Talk:Life

Book "How Life Works" (2023) worth considering?
A review by scientist Denis Noble of a new book entitled "How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology" (2023) by Philip Ball (editor of the journal Nature) may be worth considering? - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 04:53, 6 February 2024 (UTC) Drbogdan (talk) 04:53, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi, I've read it. There's nothing new. Graham Beards (talk) 14:19, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

"Non-cellular life" in infobox
As far as I'm aware, the biological community generally does not regard such entities as lifeforms. I am in favor of removing this. Anonymous 15:23, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * As far as I am aware, the biological community has yet to agree on a definition of life. So I disagree, it should be kept. Graham Beards (talk) 16:05, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * @Graham Beards, as far as I'm aware, and you can be too if you read the respective articles, Wikipedia does not refer to viruses, virusoids, and viroids as being alive. The idea that viruses might be considered alive is brought up on their respective article, but the articles on virusoids and viroids do not even entertain such an idea. Given that the latter two are essentially just bits of RNA, should we also add rRNA, mRNA, etc. to the infobox? Regardless, my main point is that we should have some consistency within Wikipedia itself. Anonymous  19:25, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi, first of all please have a look at Wikipedia is not a reliable source and other stuff exists. I wrote Virus and much of Viroid, so I don't need to read the articles. Regarding consistency within Wikipedia, there is no such policy or guideline. Each article stands or falls on its own merit. So I am sticking to my argument that "the biological community has yet to agree on a definition of life. So I disagree, it should be kept." Graham Beards (talk) 19:47, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you provide me a reliable source describing either viroids or virusoids as alive? Furthermore, if any infectious agent is being regarded as a lifeform, then prions might as well be added to the list. Anonymous  23:31, 24 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you provide a reliable source for what "alive" means? I doubt it because as I said above " the biological community has yet to agree on a definition of life". The existence of "non-cellular life" makes a definition elusive. You might find this paper interesting: Graham Beards (talk) 09:38, 25 May 2024 (UTC)