[Kalimac]

Nuranar and Lady_Bain, thank you very much. I think I'm just going to answer it now (also because, to be honest, the only definition I could give of "alive" in this case is "it reproduces" which wouldn't help much). Here's the riddle:

Millions of lives will end to create me
In every house it happens, every day.
I am not alive, and yet I grow.
And when my growth is ended, I will shrink
Until there is nothing left.

The answer is....BREAD. The millions of lives are, of course, the yeast.

Samwise - Thank you! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. I am complimented. Yes, I remember the frog...also the little squid, the fish, the worm, the cow's eye, the whole panoply. And actually I usually was the one that did the dissecting; I was good at using the scalpel (I remember my biology teacher standing up front and saying "OK, class, now's the time to separate the butchers from the brain surgeons.") My problem was that I was never what it was I was *seeing*. So usually I'd cut the thing up and my lab partner would figure out what was what. I was pretty helpless when it came to individual dissections, though. Ugh. Glad that's over.

Here's one of my backed-up riddles:

I cannot see, I cannot hear, I cannot taste or touch.
But without me, neither can you.