Summary:
- All living organisms, from the smallest bacterium to the largest whale, share certain characteristics of life.
- Without these characteristics, there is no life.
- To be classified as a living thing, an object must have all six of the following characteristics: It responds to the environment.
- It grows and develops.
- It produces offspring.
- It has complex chemistry.
- A cell is the basic unit of the structure and function of living things.
- All forms of life are built of cells.
- Living things may appear very different from one another on the outside, but their cells are very similar.