Biological Aspects

Biologically life as contrasted with death or with nonliving objects, is an evident fact but difficult to
characterize precisely. Living organisms are self-maintaining systems; they grow and are irritable in
response to stimuli. They resist dying. They reproduce. The developing embryo is especially impressive.
Organisms post a defended, semipermeable boundary between themselves and the outside world; they
assimilate environmental materials to their own needs. They can be healthy or diseased. Some accounts
claim that the minimal form of autonomy necessary and sufficient for characterizing biological life is
what is termed autopoiesis, literally self-making. Some defense of a "self" (a somatic self, having to do
with the body, rather than a psychological self) is thus required.

Living organisms gain and maintain internal order against the disordering tendencies of external nature.
They keep recomposing themselves, while inanimate things run down, erode, and decompose.
Organisms pump out disorder. Life, as physicist Erwin Schrödinger notes in his 1945 work, What is Life?,
is a local countercurrent to entropy, an energetic fight uphill in a world that overall moves
thermodynamically downhill.

Genetics

Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in living organisms.[1][2] It is generally
considered a field of biology, but intersects frequently with many other life sciences and is strongly
linked with the study of information systems.

The father of genetics is Gregor Mendel, a late 19th-century scientist and Augustinian friar. Mendel
studied "trait inheritance", patterns in the way traits are handed down from parents to offspring. He
observed that organisms (pea plants) inherit traits by way of discrete "units of inheritance". This term,
still used today, is a somewhat ambiguous definition of what is referred to as a gene.

Trait inheritance and molecular inheritance mechanisms of genes are still primary principles of genetics
in the 21st century, but modern genetics has expanded beyond inheritance to studying the function and
behavior of genes. Gene structure and function, variation, and distribution are studied within the
context of the cell, the organism (e.g. dominance), and within the context of a population. Genetics has
given rise to a number of subfields, including epigenetics and population genetics. Organisms studied
within the broad field span the domain of life, including bacteria, plants, animals, and humans.
Genetic processes work in combination with an organism's environment and experiences to influence
development and behavior, often referred to as nature versus nurture. The intracellular or extracellular
environment of a cell or organism may switch gene transcription on or off. A classic example is two seeds
of genetically identical corn, one placed in a temperate climate and one in an arid climate. While the
average height of the two corn stalks may be genetically determined to be equal, the one in the arid
climate only grows to half the height of the one in the temperate climate due to lack of water and
nutrients in its environment.

Neuron

A neuron or, also known as a neurone, "a nerve cell"; "by the late 20th century the term neuron was
commoner [than neurone] ... and standard in scientific usage" or nerve cell) is an electrically excitable
cell that receives, processes, and transmits information through electrical and chemical signals. These
signals between neurons occur via specialized connections called synapses. Neurons can connect to each
other to form neural networks. Neurons are the primary components of the central nervous system,
which includes the brain and spinal cord, and of the peripheral nervous system, which comprises the
autonomic nervous system and the somatic nervous system.
The organism as system

The constellation of these characteristics is nowhere found outside living organisms, although some of
them can be mimicked or analogically extended to products designed by living systems, such as
computers, and some are found in spontaneous abiotic nature. A crystal reproduces a pattern and may
restore a damaged surface; a planetary system continues in an equilibrium; a volcano may grow in
countercurrent to entropy. A lenticular altocumulus cloud, formed as a standing wave over a mountain
range, is steadily recomposed by input and output of air flow. A target-seeking missile adjusts its course
by environmental feedback. Computers are cognitive processors and can be running well or poorly.

The know-how for life is coded into genetic sets, which are missing in minerals, volcanoes, clouds,
computers, and target-seeking missiles. An organism is thus a spontaneous cybernetic system, self-
maintaining with a control center, sustaining and reproducing itself on the basis of information about
how to make its way through the world. There is some internal representation that is symbolically
mediated in the coded "program" and metabolism executing this goal, a checking against performance in
the world, using some sentient, perceptive, or other responsive capacities by which to compare match
and mismatch. On the basis of information received, the cybernetic system can reckon with vicissitudes,
opportunities, and adversities that the world presents.

