Question

What is the difference between living and non-living things?

Answer 1

Hint: Things we see or substances we observe can be differentiated in two major groups: living beings and non-living things. Living beings exhibit certain features in which non-living matters do not.

Complete answer: We can see many things around us and these ‘things’ can be either a living organism or a nonliving particle/matter. The differences between the two are mentioned below.

Living things	Non-living things
These are made up of living cells	These do not comprise of cells
Living ones need food, water, and air to live	Food, air, water not required
Living beings grow with time	Growth does not occur
They take air in and move it out i.e. respiration present	Respiration does not occur in non-living things
They reproduce to create offspring	No reproduction takes place
Have a definite life-cycle	Life-cycle not present in non-living things
Living beings can move from place to place	Non-livings things cannot move
Metabolism occurs and wastes produced are excreted out	No metabolism hence no excretion occurs
They can respond to environmental and external stimuli	Non-living things do not respond to any stimuli

Note: There is another organism that is neither called a living organism nor a non-living matter. These are the viruses.
Viruses do not behave like normal living beings when outside host cells, they act like matters. Upon injecting DNA/RNA into host cells, they can reproduce.