Are Viruses Alive Research Paper

The biological significance of this article is due in part to the fact that viruses are being considered as partway-living things. Even though they are only halfway living, per se, they are still an important part of the study of living things because of the unique way in which they “live” and continue to reproduce by taking advantage of host cells. The information in this article relates to biologists in that viruses provide an entirely different element of potential life, as they are a cause for reconsideration when it comes to defining and determining life and non-life forms. This

I believe that viruses are living, just not in the same way as organisms you see on a daily

A virus is a small capsule that contains DNA or RNA, viruses, unlike bacteria are not self sufficient and need a host in

Viruses - are extremely small particles made from protein and either DNA or RNA. They are not made up of cells instead they invade the living cells of other organisms and use them to produce many copies of

Unlike bacteria, that have everything it needs to reproduce, viruses need to use a living cell's organelles in order to replicate.

Viruses are microscopic organisms that can only replicate inside cells of the host organism. Viruses for the most part are so small you would have to use a conventional optical microscope. Viruses can infect any and all types of organisms, such as animals (to include Humans), plants and even bacteria as well as archaea (archaea constitutes a domain or kingdom of single-celled microorganisms). There are millions of different types of viruses. With viruses being believed to be the most abundant type of biological entity, they can be virtually found in every ecosystem on the planet.

One of the most complex and unexplored disease causing agents are viruses. They are known to be able to infect a wide array of organisms, from plants and animals, to bacteria and fungi. Essentially, anything that is living is capable of being infected with a virus. Once the host's cell is infected, the viruses' goal is to produce more viruses which will infect neighboring cells to continue the cycle.

After looking at many articles I believe that viruses are not alive. Even though in the beginning I believed they were. For an object to be alive it needs to have certain characteristics such as being able to: grow, develop, have a purpose, reproduce, adapt, and have cells. A living thing could reproduce which means they would make offspring. Viruses don't have the ability to grow and develop on their own. Viruses don’t have the ability to reproduce on their own without the help of a keeper

A virus is a capsule containing genetic material, even smaller than bacteria. The main task of virus is to reproduce. However, viruses need a suitable host to

A lot of the time when a virus come into contact with the host or as we may know it, the cell, it can insert its genetic material into its host, literally taking over the host's functions. Some viruses may remain dormant inside host cells for long periods, causing no obvious change in their host cells, but once stimulated new viruses are formed, self-assemble, and burst out of the host cell, killing the cell and going on to infect other cells. All this is just a constant battle between the host and cell. Without a host cell, viruses cannot carry out their life-sustaining functions or reproduce. They cannot synthesize proteins, because they lack ribosomes and must use the ribosomes of their host cells to translate viral messenger RNA into viral proteins. Viruses cannot generate or store energy, but have to derive their energy, and all other metabolic functions, from the host cell. Sometimes the virus will not be in the cell but outside functioning as coat for the protein. Viruses cause a number of diseases in humans most commonly heard of ones are, smallpox, the common cold, chickenpox, influenza, shingles, herpes, polio, rabies, ebola, hanta fever, and AIDS are examples of the diseases caused by viruses. Even some types of cancer but not all. As Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “All warfare is based on deception”. He could have easily been describing the ancient battle between virus and host

The first reasoning that the author said was that viruses are alive through their shapes and sizes. Shapes and sizes are one of the main factors in identifying if a substance is dead or alive. Growth is one of the characteristics of living things. The author said many viruses are tiny

Overall, viruses are not alive since they rely on other living cells to survive. Most characteristics of living organisms cannot be applied to viruses. With the discovery of the mimivirus, it could be possible that viruses at one point were considered living until they evolved into the viruses they are today. However, discoveries about viruses might yet not be fully discovered or understood and they might evolve again in the

To consider something as living there are a few requirements it must fulfil such as to grow, reproduce, respond to stimuli, adapt to their own environment, made from cells and can use and gain energy1. Viruses have only recently been considered as a contender for being classed as a living organism as they have played a major part in the evolution of all cells2 which shows that viruses must have contained some of the early key components that ancient cells possessed. RNA genomes were present before the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) as ancient cells had them as well as viruses, so viruses probably originated before other cells. However, some scientists have said there is an area between living and

Energy is an essential part of life all living organisms use energy to survive. To use the energy gain from digestion or synthesis a metabolism is needed helps break down the molecules and use the for energy for the body. A virus does not have a metabolism as stated by the Arizona Science Center “Viruses are too small and simple to collect or use their own energy– they just steal it from the cells they infect.” They also concluded that “Viruses only need energy when they make copies of themselves, and they don't need any energy at all when they are outside of a

An invisible organism enters your body. It penetrates into your tissues and then takes over the machinery in your own cells to make more copies of itself. This tiny infiltrator works silently, producing thousands of these clones that fill up the cell and cause it to explode. The clones mercilessly continue the process of invading, taking over and destroying cells. The result might be a minor inconvenience to you as the host, or it could result in a slow or rapid death. It depends only on which variant of this unwanted infiltrator overcomes your body’s defenses. There are cures to wipe out some types of these invisible intruders, but others are so difficult to eradicate or so readily adaptable, that the world’s greatest scientists