CHAPTER6 Life Processes

Science100 Control andCoordination6 CHAPTERIn the previous chapter, we looked at life Processes involved in themaintenance functions in living organisms. There, we had started witha notion we all have, that if we see something moving, it is alive. Some ofthese movements are in fact the result of growth, as in plants. A seedgerminates and grows, and we can see that the seedling moves over thecourse of a few days, it pushes soil aside and comes out. But if its growthwere to be stopped, these movements would not happen. Somemovements, as in many animals and some plants, are not connectedwith growth. A cat running, children playing on swings, buffaloeschewing cud these are not movements caused by do we associate such visible movements with life ? A possibleanswer is that we think of movement as a response to a change in theenvironment of the organism. The cat may be running because it hasseen a mouse. Not only that, we also think of movement as an attemptby living organisms to use changes in their environment to theiradvantage.

The processes which together perform this maintenance job are life processes. Since these maintenance processes are needed to prevent damage and break-down, energy is needed for them. This energy comes from outside the body of the individual organism. So there must be a process to transfer a source of energy from outside the body of the organism,

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  Process, Processes, Life, Life processes

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