Metabolism

Metabolism is the uptake and digestion of food, and the disposal of waste products. Each living cell has a metabolism ([cell metabolism]?), as well as multicellular organisms like plants, animals and humans have a "total" metabolism that can differ from that of the individual cells.

The halt of metabolism in a living organism is usually defined as its death. Some organisms can reduce their metabolism to almost zero for certain periods of time. Spores? of fungi can survive thousands of years in that state. But every lifeform is bound to have metabolism at some point of its life cycle, with the possible exception of viruses, which use their hosts metabolism.

The correct definition of metabolism is almost as difficult as the definition of "life". For example, according to the definition above, fire has a metabolism, too (it "eats", for example, wood, converts it to heat, and disposes ashes).