Life

From Free net encyclopedia

For other uses, see Life (disambiguation) and Living

Life is a multi-faceted concept that may refer to the ongoing process of which living things are a part or the period between fertilisation or mitosis and death.

1 Defining the concept of life
2 Origin of life
3 The possibility of extraterrestrial life
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

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Defining the concept of life

How can one tell when an entity is alive? It would be relatively straightforward to offer a practical set of guidelines if one's only concern were life on Earth as we know it (see biosphere), but as soon as one considers questions about life's origins on Earth, or the possibility of extraterrestrial life, or the concept of artificial life, it becomes clear that the question is fundamentally difficult and comparable in many respects to the problem of defining intelligence.

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A conventional definition

While there is no universal agreement on the definition of life, scientists generally accept that the biological manifestation of life exhibits the following phenomena:

Organization - Living things are comprised of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
Metabolism - Metabolism produces energy by converting nonliving material into cellular components (synthesis) and decomposing organic matter (catalysis). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
Growth - Growth results from a higher rate of synthesis than catalysis. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
Adaptation - Adaptation is the accommodation of a living organism to its environment. It is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the individual's heredity.
Response to stimuli - A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism when touched to complex reactions involving all the senses of higher animals. A response is often expressed by motion: the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun or an animal chasing its prey.
Reproduction - The division of one cell to form two new cells is reproduction. Usually the term is applied to the production of a new individual (either asexually, from a single parent organism, or sexually, from two differing parent organisms), although strictly speaking it also describes the production of new cells in the process of growth.

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Common features of life on Earth

The conventional definition of life defines the common features that life is expected to exhibit wherever it may be encountered in the universe. On Earth, all life exhibits at least one additional common feature, namely that life on this planet is based on the chemistry of carbon compounds. Some assert that this must be the case for all possible forms of life throughout the universe, a position referred to as carbon chauvinism.

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Exceptions to the conventional definition

It is important to note that life is a definition that applies at the level of species, so even though many individuals of any given species do not reproduce, possibly because they belong to specialised sterile castes (such as ant workers), these are still considered forms of life. One could say that the property of life is inherited; hence, sterile hybrid species such as the mule are considered life although not themselves capable of reproduction. It is also worth noting that non-reproducing individuals may still help the spread of their genes through such mechanisms as kin selection.

For similar reasons, viruses and aberrant prion proteins are often considered replicators rather than forms of life, a distinction warranted because they cannot reproduce without very specialised substrates such as host cells or proteins, respectively. However, most forms of life rely on foods produced by other species, or at least the specific chemistry of Earth's environment.

Common examples offered are of: viruses which reproduce; flames which "grow"; certain computer software programs which are programmed to mutate and evolve; future software programs which may evince (even high-order) behavior; machines which can move; and some forms of proto-life consisting of metabolizing cells without the ability to reproduce.

Still, most scientists would not call such phenomena expressive of life. Generally, all six characteristics are required for a population to be considered a life form.

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Other definitions

The systemic definition is that living things are self-organizing and autopoietic (self-producing). These objects are not to be confused with dissipative structures (e.g. fire).

Variations of this definition include Stuart Kauffman's definition of life as an autonomous agent or a multi-agent system capable of reproducing itself or themselves, and of completing at least one thermodynamic work cycle.

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Descent with modification: a "useful" characteristic

A useful characteristic upon which to base a definition of life is that of descent with modification: the ability of a life form to produce offspring that are like its parent or parents, but with the possibility of some variation due to chance. Descent with modification is sufficient by itself to allow evolution, assuming that the variations in the offspring allow for differential survival. The study of this form of heritability is called genetics. In all known life forms (assuming prions are not counted as such), the genetic material is primarily DNA or the related molecule, RNA.

This argument would, however, include replicating elements which have been observed to evolve, but are not generally accepted as being alive. Examples include viruses, plasmids, transposons, satellite DNA. Another exception might be the software code of certain forms of computer viruses and programs created through genetic programming.

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Origin of life

Main article: Origin of life

There is no truly "standard" model of the origin of life, but most currently accepted scientific models build in one way or another on the following discoveries, which are listed roughly in order of postulated emergence:

Plausible pre-biotic conditions result in the creation of the basic small molecules of life. This was demonstrated in the Urey-Miller experiment.
Phospholipids spontaneously form lipid bilayers, the basic structure of a cell membrane.
Procedures for producing random RNA molecules can produce ribozymes, which are able to produce more of themselves under very specific conditions.

There are many different hypotheses regarding the path that might have been taken from simple organic molecules to protocells and metabolism. Many models fall into the "genes-first" category or the "metabolism-first" category, but a recent trend is the emergence of hybrid models that do not fit into either of these categories.

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The possibility of extraterrestrial life

Main articles: Extraterrestrial life, Astrobiology

At this time, Earth is the only planet in the universe known by humans to support life. The question of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe remains open, but analyses such as the Drake equation have been used to estimate the probability of such life existing. There have been a number of claims of the discovery of life elsewhere in the universe, but none of these have yet survived scientific scrutiny.

Today, the closest that scientists have come to finding extraterrestrial life is fossil evidence of possible bacterial life on Mars (via the ALH84001 meteorite). Searches for extraterrestrial life are currently focusing on planets and moons believed to possess liquid water, at present or in the past. Recent evidence from the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity supports the theory that Mars once had surface water. See Life on Mars for further discussion.

Jupiter's moons are also considered good candidates for extraterrestrial life, especially Europa, which seems to possess oceans of liquid water.

Other highly speculative and somewhat doubtful places for present or past life include the atmosphere of Venus, Titan cryovolcanoes, or even Enceladus.

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References

Kauffman, Stuart. The Adjacent Possible: A Talk with Stuart Kauffman. Retrieved Nov. 30, 2003 from [1]
Lynn Margulis and Doris Sagan - What is Life? (1995). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81087-5
Erwin Schrodinger - What is Life? (1944 to 2000). Cambridge University Press (Canto). ISBN 0-521-42708-8

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