LIVING THINGS AND TAXONOMY

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LIVING THINGS

Living thing refers to any organism or form that has life;

Living things are those that display the following characteristics:

an organized structure, being made up of a cell or cells
requires energy to survive or sustain existence
ability to reproduce
ability to grow
ability to metabolize
ability to respond to stimuli
ability to adapt to the environment
ability to move
ability to respire.

*image source:http://pad1.whstatic.com/images/thumb/b/bc/Kingdom_taxonomy

Living things have different level of organisation

Both molecular and cellular organization.
Living things must be able to organize simple substances into complex ones.
Living things organize cells at several levels:

Tissue - a group of cells that perform a common function.
Organ - a group of tissues that perform a common function.
Organ system - a group of organs that perform a common function.
Organism - any complete living thing

TAXONOMY
Taxonomy is the practice of classifying organisms is called taxonomy (Taxis means arrangement and nomos means method). The science of taxonomy has two branches, the naming of the organism (NOMENCLATURE), and the placing of organisms into groups (SYSTEMATIC). The modern taxonomic system was developed by the Swedish botanist Carolus (Carl) Linneaeus (1707-1778). In this system (NOMENCLATURE), the organism has two Latin names; a generic name which begins with capital letter and a specific name which begins with a lower letter. The name must be in italics. The scientific name can be also abbreviated, where the generic name is shortened to only its first letter followed by a period (example: Homo sapiens or H. sapiens)

The taxa in an hierarchical order