Alive Or Not Alive... Is A Tricky Question

In this Back To School episode we consider the "List of Life": the criteria that define what it is to be a living thing. Some are easy calls: A kitten is alive. A grain of salt is not. But what about the tricky cases, like a virus? Or, more importantly, what about futuristic android robots? As part of our Black History Month celebration, developmental biologist Crystal Rogers https://www.crystalrogersphd.com/about-the-pi.html and Short Wave co-host Regina G. Barber https://www.npr.org/people/1082526815/regina-g-barber dig into what makes something alive, and wade into a Star-Trek-themed debate. Listen to Short Wave on Spotify https://n.pr/3HOQKeK and Apple Podcasts https://n.pr/3WA9vqh. Is there something you'd like us to cover? Email us at [email protected]. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu.

• 0:23Regina Barber?

  Hey, Short Wavers. Regina Barber here. Today, we're going back to school. It's been a while since we've done one of these episodes where we revisit a science topic you may have learned about and go a little deeper with it. You might remember a list of life, a set of bullet points that are the criteria for being alive. They include things like being highly organized, like the machinery inside a cell, using energy, and responding to the environment.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  So something that could reproduce itself, they have to be able to have a metabolism, also growth.

• 0:55Regina Barber?

  That's developmental biologist Crystal Rogers at University of California, Davis, and she thinks about life a lot.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  So my lab studies how embryos develop from a single cell into a complex organism.

• 1:07Regina Barber?

  And she says even though we have this list, defining life is not that straightforward. Can we boil it down to like some one thing?

• 1:16Speaker 02

  I don't think so, because I think all of us have our different perspectives on life.

• 1:20Regina Barber?

  And even though it's a tricky question, Crystal thinks life is worth defining.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  There are things we would do to nonliving things, like use them for resources, build a house out of a tree, which is alive, and then we've now killed it, and now it's just a thing, right? Whether a rock is alive, I don't think so, but the bacteria that's living on it is probably alive. So I don't know if I have an answer to your question, except for the idea it's important to understand what life is so that we don't destroy it and so we can protect it.

• 1:48Regina Barber?

  Today on the show, what is life? The standard criteria, but also why defining it is so hard? Plus, we get a little sci-fi by imagining what life might look like outside of Earth and ask, is the Star Trek character Data, who is an android, alive? I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to Short Wave, the science podcast from NPR.

• 2:22Speaker 03

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• 3:11Speaker 00

  This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel? That's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu.

• 3:26Regina Barber?

  OK, Crystal. So the classic items on this so-called list of life are having an organized structure, reproduction, growth and development, using energy, trying to maintain homeostasis, responding to environment and adaptation. OK, let's dig into a few of these.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  So for me, as a developmental biologist, growth is a big part of what we study. The concept is based on an organism that changes in space and time, meaning you are a single-cell egg, gets fertilized, and now there's me. I'm a very complex organism, in my own opinion. But that required growth. It required patterning and change and response to the environment and the use of energy.

• 4:10Regina Barber?

  Oh, does it use energy? I mean, a lot of things, even viruses use energy, right?

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Well, they're using the cell's machinery. So they don't really have their own ability to process things. They don't have a metabolism. They're just like a sack filled with information.

• 4:25Regina Barber?

  So viruses aren't alive, then?

• 4:27Speaker 02

  Some folks believe that viruses are life. I'm still of the old school. I think that if you can't reproduce yourself and if you need to invade somebody else, like a living animal cell to reproduce and to survive, then I don't think they're alive, but that's an opinion.

• 4:44Regina Barber?

  So going back to this idea of metabolism that you mentioned, that's another bullet point on the list. Can you talk about that one?

• 4:51Speaker 02

  So something where they use energy sources to do things. So in our case, each and every one of the cells in our body is constantly using energy to continue whatever its process is. So your entire digestive tract is constantly using energy to make enzymes and break down food, and all of that requires energy.

• 5:09Regina Barber?

  What about maintaining balance with your environment?

• 5:12Speaker 02

  Homeostasis.

• 5:13Regina Barber?

  Homeostasis.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that's part of responding to environmental changes. So for us, you know, if it's cold out, we shiver, and that helps to create warmth. Or if it's hot, we sweat. Those are really simple, simple versions of environmental response. But that is something that even a single-celled organism can do, but can a virus?

• 5:33Regina Barber?

  So is this list of life, like, do you think it comes from the idea of what life actually is? Or does it come from describing what we have already decided is alive?

• 5:43Speaker 02

  So I think it gets to, it's the latter. I think that scientists over multiple years have been defining what we already think is alive. And this is why it's so difficult to then look at things that don't fit in this list to ask or define whether or not they live. So it's hard, because if you have somebody who has been trained, say, as a biologist, they might look at a cell and say, well, obviously, it has to maintain its homeostasis. It is alive. We know that it has to do that, because if it doesn't, it will die or pop or something. But are we going to be able to apply this list to extraterrestrial species if they aren't exactly like this?

• 6:27Regina Barber?

