life and non-life...

[ragav.payne]

What exactly is the difference between a living thing and a non-living thing?

By golly, I don't want the primary school answer to the question. I want a clear fundamental distinction between the things that live and the ones that don't.

Regards.
--
rAgAv

[mith]

look on our virus threads...

[alivingthing]

1.化学成分的同一性
2.严整有序的结构
3.新陈代谢
4.应急性和运动
5.稳态
6.生长发育
7.繁殖和遗传
8.适应

[Madeline]

You may not like this but my answer would be that the "living" has a spirit.

[kclo4x]

Hmmm... ? yeah... define spirit


i say anything that contains carbon, self replicating, and is subject to evolution

but what do i know?

[kotoreru]

Read some of the latest online New Scientist articles on that, kclo4x.

[AstusAleator]

post a link or a reference please kotoreru, I'd like to read up on that as well.

[ragav.payne]

You may not like this but my answer would be that the "living" has a spirit.

Honestly, who would like it? This kind of answer is nothing but a temporary plasma that fills the ever-expanding gap called curiosity.

i say anything that contains carbon, self replicating, and is subject to evolution

Well...seems like everyone has their own line of distinction for life. But, how about something more fundamental? I'd be impressed if the lack of one specific, fundamental, everlasting, independant (i.e. not influenced by its surroundings. unlike evolution.) characteristic in a living species can get it classified under the "lifeless" category.

[kclo4x]

You may not like this but my answer would be that the "living" has a spirit.

Haha seriously, that pissed me off so much!!!

you can't detect souls, they may not even be real, and the definition of a soul is different to everybody

Even if this wasn't a science forum i would still frown upon an answer... jeez!


But My question is, say we found "life" on another planet... would we call it life?

[Madeline]

I don't see any reason as to why Life wouldn't be called "life" if it were to be found on another planet. Even bacteria is considered life. Please don't get mad again.

Love,
Madeline

[AstusAleator]

It may very well be that we will someday discover a form of "life" that is utterly unlike what we consider to be life. But until then, we've got a pretty good idea of the parameters within which "life" can occur on earth. The only vagueness occurs with, like mith said, things like viruses.

imho, viruses are not truly alive because they cannot reproduce themselves. They rely on the metabolic energy of their host cells, as well as their genetic mechanisms.

[dan167]

I got this from a book. All living things share basic characteristics, including the following:

- Responsiveness - Organisms can respond to changes in the environment, this is called irritability.

- Growth and *most of the time* differentiation - Organisms can grow larger by increasing the number of cells. Individual cells withon the organism become specialized to perform particular functions. In one celled organisms the size of the cell increases.

- Reproduction - Organisms reproduce, creating subsequent generations of similar organisms.

- Movement - Organisms are capable of producing movement, which may be interal or external.

- Metbolism and excretion - Organisms rely on complex chemical reactions to provide energy, this reactions create harmful waste which must be excreated.