What is Life?
April 5, 2010 3:11 AM   Subscribe

What is Life? Really, What is Life?

Oh come on, Erwin, you know what is life.

P.S. - While you were out partying I forgot to feed your cat.
posted by twoleftfeet (35 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
"A sexually transmitted terminal disease."
posted by Rhaomi at 3:20 AM on April 5, 2010 [9 favorites]


Baby, don't hurt me.

S&M isn't just Science&Math anymore.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:38 AM on April 5, 2010


Isn't Life a Game?
posted by chavenet at 3:42 AM on April 5, 2010




"What's Life?"
"A Magazine."
"How much does it cost?"
"25 cents."
"But I've only got a dime."
"Well, that's life."
"What's Life?"
posted by explosion at 3:46 AM on April 5, 2010 [5 favorites]


Life is life
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:48 AM on April 5, 2010


John Lennon says: Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.
posted by twoleftfeet at 3:54 AM on April 5, 2010


What kind of twisted, shallow, hipster existence must I lead for this current post to lead me back to this one?
posted by The Potate at 3:57 AM on April 5, 2010


What Is Life
posted by anthom at 4:01 AM on April 5, 2010 [2 favorites]


That isn't to say that "twisted" is "shallow" or "shallow" is "hipster"or any other iteration of that. Nor should it say that the current post or the post to which I linked is or was "twisted," "shallow," or "hipster."
posted by The Potate at 4:02 AM on April 5, 2010


Dang it, someone beat me to the George Harrison reference.
posted by litlnemo at 4:53 AM on April 5, 2010


This is the life.
posted by Evilspork at 4:58 AM on April 5, 2010


fearfulsymmetry: "Life is life "

MetaFilter: na na nanana
posted by bwg at 5:00 AM on April 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


Life is a highway, I wanna ride it all night long.
posted by bwg at 5:06 AM on April 5, 2010 [2 favorites]


Explosion:
"What's Life?
"
That's Life
posted by Xurando at 5:07 AM on April 5, 2010


Sinatra: That's Life
posted by twoleftfeet at 5:12 AM on April 5, 2010


No, This life is life. (first three seconds NSFW)
posted by readyfreddy at 5:39 AM on April 5, 2010 [2 favorites]


Life is long, white, strange, and for some of us anwyway, just beginning.
posted by thivaia at 6:05 AM on April 5, 2010


Nobody's said 42 yet?
posted by fuse theorem at 6:24 AM on April 5, 2010 [1 favorite]


A funny funny riddle
posted by pianomover at 7:03 AM on April 5, 2010


Life is a cereal.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 7:16 AM on April 5, 2010


"They say bread is life..."
posted by wobh at 7:17 AM on April 5, 2010


Thanks, readyfreddy, I was just coming in to fix this Liabach oversight.
posted by davelog at 7:44 AM on April 5, 2010


"Life... Don't talk to me about life."
-- Marvin the Paranoid Android (Marvin, I Love You)
posted by Hardcore Poser at 7:53 AM on April 5, 2010


electric word
posted by mrgrimm at 8:01 AM on April 5, 2010


What is Life
posted by ovvl at 8:02 AM on April 5, 2010


It depends on what your definition of "is" is.
posted by Aquaman at 8:11 AM on April 5, 2010


Life is what happens while you're busy wrongly attributing quotations to John Lennon in the high school yearbook.
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:42 AM on April 5, 2010


Baby don't kill me.
posted by jpcooper at 11:07 AM on April 5, 2010


Short.
posted by The Mouthchew at 11:15 AM on April 5, 2010


Life ,The Universe and Nothing
posted by hortense at 12:14 PM on April 5, 2010


Man does not live on bread alone.

Frenchmen do not live on pain alone.
posted by Sparx at 1:42 PM on April 5, 2010


This is a question I contend with on a daily basis as part of my research in bacteriophage biology, despite years of working with them I could not tell you if they are alive or not.

When bacteriophage were first discovered independently by Felix D'Herelle and Frederick Twort all they could really see was the bacteriophage effect, or glassy plaques of dead bacteria with each plaque containing around 100 million discrete plaque forming units which could be transferred and quantified on a new plate of live bacteria when accurately diluted. Twort thought this was either a stage in the life cycle of the bacteria or a toxic self-replicating enzyme produced by the bacteria themselves, while D'Herelle saw an entirely new form of life, an obligately parasitic organism so small it could pass through filters with pores nearly an order of magnitude smaller than any cell could fit through and which could not be seen by any microscope. At the time it generated great controversy which was eventually settled in D'Herelle's favor by the invention of the transmission electron microscope in the late thirties which was able to take gorgeous pictures like these.

But then I'm not sure Twort was wrong, bacteriophage T4, one of the most extensively studied phage, is composed of less than 100 proteins put together with 170kbp genome packed inside. The final phage particle is completely inert, dead, but like a loaded spring it passively diffuses into a bacteria it can bind to and injects a hollow needle with peptidoglycan degrading enzymes on the tip into the cell and hijacks it with the DNA it injects.

Is T4 more alive than a wild plasmid? Is it less alive than the E. coli cells it infects? Are we less alive than the plants and bacteria we rely on as our sources of carbon, nitrogen, phosphate, and energy? I guess I don't know
posted by Blasdelb at 4:48 PM on April 5, 2010 [8 favorites]


Life's What You Make It.
posted by bwg at 5:58 PM on April 5, 2010


I bought a copy of the book a couple of years ago. Should I read it?
posted by neuron at 10:12 PM on April 6, 2010


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