Life : Birth to Death
Rakesh Mohan Hallen
LIFE is diverse. Its range spans from an algae, which may be so small that you cannotsee it but under a microscope to a human being who can, besides reproducing andmetabolizing also think and contemplate the nature of life. In between are spongesthat cling to rocks; insects that can glow; birds that fly high up in sky, plant whichapparently cannot move; reptiles that creep and can lay dormant for long periodswithout showing any sign of life, fishes that can swim deep down an ocean and a plethora of other living forms. But there are manifestations common to all of them.These range from ability to move, to reproduce, to sense the surroundings and toevolve. How can we differentiate a living being from a non living object? A living being is made up of cells –the primary unit of living beings. The body of the averageadult human being contains some 60 trillion cells, all having a common origin. Look up a living being closely and you can identify these cells. But then a dead animal or plant should also be living because they are also made up of cells. But that is not so because the cells in a living being must be capable of metabolism—a process bywhich a living being can process large molecules like glucose etc. to derive energy for its functions. Thus a bottle of blood although made up of red blood cells and white blood cells is not really a living being because the cells in it are not metabolizing.Mysteries about life have confounded generations of scientists and philosophers asthey do our young readers.
What is life?
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What is the definition of life? Does a multi cellular organism has as many lives asthe number of cells?
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Is it true that if Earth were to be hit by a comet with a great speed, all life on itwill be destroyed?
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In the view of science, what is the relation of life , death and soul?
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How did life originate on Earth? Is there any similarity between life as it was thenand as it is now?
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Is there life beyond the Earth, Will we be able to find living things like human beings animals and plants on some other planet?
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Are atoms living or nonliving? If they are nonliving then how is it that a human body is living and if they are living then why does not things like a note book havelife?To define life in unequivocal terms is no easy task. Several scientists and philosophers like Erwin Schrodinger have devoted much time and thought to do so.Several books/articles have been published in the past several decades with a title“What is Life”. In a recent such publication, an American biologist Lynn Margulis hasdefined life as “a self bounded system where the boundary is made by the material inthe system. It is not a thing, it’s a process, and these processes involve the productionand maintenance of identity.” --obviously not a very comprehensible definition. Buteven this definition is not complete, it has its limits. When we contemplate on theorigin of living organisms on the Earth, we are led to believe that life originated as aloose scum of replicating molecules with no clear cut boundaries. The abovedefinition does not encompass such earliest forms of living beings. But one thing isclear, life is a characteristic of an organism, not of its constituents. Thus although we
may be able to grow an organism from the DNA recovered from the cell debris of adead organism — the DNA molecule is not classified as living.The basic enigma of life is its origin. How could something as exquisitelyorganized as a living cell come into being in a world of attenuated gases, volcanicfumes and hard crystalline rocks? The appearance of biological cells in a barren andhostile world seems more improbable than the subsequent development of primitivecells into dinosaurs and primates. But while solving this enigma we must recognizethe importance of time. The transition from non-life to life on Earth was almostcertainly a very gradual process. Time stretches out behind us like an infinite wake,receding to events about which we can only speculate. The drama leading to life didnot take place in a flash. The stage was set according to current estimates, a few billion years ago, when the Earth was a newly formed planet with water, ammonia andmethane being the main ingredients of its atmosphere. Laboratory experiments haveconfirmed that extraterrestrial radiations can then lead to the formation of moleculeslike amino acids. Which slowly evolve into self replicating molecules like DNA.Life is fragile. If a large meteor or comet were to collide with Earth theimpact will be very much like a nuclear bomb blast. It will generate a large amount of heat which may raise the temperature of the atmosphere significantly. Obviouslyalmost all multi cellular organisms may be wiped out. But the same cannot beconfidently asserted about the microorganisms, some of which can lie dormant deepunder the surface of Earth.With the above background information there is no room for a speculationabout atoms and molecules they cannot be classified as living beings. Possibility of life beyond Earth has been speculated for past several decades, and space probes have been sent to look out for any signs of life. But so far we have not been able to detectany.(for more details see SR May 1999).
