Is oxygen a living element? Is there life in it? I know that certain life forms need oxygen to survive, but is oxygen a living thing? If not, how do you know for sure?
Answer
Dear Ryan,
The main question is what we call “life”. Living things such as plants, humans, bacteria and other animals do indeed need oxygen to live and to continue the functioning of the cells. Without oxygen, a cell will acidify and eventually die. We think that something is only alive if processes take place that maintain the organism. A virus, for example, does not have that and some consider it “not alive”.
Dead things such as stones, water or air do not have those internal processes and are therefore considered non-alive. So is oxygen. So it depends on what we consider alive. If you think that everything that has energy is alive, then all matter is alive.
kind regards,
Answered by
dr. Jasper Verguts
Gynecology-Obstetrics
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/
.