what do you understand by the term definite and indefinite characteristics of life ? explain with example
Answers
Living Things
Living world and living things are quite mysterious. This is the reason scientists are trying to unfold the mystery of nature by constantly discovering new things from centuries till date. Be it a different variety of flowers, forests, and organisms. But the major question which I am sure strikes everyone is what is living and what makes it different from non-living? What does the word living mean and how can we define it? Now let’s tackle this question and clearly understand about living and living things in details.
Characteristics of Living Things
There are certain distinctive characteristics by which we try to define “living.” The characteristics include growth, metabolism, reproduction, self-organize, self-replicate, interact, ability to sense and react are some very essential features of living things/organisms. Let us discuss these traits in details.
living things
Growth
Living things tend to grow in size. However, there are some non-living things capable of growing in its size. So, what is the difference in both? The Growth of non-living things is primarily driven by the accumulation of matter from external factors or outside.
However, growth in living things is because of different internal processes occurring inside the body of the living organisms mainly because of the formation of new cells. The increase in number and mass of individuals are two unique characteristics of growth.
Multicellular organisms exhibit growth by cell division. Growth varies in plants and animals. While animals exhibit definite growth and animals cease to grow after a certain age, plant exhibit indeterminate growth and the cells continue to divide during the entire lifespan.
If we consider unicellular organisms, they tend to grow in size by cell division. Moreover, this can be easily detected by counting the cells during in vitro cultures under a microscope. However, growth and reproduction are separate processes as we gradually move to higher multicellular organisms (plants and animals).
However, we define growth as an increase in the body mass. Thus, non-living objects can also grow. For instance, boulders or sand mounds grow by addition of the material on the surface. Therefore, in living organisms growth is from within whereas in non-living things growth is from outside. Thus, growth cannot be the determining property for determination of living organisms.....