  So have you imagined what life would look like outside of Earth?

• 6:31Speaker 02

  When I imagine it, I am completely biased based on what I've seen on TV and in movies. And I'm always thinking, oh, it's going to be these, you know, these big-headed bald creatures that can speak without using their mouths.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Doesn't even make any sense because why would that necessarily evolve?

• 6:49Regina Barber?

  What is the need for that?

• 6:50Speaker 02

  I think more, yeah, well, so if we go at it from a scientific perspective, I think that we should look at the kinds of creatures that have thrived on our earth. And so, for example, looking at bacteria, so you can imagine there might be some sort of single cell type of organism elsewhere, or, and this part is like my nightmare because I'm an arachnophobe and I'm an insectaphobe, but honestly, there are more insects on earth than there are any type of vertebrate organism. And I do think that there's something to that, you know, or animals on our earth who have survived all this time, cockroaches.

• 7:25Regina Barber?

  Scorpions.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  Cockroaches are indestructible, scorpions, sharks. Sharks were here before trees, apparently. And so you have these animals who have this really long-term success. And so I imagine that we probably, humans are, like, no offense, but we're the stupidest creature in terms of how we're built, like, all of our organs are just presented. We stand upright, which is really not very effective for, like, traveling. We come out premature because our brains are so big that if we continue, we have to be taken care of. We're completely useless for like a year and a half and/or more. And so I don't think that this is something that would necessarily evolve elsewhere because it was the perfect storm that got us where we are.

• 8:09Regina Barber?

  Can you talk about why you think it's so hard for science to define what life is then?

• 8:14Speaker 02

  Hmm, well, I do think that a lot of that gets into our biases. When we think about life, most of us think about human life first or animal life. And it's hard to consider what that actually means, and it differs based on our belief systems. And so when we extend that net out to other organisms or thinking about, you know, is a virus life, for example, it's really hard to get past that. None of us are in our own echo chamber that, and we aren't affected by, you know, outside things. And so, I don't know, I think that we all form our beliefs of what life is based on what we've learned and what we've been, what we've experienced.

• 8:59Regina Barber?

  So if we're talking about the Star Trek android crew member Data.

• 9:04Speaker 04

  Commander, what are you?

• 9:06Speaker 04

  An android. Which is? Webster's 24th Century Dictionary, 5th Edition, defined an android as "an automaton made to resemble a human being."

• 9:13Regina Barber?

  Is he alive?

• 9:15Speaker 02

  He definitely evolved. I know. Okay, so this was really hard because watching Data evolve over the seasons into this creature who was humanoid, it seemed like he was developing feelings, or, you know, he had like relationships.

• 9:35Regina Barber?

  Totally did, totally did.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  That got weird. I'm not gonna lie, that got a little weird.

• 9:39Regina Barber?

  Okay, let's actually take Data and let's go through the list.

• 9:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:43Regina Barber?

  So like, okay, he's highly organized. That's definitely, he's, check. He can...

• 9:48Speaker 02

  Does he charge? Is there a metabolism there? I don't know that they ever addressed whether he is using, like, how he gets charged.

• 9:58Regina Barber?

  He does use energy. I think he has some sort of battery source that's like limitless or something.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 10:02Regina Barber?

  He does reproduce, not successfully, but he has.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:06Regina Barber?

  He does grow and develop. Let's see here.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  I don't know that he grows physically.

• 10:11Regina Barber?

  Okay, he doesn't grow physically, no.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Well, maybe his biological, the skin portion maybe actually functions as skin, which would be then a tissue, which would be multiple cells dividing and maintaining homeostasis, right?

• 10:24Regina Barber?

  Okay.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 10:25Regina Barber?

  And does he respond to his environment? Definitely.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Definitely. So is Data alive? That was...

• 10:31Regina Barber?

  That's the whole list.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Multiple seasons. It was the whole question about Data. Is he alive? I think that the crew on Star Trek Enterprise would tell you that yes, Data is alive.

• 10:41Regina Barber?

  I'm gonna say he's alive.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  I don't disagree.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  I am a biologist because I find life amazing. That's the thing that really got me into this. I thought I wanted to be a physician, and I went to graduate school and I watched a frog embryo develop from a single cell into a froglet, which is basically like a mid-metamorphosis stage frog. And to me, that was it. I am a developmental biologist because we get to watch life become life, and it's the coolest thing ever. So I think if more of us appreciated the beauty of life and how it happens, maybe we would be kinder to each other.

• 11:27Regina Barber?

  I love that. I'm going to try to be more patient and love life more because of you, Dr. Rogers. Why, thank you. That's amazing.

• 11:37Regina Barber?

  Crystal Rogers is a developmental biologist at UC Davis. If you have a science question, send us an email at [email protected]. Today's episode was produced by Burley McCoy, edited by Gabriel Spitzer, and fact-checked by Anil Oza. The audio engineer was Josh Newell.

• 11:55Regina Barber?

  I'm Regina Barber. Thanks for listening to Short Wave from NPR.

• 12:11Speaker 03

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