When it comes to human beings, it is all the more difficult to define the living state. We observe patients lying in coma in hospitals virtually supported by machines which replace heart and lungs. The patient is otherwise brain-dead. The patient has no self-consciousness. Are such patients who never come back to normal life, living or non-living?

 

If we define coma patient under living category, which of the following will not be a supporting feature to him or her?

a. Metabolism

b. Self-consciousness

c. Cellular organization

d. Both a and c

b

 

 

Which one of the following aspects is an exclusive characteristic of living things? (Mains 2011)

(a) Isolated metabolic reactions occur in vitro

(b) Increase in mass from inside only

(c) Perception of events happening in the environment and their memory

(d) Increase in mass by accumulation of material both on surface as well as internally

(c)

 

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