- [Instructor] In order for living things
like you, me and this plant
to stay alive, to keep living,
we need to keep on carrying
out certain processes
on a regular basis.
These processes that we need
to keep doing to stay alive,
we give a name to them, we
call them life processes.
And so in this video,
we will learn what are
the major life processes
that all living things need
to carry out to stay alive.
So let's start with the
example of human beings.
Let's say me.
What do you think I need
to do to stay alive?
Well, one of the first
things that come to my mind
is I need to keep eating my food, but why?
What's inside food?
Well, whether I'm eating
my favorite sandwich
or not so favorite vegetables,
all food contains sources of energy.
Think of these white dots
as energy sources, okay?
These are the carbohydrates,
which we usually call carbs.
Since they have energy in
them, they act as fuel for us.
This is very similar to
how to make a car run,
we need to put petrol inside them.
Petrol has energy.
It acts like the fuel for the cars.
Similarly, the carbohydrates,
they act as fuel for us.
So our food gives us the required fuel.
But not just that,
it also contains certain raw
materials needed for our body
to grow and to build muscles.
I mean, when I was very
small, when I was born,
I was pretty small and skinny,
but now look at me, I am
all grown up and muscular.
Where did all that stuff come from?
It came from the raw materials that I got
by eating food for so many years.
So food use me, raw materials and my fuel.
Okay? Carbohydrates.
Let me just call it as fuel for now.
And so after eating that
food and swallowing it,
my digestive system is able to extract
all the necessary fuel
and the raw materials
needed for my body.
So this is a very important
process, I need to keep eating.
And so we can say in general,
one of the important processes
is to get fuel or energy source,
and the raw material needed for my body.
That I have to keep doing to stay alive.
Okay, what else do I need to do?
Well, most of the stuff that I've eaten
gets only absorbed by
the intestine of my body.
But what about the rest
of the parts of my body?
They also need the fuel and raw material.
My hands need them, my legs need them.
How will they get all the stuff
that I have just acquired?
Whew, I need to distribute all that stuff
to the different parts of the body, right?
So that's another major life processes.
So I have to distribute them
so that all the parts of my
body can absorb the raw material
and use it to build my
muscles and help me grow.
And so another important process for me,
is I should be able to
distribute the stuff
that I've just acquired.
If I'm not able to do that,
most of the cells in my body will die
and I will not be able to stay alive.
Okay, what else?
Now after distributing,
each cell of my body
has gained the required fuel.
But in order to get energy,
we need to burn that fuel, right?
I mean, think about it.
Just by adding petrol in the car,
the car will not go forward.
That petrol has to be burned
to release that energy.
Only then your cars and
your bikes will go forward.
In a similar manner, my
cells have to burn that fuel.
What I mean by burn here
is they have to carry
out chemical reaction
to release the energy from that fuel
and then I can use that energy
to do whatever I want to do,
to jog, to run, to talk,
whatever I want to do, okay?
So another important process
is after getting all the fuel,
my cells have to burn that fuel.
Now of course I'm using
the burn very crudely.
In gentle, we can say chemical
reactions to release energy,
but I like to use this word burn
because even in our daily
language we use the same term.
We say burn calories, right?
What is the meaning of burning calories?
It's the same thing.
You are basically releasing the energy
from the fuel that you just acquired.
So that I also have to keep doing.
That's another important life process.
What else?
Well, one thing that I didn't show you
while burning the fuel,
is that it also generates waste products.
So let me go back one step.
So once we burn that fuel,
some waste products, useless
products which are not required
for my body also get generated.
This is very similar to
how again in your cars,
once that fuel is burned
and energy is released,
some waste product is generated
and we throw it out from
the exhaust pipe, right?
In a similar manner,
after burning the fuel,
after getting all that energy,
some waste products are generated
and if this is not
thrown out from our body,
it can be very harmful.
And again, we can die because of that.
So that's another process.
So we need to collect
all that waste product
and we need to throw it outside our body.
And this is where we go to
the bathroom to urinate.
Of course, we also throw
out waste by sweating, okay.
So another important life process
is to throw the waste away from our body.
And if we keep on doing all
these things over and over again
we can now stay alive.
Now before we look at the technical names
of these processes,
let's see if the same things
happen in plants as well.
So do plants need to get
fuel and raw materials?
Yes, they do.
The difference is they don't eat,
they use the energy of the sunlight
and some raw materials around
to generate their own fuel.
We'll learn later that this
is called photosynthesis
and the fuel that they
generate is glucose molecules.
But again, don't worry too
much about that right now.
We'll just call it as fuel,
and they get the raw material
that they need from the soil.
So the raw soil contains all the nutrients
and the water that they need
and so the roots of the plant
are able to absorb that.
So yes, even they have to get this fuel
and the raw materials.
Okay, do they have to
distribute the stuff? Yes.
Because whatever they
have generated over here
needs to be distributed to
all the parts of the body
so that all the parts of the plant
can get the required energy.
And similarly the raw
materials and the water
needs to be distributed to
the all the parts of the body
so that they can absorb it
and use it to grow themselves.
Okay.
Do they have to burn the fuel?
Yes, they do.
Whatever energy source they have acquired,
they need to burn it
in order to get energy
and to do all the things for them to grow.
And just like what we saw before,
by burning that fuel or
after releasing that energy,
some waste products are generated
and they have to throw
those waste products
outside their body.
So they also have to pretty much carry out
similar processes, okay?
All right.
So now let's look at the technical names
given to these processes.
This process where you
gather the energy source
and the raw materials,
we call that nutrition.
Then this process where we
distribute things around,
we call that transportation.
And the process in which
we release the energy
from the energy source that we acquired,
from the fuel that we acquired,
we call this respiration.
Now, when I was learning
this, I got a little confused.
I thought respiration
meant breathing, right?
But usually in biology when
we talk about respiration,
it's this process what
we're talking about,
the process in which
energy is being released.
And of course, we'll
talk about all of this
in great detail in future videos.
And this process where the
waste is being thrown out,
we call that excretion.
And so these are the major life processes
that most living things,
including you and me,
carry out on a daily basis
without even thinking about it.
And in the future videos,
we'll learn in detail
about each of these processes.
