Question: What is Life?

Shikha Sharma answered on 10 Nov 2014:

Hi Giller,

I am sure it’s going to be the hardest question for this entire event. It seems to be the most basic question but trust me this question always leads to complex answers and a reason for good argument among the scientists.
I have recently read the working definition used by scientists at NASA “life is a self-sustaining system capable of Darwinian evolution.” Phew …the definition itself is so complicated if someone is not aware of Darwinian evolution 😀 😀
To be honest no one in the entire world have a very good definition of life. In order to define life, first we need to understand what separates living creatures from non-living matter which scientists are still struggling to understand.
I guess I will still go with the simple definition of life which I learned or I suppose all of us learn in school is – It’s the sum of the unique phenomena of animals and plants, especially capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and adaptation to environment, which differentiate them from inorganic matter.