User talk:Berton/New classification sketch

This is more one new classification and classifications are mere suggestions and just this, classifications are not dogmas, nor laws.

Certainly there is a discussion whether a virus (or protovirus, or even prions) would be living beings, since it does not consist of cells, but once that they parasitize the cells, they dispense them (economically).

I consider that every species of living being has a specific survival strategy that is proper, and under that criterion, so all (viruses, protoviruses, prions, etc) are living beings.

Are survival strategies (characterize a living being):

• subsistence as an individual =>
  • autotrophy
  • predation
  • parasitism
  • saprophytism
  • symbiosis
• subsistence as a species => perpetuity (transmission of genetic material)

It is incredible how one textbook like Alberts et al. insists that life is synonym of cell and that DNA is the most important substance for life. I really like metaphors, so here's another one:

Supposing that I want to make a cake. The recipe of this cake is in a book, I have the ingredients to make it, I also have the pans and kitchen equipment for this and obviously there is the individual who executes these instructions.

In this analogy, the book is the genome, the words of the book are the genes (DNA), the ingredients are amino acids, pans and equipment are the various proteins (enzymes, transcription factors, etc) that regulate gene expression, the fire (energy) is ATP and the individual, and this is the ... RNA! And the cake is the new protein formed. Explaining: Analogy of the cookbook: To better understand the genetic makeup of an individual is made the analogy of the cookbook, containing a recipe of a carrot cake, for example:

• instructions are in some books or set of literary work (genome, whose words are the codons of the sequences of nucleotidic bases, formed of ACGT letters for DNA) which together form several volumes (chromosomes) which are in the two libraries shelves (of the progenitors), whose chapters are the genes located in the pages of each book (chromosomal loci).
• ingredients to make the cake: amino acids
• pots and equipment: various proteins (enzymes, transcription factors, etc.) that regulate gene expression
• fire: energy derived from ATP
• individual: system operator: RNA
• cake (the final product): proteins formed by the genes

It is obvious that the most important is the RNA! It is the system operator.