Life Wikipedia. Life is a characteristic that distinguishes physical entities that do have biological processes, such as signaling and self sustaining processes, from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased, or because they never had such functions and are classified as inanimate. Kingdoms.png' alt='5 Kingdoms Of Life Activities Of Plants' title='5 Kingdoms Of Life Activities Of Plants' />Various forms of life exist, such as plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria. The criteria can at times be ambiguous and may or may not define viruses, viroids, or potential artificial life as living. Biology is the primary science concerned with the study of life, although many other sciences are involved. The definition of life is controversial. The current definition is that organisms maintain homeostasis, are composed of cells, undergo metabolism, can grow, adapt to their environment, respond to stimuli, and reproduce. Thessalonians 413 Perfecting Holiness. I had not worked in my yard for several weeks, and I was amazed at how quickly weeds had sprung up and taken over. Biology4Kids. com The site that teaches the basics of biology to everyone Tutorials on cells, plants, microbes, invertebrates, vertebrates, and animal systems. PBS Learning Media Home Page. On October 23, 1915, 25,000 women marched in New York City demanding right to vote. Moffett Field Nov 2, 2001 When scientists first started to classify life, everything was designated as either an animal or a plant. But as new forms of life were. All Living Things, in Seven Kingdoms. Note This page contains an image, involving human anatomy, that some may regard as offensive or inappropriate. Biodiversity is the result of 3. The origin of life has not been definitely established by science, however some evidence suggests that. The Kingdom plantae is also called as kingdom Metaphyta. The Kingdom plantae includes all types of eukaryotic, multicellular, photosynthetic plants found in this. However, many other biological definitions have been proposed, and there are some borderline cases of life, such as viruses. Throughout history, there have been many attempts to define what is meant by life and many theories on the properties and emergence of living things, such as materialism, the belief that everything is made out of matter and that life is merely a complex form of it hylomorphism, the belief that all things are a combination of matter and form, and the form of a living thing is its soul spontaneous generation, the belief that life repeatedly emerges from non life and vitalism, a now largely discredited hypothesis that living organisms possess a life force or vital spark. Modern definitions are more complex, with input from a diversity of scientific disciplines. Biophysicists have proposed many definitions based on chemical systems there are also some living systems theories, such as the Gaia hypothesis, the idea that the Earth itself is alive. Another theory is that life is the property of ecological systems, and yet another is elaborated in complex systems biology, a branch or subfield of mathematical biology. Abiogenesis describes the natural process of life arising from non living matter, such as simple organic compounds. Properties common to all organisms include the need for certain core chemical elements to sustain biochemical functions. Life on Earth first appeared as early as 4. Earth 4. 5. 4 billion years ago. Earths current life may have descended from an RNA world, although RNA based life may not have been the first. The mechanism by which life began on Earth is unknown, though many hypotheses have been formulated and are often based on the MillerUrey experiment. The earliest known life forms are microfossils of bacteria. In July 2. 01. 6, scientists reported identifying a set of 3. LUCA of all living organisms. Since its primordial beginnings, life on Earth has changed its environment on a geologic time scale. To survive in most ecosystems, life must often adapt to a wide range of conditions. Some microorganisms, called extremophiles, thrive in physically or geochemically extreme environments that are detrimental to most other life on Earth. Aristotle was the first person to classify organisms. Later, Carl Linnaeus introduced his system of binomial nomenclature for the classification of species. Eventually new groups and categories of life were discovered, such as cells and microorganisms, forcing dramatic revisions of the structure of relationships between living organisms. Cells are sometimes considered the smallest units and building blocks of life. There are two kinds of cells, prokaryotic and eukaryotic, both of which consist of cytoplasm enclosed within a membrane and contain many biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids. Cells reproduce through a process of cell division, in which the parent cell divides into two or more daughter cells. Though currently only known on Earth, life need not be restricted to it, and many scientists speculate in the existence of extraterrestrial life. Artificial life is a computer simulation or man made reconstruction of any aspect of life, which is often used to examine systems related to natural life. Death is the permanent termination of all biological functions which sustain an organism, and as such, is the end of its life. Extinction is the process by which an entire group or taxon, normally a species, dies out. Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of organisms. Definitions. It is a challenge for scientists and philosophers to define life. This is partially because life is a process, not a substance. Any definition must be general enough to both encompass all known life and any unknown life that may be different from life on Earth. Biology. The characteristics of life. Since there is no unequivocal definition of life, most current definitions in biology are descriptive. Life is considered a characteristic of something that exhibits all or most of the following traits 1. Homeostasis regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state for example, sweating to reduce temperature. Organization being structurally composed of one or more cellsĀ the basic units of life. Metabolism transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components anabolism and decomposing organic matter catabolism. Living things require energy to maintain internal organization homeostasis and to produce the other phenomena associated with life. Growth maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter. Adaptation the specific, specialized and non fortuitous condition of the link between traits and environment. That is, the fact that the furtherance, reinforcement and preservation of the state of existing and its continuity survival result from a particular favoring correlation between own traits and environmental conditions which holds a degree of specificity, suitability and complexity beyond mere circumstantial coincidence or chance occurrence between those traits and the environment adaptation as specific specialized adaptation. Readaptation the ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organisms heredity, diet, and external factors. Response to stimuli a response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun phototropism, and chemotaxis. Reproduction the ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism or sexually from two parent organisms. My Computer Crashed While Updating Itunes Software. These complex processes, called physiological functions, have underlying physical and chemical bases, as well as signaling and control mechanisms that are essential to maintaining life. Alternative definitions. From a physics perspective, living beings are thermodynamic systems with an organized molecular structure that can reproduce itself and evolve as survival dictates. Thermodynamically, life has been described as an open system which makes use of gradients in its surroundings to create imperfect copies of itself. Hence, life is a self sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution. A major strength of this definition is that it distinguishes life by the evolutionary process rather than its chemical composition. Others take a systemic viewpoint that does not necessarily depend on molecular chemistry. One systemic definition of life is that living things are self organizing and autopoietic self producing. Variations of this definition include Stuart Kauffmans definition as an autonomous agent or a multi agent system capable of reproducing itself or themselves, and of completing at least one thermodynamic work cycle.