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  2. Aug 17, 2023 · A living thing pertains to any organism or a life form that possesses or shows the characteristics of life or being alive. Find out more about living thing definition, history, and characteristics here.

  3. Living organisms are classified into groups depending on their structure and characteristics. This system was developed in the eighteenth century by Carl Linnaeus. The classification of species...

  4. Jun 12, 2012 · Most scientists use seven life processes or characteristics to determine whether something is living or non-living. The table below describes seven characteristics of most living things and contains references to earthworms to explain why we can definitely say that they are 'living'.

  5. Animals, plants, fungi, algae, protozoans, and bacteria are living things. Living things are also called organisms. Scientists can tell living things and nonliving things apart because living things behave in ways that nonliving things do not.

    • Setting
    • Ecology
    • Definition
    • Structure
    • Evolution
    • Morphology
    • Example
    • Characteristics
    • Other uses
    • Function
    • Diet
    • Introduction
    • Chemistry
    • Significance
    • Advantages
    • Synthesis
    • Mechanism
    • Early history
    • Discovery

    The early Earth was very different from the Earth of today. The atmosphere was rich in hydrogen, which was critical to the chemical events that later took place. According to one scientific hypothesis, soupy mixtures of elements important to life, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, were concentrated in warm pools bathed in the ultravio...

    Air and light also are critical needs for some organisms. Air is a fundamental need of most living things, though some types of microorganisms cannot tolerate oxygen. For plants and other organisms that undergo photosynthesis, light is an essential requirement for life. Space is another critical basic need; organisms such as plants and fungi that a...

    There are seven key functions, or processes, necessary for life. To be categorized as a living thing, an organism must be able to do all of these. Cells are the building blocks of the living world. Living things as diverse as bacteria, archaea, algae, fungi, protozoans, animals, and plants all consist of one or more cells. Cells are made up of comp...

    The activities of the cells are controlled by the cells genetic materialits DNA. In some types of organisms, called eukaryotes, the DNA is contained within a membrane-bound structure called the nucleus. The term eukaryote derives from the Greek eu (true) and karyon (nucleus.) In eukaryotic cells, most specialized tasks, such as obtaining energy fro...

    Prokaryotic organisms are believed to have evolved before eukaryotes. Prokaryotic organisms such as the cyanobacteria can photosynthesize food; their food-making chlorophyll is scattered through the cell. In eukaryotic photosynthesizing organisms, such as plants and algae, the chlorophyll is contained within chloroplasts. The heterotrophic bacteria...

    There are many kinds of single-celled organisms that are not prokaryotes. Some of these single-celled eukaryotes look like slippers, vases, or balls and some even have more than one nucleus. Many swim by waving a flagellum, a lashlike structure. Others use hairlike structures, which are called cilia. One kind has a mouth and a ring of moving hairs ...

    A well-known example of a single-celled eukaryote is the amoeba, a protozoan that lives in freshwater ponds. To the unaided eye it looks like a milky speck, but a microscope shows that the protozoans body is composed largely of a jellylike substance called cytoplasm that contains a nucleus and a number of specialized structures called organelles. T...

    Some of the simplest multicellular organisms are certain algae that live in ponds and streams. Each alga consists of a chain of cells that drifts about in the water. Most cells in the chain are alike, but the one at the bottom, called a holdfast, is different. It is long and tough. Its base holds to rocks or pieces of wood to keep the alga from flo...

    Sea lettuce, another type of multicellular algae, also has a holdfast. The rest of the plant contains boxlike cells arranged in two layers. These layers are covered and protected by two sheets of clear cellulose that is very tough.

    Great numbers of cells of many kinds form the bodies of such creatures as insects, fish, and mammals. Similar cells that work together make up tissues. Tissues that work together form organs. A dogs heart, for example, is an organ composed of muscle tissue, nerve tissue, connective tissue, and covering tissue. Another kind of tissue, the blood, nou...

    Specialization is carried from parts to entire living things. Cactus plants, for example, can live well only in dry regions, but cattails must grow in wet places. Herring swim near the surface of the sea, but the deep-sea angler fish lives on the bottom. Certain caterpillars eat only one kind of leaf. Although many animals are green, animals do not...

    This specialization of whole organisms is called adaptation. Every living thing is adapted to its surroundingsto the sea, fresh water, land, or even to living in or on other organisms. During the 3.5 billion years since living things evolved on Earth, organisms have become adapted to all sorts of conditions through the process known as evolution by...

    The complexity of molecules in living things is made possible by carbon, which may be called the framework element. Because of its structure, carbon can link different kinds of atoms in various proportions and arrangements. Carbon atoms also join with each other in long chains and other arrays to make some of the most complex compounds known to che...

    Three other commonly found elements, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, are also important in the structure and function of living things. In the human body, for example, these elements, together with carbon, make up about 96% of the bodys weight. Oxygen and hydrogen are highly important in body processes that obtain and use energy from food. Water, a...

    Protococcus may use glucose molecules almost as fast as it makes them. It also may turn them into starch or droplets of oil, which it stores for use when it cannot get sunlight. Finally, Protococcus may combine atoms from glucose with some ready-made food combinations in the dissolved minerals. In this way it builds up protoplasm and cellulose.

    Plants also make glucose via photosynthesis. In doing so, however, they use many different cells, tissues, and organs, such as leaves, roots, and sap-carrying channels in the stem.

    When plants make glucose from water and carbon dioxide, some atoms of oxygen are released from the combined materials. More oxygen is lost when glucose is converted into common sugar, starch, fat, or other food substances. As oxygen is removed, energy is stored in the made-over molecules. The stored energy can later be obtained by cells through wha...

    The system of Linnaeus was based on similarities in body structure, and it was completed more than a hundred years before the work of Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution showed that the similarities and differences of organisms could be viewed as a product of evolution by natural selection. As biologists in the 20th century learned more about...

    In the late 1970s, however, a group of scientists determined the existence of a previously unknown form of life. Using molecular technology to examine the evolutionary relationship among several groups of prokaryotes, the researchers noted that one group had distinct differences in its genetic code that set it apart from other prokaryotes. These fi...

  6. Apr 19, 2018 · All living organisms -- from small to big -- share characteristics that separate them from the divisions in nature that do not exhibit life, like rocks or soil. Living creatures have cells, DNA, the ability to convert food into energy, grow, reproduce, respire and move.

  7. Aug 18, 2023 · An organism refers to a living thing that has an organized structure, can react to stimuli, reproduce, grow, adapt, and maintain homeostasis. An organism would, therefore, be any animal, plant, fungus, protist, bacterium, or archaeon on Earth. These organisms may be classified in various ways.

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