A gel-like substance is placed in a glass dish on top of a heat plate turned on low. The substance at first does not move. You add five drops of water and wait two minutes. All of the sudden, the substance begins to move around the glass dish. You are not touching the heat plate, the glass dish, or the gel but it is definitely moving around the dish. At times the gel-like substance seems to divide into two smaller blobs. You watch the gel until it eventually dries up and leaves only a crystal like structure in the bottom of the dish. Using the criteria developed in class, explain if the gel like substance is living or nonliving. Make sure you are including each criterion from our class model in your response.

Question

Skunk

Biology

2 October, 20:49

A gel-like substance is placed in a glass dish on top of a heat plate turned on low. The substance at first does not move. You add five drops of water and wait two minutes. All of the sudden, the substance begins to move around the glass dish. You are not touching the heat plate, the glass dish, or the gel but it is definitely moving around the dish. At times the gel-like substance seems to divide into two smaller blobs. You watch the gel until it eventually dries up and leaves only a crystal like structure in the bottom of the dish. Using the criteria developed in class, explain if the gel like substance is living or nonliving. Make sure you are including each criterion from our class model in your response.

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Lauryn Mercer · Answer 1

Nonliving the heat from the hot plate is causing the gel like substance to move it's the same thing with liquid nitrogen how it seems to bounce off the floor it's because liquid nitrogen is super cold and the heat basically excites the electrons in the liquid nitrogen making it bounce off the floor same with the gel like substance the electrons in the gel substance are getting excited by the heat and jumping up and down but the substance itself is not alive