Living things require food, water, air, and other necessities in order to sustain themselves. Their existence also depends on many other factors that are usually called the environment. In other words, everything needs a proper balance of all these things for it to thrive.
Things that do not require any of these support systems can be considered non-living things. They may seem similar at first glance, but there are many differences between them as well. Let’s look at some of those differences:
What are Living Things?
Living things are all organisms that are characterized by the ability to grow and reproduce, as well as the ability to interact with their environment. Living things include plants, animals, fungi, protozoa, and bacteria.
Living things can be classified into two broad categories: prokaryotes (organisms without a nucleus), which include bacteria and archaea; and eukaryotes (organisms with a nucleus), which include plants, fungi, and animals.
There is no clear dividing line between prokaryotes and eukaryotes—both groups contain a wide variety of organisms. However, scientists have defined three domains in eukaryotes: Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya. These three domains represent a range of evolutionary relationships within the group of living things known as eukaryotic organisms.
What are Non-Living Things?
Non-living things are not alive. They include inanimate objects (e.g., rocks and trees), living organisms (e.g., people, animals, plants), and non-living parts of living organisms (e.g., organs). Non-living things cannot grow, reproduce, or cause changes in their environment; they cannot take action on their own. Some non-living things are self-organized and exhibit emergent properties that were not present in the elements from which they were built. The distinction between living and non-living can be difficult to make because it is sometimes unclear what is alive and what is not even if one looks at an animal’s genetic code or the molecular structure of an enzyme.
Difference between Living and Non-Living Things
Nonliving things are all the objects that are not living. They include everything else in the world, from rocks and trees to cars and computers. Living things, on the other hand, are all organisms that are capable of eating, breathing, and reproducing. There are five major types of living things: plants, animals, humans, fungi (molds), and bacteria.
There is a big difference between the two; non-living things can stay the same for a long time while living things are always changing. Living things grow, reproduce, and change over time and they interact with each other.
Non-living things do not change after they have been created except for when their components wear out or break down. Examples of non-living things include buildings and furniture while examples of living things include trees and plants.
Conclusion
Is it possible to distinguish between living and non-living things? People often use the terms alive and non-living to describe the things they come into contact with every day. While some scientists have come up with different classifications of organisms based on their degree of life, there are others who say that the only difference between living and non-living things is their ability to regrow lost parts and regenerate. This can lead us to wonder if it is possible to distinguish between living and non-living things.
The answer to this question is yes, it is possible to distinguish between living and non-living things. Some organisms have the unique ability to reproduce. They have the capacity to start off from a single cell and end up as a new, different being. This ability to reproduce is one of the factors that define an organism as being alive. Apart from reproduction, organisms also have the ability to maintain their health and alter their environment to suit their needs.
Despite these characteristics, there are other non-living things that also show signs of life. If you look closely, you will see that many non-living things can carry out complex tasks and even change their environment to suit their needs.