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Defining Life's Complexity
- Defining life is surprisingly complex, like a challenging homework question.
- Humans easily recognize life but struggle to articulate its fundamental nature.
Challenges to the NASA Definition
- The NASA definition of life, "a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution," faces challenges.
- Many edge cases blur the lines, causing arguments about what qualifies as "life."
The Virus Conundrum
- Viruses exemplify the difficulty in defining life, possessing life-like characteristics like reproduction and mutation.
- However, they lack metabolism and homeostasis, raising questions about their living status.