Difference between Living and Non-Living Objects | Biology

The upcoming discussion will update you about the difference between living and non-living objects.

Difference # Living Objects:

1. Each kind of plant or animal has a definite form and size, which may vary within narrow limits in different individuals of the same kind.

2. Living body is composed of protoplasm which is the physical basis of life. The protoplasm of a living indi­vidual is arranged in the form of one or more compartments —the cells—each of which is a structural as well as a func­tional unit of the living body.

3. A living body is well organ­ized. It is composed of cells, tissues, and organs with division of labour, to carry on its routine vital activities.

4. Metabolic changes such as nutrition, respiration, secretion of useful substances and excretion of waste products are going on constantly within the living body due to the vital activities of its own protoplasm. Life is the external manifestation of these internal protoplasmic changes.

5. The living body is automatic. It is a self-fuelling and self- cleansing machine. Nutrition is the means for energy-intake of the living apparatus and res­piration releases the energy to be utilised for its other activities. It cleanses itself by automatic excretion of its waste products.

6. Living body increases in bulk by intussusception, that is, by wedding in of new particles in between already existing particles of protoplasm. While growing, the living body utilizes substances other than its own protoplasm.

7. The living body is sensitive and can adapt itself to its environment in an admirable manner. It responds to stimuli with some definite purpose.

8. A living body can reproduce its own kind and thus perpetuate its race.

9. A living body is rhythmic. There is a rhythm regulating all the vital activities. An intense activity by an organ is followed by a period of pause or rest.

10. A living body has a life-cycle. Each kind has a definite period of duration at the limit of which it tends to grow old and dies.

Difference # Non-Living Objects:

1. Non-living objects, such as masses of clouds or collections of water have neither a definite size nor any precise form of the body.

2. Living protoplasm or cells are not found as component parts of the body in non-living objects.

3. No such organization exists in non-living objects.

4. None of the metabolic changes may be detected in a non-living object which contains no proto­plasm and therefore has no vital activity.

5. A man-made machine is never strictly automatic. It has no innate power to manage its own affairs and requires to be cleansed and re-fuelled by man from time to time.

6. Growth may occur occasionally in non-living object by accretion or deposition of particles only on the outer surface of the body. Increase of bulk takes place at the expense of substances chemi­cally identical to its own matter.

7. True sensitiveness is absent in non-living objects; voluntary power of adjusting to changes in the environment is nil. At least there is no purposiveness in their behaviour when stimulated.

8. There is no power in non-living objects  to reproduce its own kind.

9. There is no definite rhythm and periodic activity is never met with as a rule.

10. No cyclical phenomenon is observed in non-living objects. Period of duration is indefinite and there is neither senescence nor death.