Jeff Nakison, age 10, of Anderson, S.C., for his question:
What do we mean by life?
Generations of scholars have pondered the mysteries of what we call life. Man now lives in the Age Of science. With new research skills and superfine instruments, our Scientists seek the secrets of life in the miniature world of atoms and molecules.
Everyone knows that the mysterious quality of life is possessed by elms and elephants, by rabbits and rosebushes, by mice and mosses. Every up to date student also knows that we share our world with countless living things that are too small for our eyes to see. Modern scientists know that the mysteries of life are to be found at the infinitesimally small level of molecules. And these researchers into the nature of life are called molecular biologists.
They have learned a lot about life but by no means not all. We must change many of our old ideas in order to follow them and be ready to grasp the new discoveries that will come. We know that all living things grow and multiply. But so do nonliving crystals. Living things take energy and carry on other activity with chemicals around them. But a nonliving fire also carries on chemical activity with fuel and air around it. Living things react and respond to objects around them. But nonliving dynamite also reacts when triggered by a detonator.
The basic qualities of life may be found in separate nonliving things. But all of them are present and operating together in every microscopic living cell. And every lofty tree and whopping whale is built from a multitude of these self operating litt1e cells. This living material is made from the same basic elements as the nonliving world of rocks, air and water. But its complex m01ecules carry on constant
Chemical activity with each other and with the nonliving materials around them. Past scholars had many strange ideas about life, but the scientific truth is far stranger. Life is possible because of interelated processes carried on constantly within the busy cell. The imagination is staggered by the number and the complexity of these chemical activities.
Most substances within the living cell are compounds of common elements. Water, a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, makes up 65% to 90% of most living plants and animals. Compounds of hydrogen and carbon are also plentiful. In the cell these common nonliving basics are specially arranged to interact and carry on the astounding processes of life.