Something strange and fascinating is that we often consider "information" to be a trait exclusive to life...
...Yet DNA, being the very fountain of information that it is, is not alive. It's made of dead materials:
How DNA is Non-living thing?
1- DNA is chemical compound composed of chain of peptides and proteins strung together in a double helix formation that is like a blueprint in telling the organic chemistry in your body how to build cells, what kind of cells, and where to build them. And chemical compounds can not be considered as a living things, because in realty, all chemical compounds ( e.g enzymes, fats , lipids , proteins , ……….. etc ) are non-living things. So, if we said DNA is living, we to say that all chemical compounds are living also.
2- DNA is non-living, because it is a molecule not an organism, and this molecule is not sharing organisms in any property, even in replication process as it needs co-workers ( e.g. Enzymes, RNA co-factors ) to succeed its replication.
3- DNA is non-living because it cannot maintain homeostasis on its own. And it does not have a metabolism of its own.
4- Is water living or non-living? Water is the simplest example of something not living but responsible for maintaining life. So, DNA is not living but responsible for so many important functions related to life as it is the genetic material which control all the vital processes in the bodies of -almost all the organisms.
5- DNA is non-living because it is not having any growth and it can’t grow, and the process of replication is not growth, it is simply " Duplication ".
6- Firstly, living things are made up of the living material or the protoplasm while non-living things are made up of dead material. And DNA is non-living because it is made up of dead material ( e.g Codons and nucleotides ), in additional to that all the structure of DNA composed of dead materials that are chemical components.
7- If we defined growth as adding new material to our bodies, then DNA is living, because in the process of replication it add new sequences to its structure, but even in this case we have say it is non-living because DNA is not showing development which is the second part of growth, and simply development is the changes in structure living things undergo as it grow and age. So. no change in the structure occurring after replication process.
8- Birth and death is one of the characteristics of living thing, DNA appeared in the living and it is not having birth point to have death point. So, DNA is non-living because it never dies.
9- DNA is not living. It is a chemical – a large fragile molecule – in fact it is a FANTASTICALLY HUGE MOLECULE and for what it is, it is in fact remarkably robust. It contains a series of chemical bonds linked together in a chain, and since not all the links of the chain are the same, it is possible to store information there. Our modern computers use binary – a code made of two digits – 1 and 0 or ON and OFF or MAGNETIZED and NOT MAGNETIZED. DNA uses quaternary code – 4 digits represented by four proteins.
Is DNA living or non-living thing?? get the answer here
