Department of Bioinformatics and Telemedicine, Jagiellonian University-Medical College, Lazarza 16, 31-530 Krakow, Poland
Research Article
In Search for the Definition of Life
Author(s): Konieczny L and Roterman I*
Although many attempts have been made to explain what life is, the high diversity of behavioral and structural
properties of living creatures makes it difficult to formulate a comprehensive definition of life. Among the many signs
of life, the one which seems truly ubiquitous is effort expended on maintaining the internal environment in living
constructs independent of its surroundings. Stability of the internal environment is based on automatic regulation,
which, in turn, depends on negative feedback. Manifestation of features produced by this effort is taken as the most
specific sign of life. Hence, automatism of regulation differentiates living creatures from inanimate objects. The paper
explains why regulation needs to be automatic, and discusses those attributes of automatic regulation which are
particularly relevant in the context of life... Read More»
Journal of Computer Science & Systems Biology received 2279 citations as per Google Scholar report
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