene, or directly to the rna polymerase molecule.