Life

Life is a characteristic distinguishing physical entities having 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. 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 defineviruses, 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. However,
many other biological definitions have been proposed, and there are also some
borderline cases, such as viruses. Biophysicists have also proposed some
definitions, many being based on chemical systems. There are also some living
systems theories, such as the Gaia hypothesis, the idea that the Earth is alive; the
former first developed by James Grier Miller. Another one is that life is the
property ofecological systems, and yet another is the complex systems biology, a
branch or subfield of mathematical biology. Some other systemic definitions
includes the theory involving the darwinian dynamic, and the operator theory.
However, throughout history, there have been many other theories and definitions
about life 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 emerge from non-life;
and vitalism, a discredited scientific hypothesis that living organisms possess a
"life force" or "vital spark". Abiogenesis is the natural process of life arising from
non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. Life on Earth arose 3.84.1
billion years ago. It is widely accepted that current life on Earth descended from
an RNA world, but RNA based life may not have been the first. The mechanism by
which life began on Earth is unknown, although many hypotheses have been
formulated, most based on the MillerUrey experiment. In July 2016, scientists
reported identifying a set of 355 genes from the Last Universal Common
Ancestor (LUCA) of all organisms living on Earth.[1]
Since appearing, life on Earth has changed its environment on a geologic
time scale. To survive in most ecosystems, life can adapt and thrive in a wide range

of conditions. Some organisms, called extremophiles, can thrive in physically or

geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to most other life on Earth.
Properties common to all organisms are the need for certain core chemical
elements needed for biochemicalfunctioning. Aristotle was the first person to
classify organisms. Later, Carl Linnaeus introduced his system of binomial
nomenclature for the classification of species. Fungi was later classified as its
own kingdom. Eventually new groups of life were revealed, such
as cells and microorganisms, and even non-cellular reproducing agents, such
as viruses and viroids. Cells are the smallest units of life, often called the "building
blocks of life". There are two kind of cells, prokaryotic and eukaryotic. Cells
consist
of cytoplasm enclosed
within
a membrane,
which
contains
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 only known on Earth (as of 2016), many believe in the existence
of extraterrestrial life. Artificial life is a computer simulation of any aspect of life,
which is used to examine systems related to 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 a group of taxa, normally
a species, dies out. Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of organisms.