Life #2 - Weirdness Everywhere
The lack of a definition to a term, as we know all too well, is a problem when dealing with governments. NASA, for example, wanted to search for life in space. For that, it needed a definition of life, writes Carl Zimmer in Life’s Edge . NASA came up with this: “Life is a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution.” That sounds right, even if a bit heavy on technical language. But… the well-known exception is the good old virus. It doesn’t eat. It doesn’t grow in size. It doesn’t even reproduce – instead, it hijacks a living organism’s cellular machinery to make copies of itself. Viruses then are a headache for definition seekers. They have some characteristics, while lacking others. Think of the good old RBC’s – red blood cells. They transport oxygen through the body. As anyone at a blood bank will tell you, blood has a life span of storage. “If something has a life span, surely it has a life.” And yet, be many definitions, RBC’s aren’