Birth
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How is a living being born?
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From where do children get their body color? Is it from their mother or father?
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Why is it that when a child is born, it almost always starts crying?
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Why are some children born abnormal even though their parents are normal?
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How can the baby's blood group differ from its mother's after birth, since mixing different blood groups can lead to death?
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How are insects born inside water?
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How can we explain the difference in the colour of fur of three kittens born simultaneously?
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How are twins born whereas we know that only one sperm fuses with one egg?
To give birth is to reproduce. It is a primary functions of a living being. A living being contains information about its structure encoded in some way or another. Our present knowledge about the processes involved in the birth of a living being is onlyseveral decades old. All the information regarding the structure and function of a biological cell is encoded almost entirely in the sequence of particular molecules( called bases- Adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine) in giant molecules known asDNA and RNA. The DNA or RNA are a part of larger superstructures known as thegenes. Information from the parents to the progeny is passed on through the genes. Aliving cell makes copies of its DNA using the machinery available in it during a process known as cell division.A cell division is indeed one of the first steps towards the birth of a newliving being. If the living being is a unicellular organism, a new living being (cell) is
born from a single cell division. But if it is a multi-cellular organism several such celldivisions followed by other processes known as cell differentiation are necessary before a new living organism is bornIn almost all multi-cellular organisms the precursor to the primary celldivision is a process known as fertilization. Wherein a particular kind of cell known asan egg from the body of the mother, combines with another special cell (sperm) fromthe body of the father to form a complete cell which can undergo further cell divisionsnecessary for the development of a living organism. Thus an organism gets theinformation about its characteristics both from its mother and father. But the resultantcharacteristics of an individual are not necessarily a mixture of those of its parents.Thus the progeny may be predominantly like its father or mother and sometimes likean earlier ancestor. This is because the information passed on from the parents ismuch more than required for the expressed features of the progeny, it also containssome features inherited from the ancestors which may not be expressed. In additionthere is always a possibility of mutations, which can give rise to totally new features.One may thus understand the birth of an abnormal child from normal parents and thedifferent colours of the furs of the progeny of a cat or a dog.Normally a human mother produces only one egg at the time of ovulation, while the father produces very many sperms. Thus only one fertilized cellis produced. But sometimes (rather rarely) the mother can produce two eggs at thesame time which can be fertilized to give birth to two offspring (non identical twins).Rarely still a single fertilized egg after a certain level of growth can divide into two or more independent units each capable of growth to an individual. While a fetus isdeveloping inside its mother’s womb its blood does not mix with its mother. It gets itsnutrition through a surrounding fluid inside the mother’s womb known as the placenta. So a child can have a blood group different from its mother. The growingfetus is also affected by the environmental shocks experienced by its mother duringthe pregnancy, some of these shocks can also lead to abnormalities in the child. Thefoetus while inside its mother’s womb does not respire, but as soon as it comes out itneeds to breath. The crying in fact is the child’s first attempts at breathing. Not all multi-cellular organisms reproduce through fertilization and developmentof the progeny inside the mothers womb. As we all know plants reproduce throughseeds and birds and insects lay eggs which hatch outside the mother’s body to give birth. The eggs of the insects are very small and they can float on the surface of water.Thus insects are sometimes born from the eggs hatching on the surface of water.
Growth and Aging:
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Why do the leaves of some plants change color from green to yellow and finally tobrown as they grow old?
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Why is it that unlike a young one of a dog or a cow which can walk just hoursafter their birth, a young one of the human being cannot do so?
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Why do our hair turn gray in old age?
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Why does the skin of a human being get wrinkled in old age?
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Is the life span of a human being affected during space travel as per the Einstein’stheory of relativity?
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Like repairing a TV can we also bring a human being back to life by replacing damaged parts?
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What is the relation between heartbeat and age?
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Why do people age? Is it because of hormones?
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