CHARACTERISTICS OF LIVING AND NON LIVING THINGS

There are millions of different things in the world around us. Some of them are alive and some are not. So, how can we identify a living thing from something that is not alive? In this post, we will learn the characteristics of living and nonliving things, so that we can answer this question. Further, we will also try to find, what are common characteristics between living and nonliving things.

Topics Covered

• Common characteristics of living and nonliving things
• Differences between living and nonliving things
• Characteristics that differentiate living and nonliving things
• Characteristics of nonliving things
• Difference between nonliving and dead

Before we proceed further, here are some examples of living and nonliving things:

In the above picture, if we compare a plant and a book we will notice that these two objects differ in some respect. A book cannot move on its own, does not eat, cannot grow, or produce more books of its same kind. On the other hand, a plant shows all these features – its stem moves in an upward direction, it can feed itself, it grows and produces more plants of the same kind.

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COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF LIVING AND NON LIVING THINGS

From the above picture, we can identify the following two common characteristics of living and nonliving things:

Cells are the basic structural units of living things. They do not exist in nonliving things

1. All these things are made of matter and possess mass and occupy space.
2. Both living and nonliving things have structural units – cells in the living and molecules in nonliving things.

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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIVING AND NON LIVING THINGS

We cannot exactly define what ‘life’ is. Life is something special and unique. All we can do to define life is to describe features that differentiate living from nonliving things. Nonliving things may exhibit one or more of these features but not all. For example, a machine can move, but it cannot grow in size by itself or produce a similar machine of the same kind.

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CHARACTERISTICS THAT DIFFERENTIATE LIVING AND NON LIVING THINGS

Living things differ from nonliving things in many ways. Some of the characteristics of life or living things that differentiate them from nonliving things are:

1. CELLULAR ORGANIZATION

Of all other characteristics of life, this is the most important feature which differentiates living from nonliving things. All living things, whether plants or animals, are made of a microscopic structure called cells. Cells are the basic structural units of living things. They do not exist in nonliving things. Some living things consist of only a single cell. For example, Amoeba, Euglena, and bacteria. We call them unicellular organisms. However, most living things consist of billions of cells. They are called multicellular organisms. For example, mango, potato, rose, butterfly, elephant, tiger, and cat.

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2. NUTRITION

It is the process of taking in food. All living beings require food for energy to perform different activities. Food also helps in the growth and repair of the body.

Animals obtain ready-made food in the form of milk, bread, meat, egg, vegetable, and fruits. However, green plants prepare their food by the process of photosynthesis using carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and nutrients and water from the soil.

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3. GROWTH

You are familiar with the growth of a baby into an adult. Similarly, a seed grows into a plant. Growth is a permanent and irreversible process. All living things grow, whereas nonliving things do not grow. The pattern of growth, however, is different in plants and animals.

Growth, if present in nonliving things, then it is due to external factors. For example, during the construction of a house, it grows, but it is due to the builder working on it. If builders stop working, then the house will not be able to grow further through its efforts.

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4. EXCRETION

It is the process of removal of waste material from the body. Accumulation of waste material inside the body is harmful to all living beings. Thus, it is removed from the body of animals in the form of urine, sweat, and carbon dioxide. In the case of plants, carbon dioxide and water vapors are removed from the pores present on the leaves.

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5. REPRODUCTION

If somebody asks you, what is one of the most unique features or characteristics of life or living things that differentiate them from nonliving things? Then your answer will be a reproduction. This is the ability of all living organisms to produce young ones of their kind. For example, a hen lays eggs, which hatch into chicks, which grow into hens or roosters. A dog gives birth to puppies that grow into dogs or bitches. Similarly, the mango tree produces fruits that bear seeds which give rise to new mango trees. But, you can never make a table or chair to do this.

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6. RESPIRATION

It is the process of breathing in oxygen from the air and giving out carbon dioxide. Animals and plants use oxygen to produce energy from the food consumed or produced by them. Living beings utilize this energy to perform various activities.

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7. MOVEMENT

Living things show movement. Every day you see animals, birds, insects, and human beings moving from one place to another. This type of movement is called locomotion. Animals move for two main reasons – in search of food and to escape from enemies.

Some animals like a hydra and a sponge do not move from place to place in search of food. They are fixed to the ground and catch food with the help of long structures called tentacles.Most plants are fixed into the soil. They are unable to carry out locomotion, but show movement. In plants, the stem moves upward and sidewards, to help leaves to get more sunlight. The roots of a plant grow downward and sidewards in the soil to provide support and to search for nutrients and water.

For better visualization of movement by plants check out this time-lapse video by Gardening at 58 North

Some nonliving things also move, for example, a car or a bus moves, and the hands of a clock move. Whether the movement of these things is similar to that of living things? The answer to it is ‘No’. The car, bus, and hands of a clock move due to chemical energy provided to them by petrol, diesel, or battery which is an outside factor.

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8. RESPONSE TO CHANGE

Anything which produces a response in an organism is called a stimulus.Living things respond to changes in their surroundings. It is one of the important characteristics of living things that differentiate them from nonliving things. In cold weather, we wear woolen clothes. If we touch something hot by mistake, we respond quickly by withdrawing our hands. During drought roots of the plant grows further downward in search of water.

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9. LIFE CYCLE

Living things follow a life cycle. They start their life from a single cell and follow the path of growth, reproduction, and death. The life cycle of an organism may take a few hours, a few days, or hundreds of years to complete. The period during which an organism completes its life cycle is called the lifespan. For some living beings like bacteria, the life span is a few minutes, whereas, for some others like tortoises it is as big as 120-150 years.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF NON LIVING THINGS

As discussed above, the important characteristics of non-living things can be summarized below:

1. All nonliving things are made of a microscopic structure called atoms.
2. They do not require food for energy to perform different activities.
3. Nonliving things do not grow in size. Growth, if present in nonliving things, then it is due to external factors.
4. Nonliving things do not require excreting.
5. They do not reproduce or produce young ones of their kind.
6. Nonliving things cannot move on their own. However, some nonliving things like a car and a bus move, but due to chemical energy provided to them by petrol, diesel, or battery which is an outside factor.
7. Nonliving things do not respire and show responses to external stimuli.
8. Last but not least, nonliving things do not follow the life cycle.

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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NON LIVING AND DEAD

We can call only those things dead, which once lived and followed the life cycle. For example, we can call a block of wood and a leather dead because they come from organisms that once lived. But a chair made of wood or a shoe made of leather is nonliving. Stone, water, and a car are nonliving because they never showed any of the characteristics of life or living things. So, to summarize, a dead thing is the one that once lived, and showed one or more characteristics of life, whereas nonliving things are those which were never alive. The difference between nonliving and dead in tabular form are as below:

END…..Characteristics of living and nonliving things

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