Introduction In the intro to biology , we defined biology as the branch of science concerned with the study of living things, or organisms. That definition is pretty straightforward. However, it opens the door to more difficult—and more interesting—questions: What is life? What does it mean to be alive? You are alive, and so am I. The dog I can hear barking is alive, and so is the tree outside my window. However, snow falling from the clouds is not alive. The computer you’re using to read this article is not alive, and neither is a chair or table. The parts of a chair that are made of wood were once alive, but they aren’t any longer. If you were to burn the wood in a fire, the fire would not be alive either. What is it that defines life? How can we tell that one thing is alive and another is not? Most people have an intuitive understanding of what it means for something to be alive. However, it’s surprisingly hard to come up with a precise definition of life. Because
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