Threshold of life

DNA codes a life that is carried on not merely at the level described above, but at the environmental,
phenotypical level. What occurs at the level of molecular biology manifests itself, via a complicated
translation and interaction from genotypic to phenotypic levels (i.e., from the microscopic level of the
genes to the macro level of the whole organism). This translation occurs at the native ranges, where such
life is selected for or against as it is defended in its environment. With this process in mind some analysts
to define as alive whatever is subject to natural selection, thus presuming also mutation. These features
typically do characterize life. Critics of this definition respond that some things (such as viruses or groups
of organisms) are subject to natural selection but are not alive. Also, life sometimes continues with much
reduced natural selection. This is seen in human in their cultural environment. This phenomenon is also
witnessed in clonal organisms that are all genetically identical or in relatively constant environments
where most genetic changes result from mutations that are categorized as drift (i.e., functional changes
that neutral to survival, neither beneficial nor detrimental).

Various thresholds or borderlines of life are disputed. A person may be considered "brain dead,"
although somatically the heart is still beating (often with a mechanical respirator). Many biologists hold
that viruses are not (fully) alive, but are anomalous self-reproducing DNA fragments that parasitize living
cells, largely borrowing most of their vital metabolisms from the host cell. Viruses are not self-contained,
not cellular, but must be contained within other selves and cells. Computer advances have raised the
possibility of "artificial life," with debates about what would count as a living computer, or perhaps as a
living program, within a computer. Some organic molecules are known from space, but no
extraterrestrial life is yet known. Scientists, philosophers, and theologians speculate, often intensely,
about whether such life is likely to be present.

The nervous system

The nervous system is a network of specialized cells that communicate information about an animal's
surroundings and itself. It processes this information and causes reactions in other parts of the body. It is
composed of neurons and other specialized cells called glia, that aid in the function of the neurons. The
nervous system is divided broadly into two categories: the peripheral nervous system and the central
nervous system. Neurons generate and conduct impulses between and within the two systems. The
peripheral nervous system is composed of sensory neurons and the neurons that connect them to the
nerve cord, spinal cord and brain, which make up the central nervous system. In response to stimuli,
sensory neurons generate and propagate signals to the central nervous system which then processes and
conducts signals back to the muscles and glands. The neurons of the nervous systems of animals are
interconnected in complex arrangements and use electrochemical signals and neurotransmitters to
transmit impulses from one neuron to the next. The interaction of the different neurons form neural
circuits that regulate an organism's perception of the world and what is going on with its body, thus
regulating its behavior. Nervous systems are found in many multicellular animals but differ greatly in
complexity between species.
The nervous system is divided into the two main components:

1) the central nervous system (CNS) and

2) the peripheral nervous system (PNS).

The nervous system has the following structure:

Central Nervous System

The central nervous system (CNS) is the largest part of the nervous system, and includes the brain and
spinal cord. The spinal cavity holds and protects the spinal cord, while the head contains and protects
the brain. The CNS is covered by the meninges, a three layered protective coat. The brain is also
protected by the skull, and the spinal cord is also protected by the vertebrae.

Peripheral Nervous System

The peripheral nervous system (PNS) has two components: the somatic nervous system and the
autonomic nervous system. The PNS consists of all of the nerves that lie outside the brain and spinal
cord. Nerves are bundles of neuron fibers (axons) that are grouped together to carry information to and
from the same structure.

The somatic nervous system is made up of nerves that connect to voluntary skeletal muscles and to
sensory receptors. It is composed of afferent nerves that carry information to the central nervous system
(spinal cord) and efferent fibers that carry neural impulses away from the central nervous system.

The autonomic nervous system also consists of two components: the sympathetic division and the
parasympathetic division. This system mediates much of the physiological arousal (such as rapid heart
beat, tremor, or sweat) experienced by a fearful person in an emergency situation.