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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.
Defining the concept of lifeHow 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. A conventional definitionAlthough there is no universal agreement or agreements on the definition of life, the generally accepted biological manifestations are that life exhibits the following phenomena:
Common features of life on EarthThe 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. Exceptions to the conventional definitionIt 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: 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. Viruses reproduce, flames grow, some software programs mutate and evolve, future software programs will probably evince (even high-order) behavior, machines move, and some form of proto-life consisting of metabolizing cells without the ability to reproduce presumably existed. Still, some would not call these entities alive. Generally, all six characteristics are required for a population to be considered a life form. Other definitionsThe 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. Descent with modification: a "useful" characteristicA 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 viruses, which have been observed to evolve. Another exception might be the software code of certain forms of computer viruses and programs created through genetic programming, but whether computer programs can be alive even by this definition is still a matter of some contention. Origin of lifeMain 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:
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. The possibility of extraterrestrial lifeMain 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. See also
References
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