Chapter 1, Problem 1O

Summary Introduction

To determine:

General characteristics that separate life from nonliving things.

Introduction:

Life or living and nonliving things are made up of elements, but there are various differences that exist between living and nonliving things.

Explanation of Solution

There are 7 characteristics unique to the living things. These features of life are absent in the non living beings. The characteristics of the living things are given below:

• Nutrition: To perform various metabolic processes and growth, the living things obtain material from the environment they live in.
• Respiration: All living organism perform the process of respiration. In this process, they release the energy by braking down the food substances. This energy is used to carry out different processes.
• Movement/ locomotion: All living things can move themselves.
• Response to stimulus: Living organism can sense and respond to the different stimulus, such as light, temperature, chemical substances, etc.
• Reproduction: All the living organism reproduce and give rise to offspring similar to them. They pass the genetic information, which code for all the characteristics of the organism.
• Growth: Growth is observed in all living organisms. The multicellular organisms grow by increase in the cell size and cell count and the unicellular organisms grow by increasing their cell size.
• Excretion: All living organism produce some metabolic wastes which need to be excreted out of their body.

Conclusion

Hence, life or living organisms perform the basic function of life that are respiration, locomotion, obtaining nutrition, response to stimulus, reproduction, growth and excretion, thus, distinguishing them from non living entities.