LIVING THINGS
NON LIVING THINGS
Friday, 9 December 2011
The Seven Characteristics of Living Things
All living organisms need to take substances from their environment to obtain energy, to grow and to stay healthy.
 |
All living organisms show movement of one kind or another. All living organisms have internal movement, which means that they have the ability of moving substances from one part of their body to another. Some living organisms show external movement as well - they can move from place to place by walking, flying or swimming.
Breathing or Respiration
All living things exchange gases with their environment. Animals take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.
Excretion is the removal of waste from the body. If this waste was allowed to remain in the body it could be poisonous. Humans produce a liquid waste called urine. We also excrete waste when we breathe out. All living things need to remove waste from their bodies.
 |
When living things feed they gain energy. Some of this energy is used in growth. Living things become larger and more complicated as they grow.
Living things react to changes around them. We react to touch, light, heat, cold and sound, as do other living things.
All living things produce young. Humans make babies, cats produce kittens and pigeons lay eggs. Plants also reproduce. Many make seeds which can germinate and grow into new plants.
Living vs. Non-Living Things
Definition Of Living And Non Living Thing
Definition of living things
Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations. More complex living organisms can communicate through various means.[1][5] A diverse array of living organisms (life forms) can be found in the biosphere on Earth, and the properties common to these organisms—plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria—are a carbon- and water-based cellular form with complex organization and heritable genetic information.
In philosophy and religion, the conception of life and its nature varies. Both offer interpretations as to how life relates to existence and consciousness, and both touch on many related issues, including life stance, purpose, conception of a god or gods, a soul or an afterlife.
Definition of non living things
Dead or not alive.Living is the condition of being alive. This refers to all plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria. Biologists have a set list of characteristics that can help determine whether an object is living. This list includes the ability to reproduce, the ability to grow, the ability to eat and the ability excrete waste, among other things.
Dead is the condition these objects enter when they are no longer alive. So, to be dead an object must once have been living.
Non-living is the condition of never being alive. Non-living could refer to inorganic matter. Rocks, for example are non-living. They are not dead, because they were never alive (as a rock, but they may contain chemicals that were once part of a living organism).
Now, those may sound fairly clear definitions at first glance. However, they are often too simplistic. Viruses for example cannot be clearly placed in any of these categories. A non-living object cannot, by definition, meet all of the requirements for being living, however they can meet SOME of the requirements. Where to draw the line is the source of much debate.
Similarly, the distinction between living and dead is not always clear. Most people could tell if they saw a brain-dead and heart-dead person that the person was dead, but the issue becomes much muddier when we consider people who have lost all higher brain function, but retain the small amount of function needed to keep the heart pumping and the lungs working (most likely with the aid of machinery).
I chose to post this in the PCF rather than the SCF because it seems to me that the lines between living and non-living and between living and dead are ones we cannot draw scientifically at this point, because they are ones we cannot test. Something is either living, dead, or non-living. Since we can't clearly define "dead," we can't use killing as a test for "living-ness." This question therefore seems to me to fall into the realm of philosophy, but philosophy that is still very much science.
This question is of great interest to Biologists. I say it is philosophy, only because I believe that for the time being at least, the answer must be found through thought not experiment. To me, that is the line between philosophy and science.
Please, in composing your responses try remember that these are specifically-defined biological terms, and not colloquial ones. Also, please consider the possiblities of testing any hypotheses you put forth. By this I don't mean that all hypotheses must be testable, but rather that if your hypothesis is testable, I would like some sort of idea of what tests could be done.
About Me
NAME : SARAWATHI A/P MUNIANDY
NO MATRIK : D20102045965
TAJUK : LIVING THINGS AND NON LIVING THING
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)