Viruses Should Not Be Banned

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

It is often argued whether viruses are living or not. Those who don’t believe that viruses are living generally base their opinion off of the fact that they do not follow the basic definition of “life”. They do not carry out life-sustaining functions on their own like normal organisms. On the other side of the argument, some believe that viruses are in fact, living beings, which is where I rest my opinion.

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

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

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

There Is another view that contends viruses as living entities. In 2009 David Moreira & Purificacion Lopez Garcia wrote an entry about the reasons why viruses should not be inducted into the tree of life. The main support of their claim is that viruses do not meet the criteria that defines life. Viruses have the same molecular composition as cells: mainly nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and complex sugars() . In the past this similarity has led scientists to believe that viruses were alive. For many years’ viruses were thought to be the “missing link” (Moreira & Lopez) between the “non-living and the first cells” (Moreira & Lopez). With the discovery of DNA encoding came a theory and definition for what defines life. The theory was based on the fact that all living entities have DNA and evolve. Under these criteria viruses were considered to be living because we know they contain DNA and there has been considerable research showing the ancestral lineage of viruses. This theory survived for many years as the most widely accepted way to describe life. This theory was put to rest in the year 2000 when the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses officially concluded that viruses are not alive. This view is still held by many scientists

1. In the 19th century researchers realized that some diseases such as hand foot mouth and also rabies were caused by particles that acted like bacteria. Which means virus's are alive because the particles would need t be alive to still contaminate people.

For example, viruses do not use energy and raw materials to grow and reproduce, and they are not made of one or more of the basic fundamental units of life – a cell. Compared to a cell, which includes organelles that enable the structure to grow and reproduce, a virus can only reproduce if another cell is present and that cell has organelles that the virus can inject its own DNA or RNA into and use it for its own replicating or mutating purposes. Viruses are made of a protein coat or capsid with its DNA or RNA genetic material enclosed inside of the capsid. In comparison, in addition to having organelles that use energy to help the cell develop, grow, and reproduce with the help of DNA, the cell by definition is enclosed in a membranous boundary,

Viruses can do many different things to a body, they can destroy, corrupt, and take over cells in the body. They can damage parts of the body or make your body destroy itself, viruses are dangerous but sometimes can be cured. Viruses do not have the enzymes needed to carry out life so

In “Study Adds to Evidence that Viruses are Alive,” Professor Caetano-Anolles and his members argues that viruses are considered to be alive due to the founding of new evidences that support about it. They did a research and experiment to prove their claim. Others say that viruses are not “alive” because they lack many of the properties that scientists associate with living organisms. That they don’t have their own machinery for reproducing and they can only take over the machinery of cells, turning them into virus factories. Caetano-Anolles argues that viruses are alive, they used logos to support and give evidences to their claims. They argued that viruses are alive through their shapes and sizes, genetic structure and the means of their reproducing.

Even though viruses have a DNA structure, they actually do not have the whole organism structure. For example, a human have organs that is designed based on the DNA, unlike a virus. Therefore, viruses are not living things. Containing one or more cells have always persuaded scientist to have the opinion that viruses are nonliving. In the text, “Why are Viruses Considered to be Nonliving?,” it says that viruses do not have any evidence that show they have cells or a cell organization.

In the book A Planet of Viruses, Carl Zimmer talks about viruses and how they have evolved in our earth. Throughout the book, he explains how viruses developed to dominate the outcomes of our health by constantly producing and spreading new diseases across species. New diseases are formed by viruses through mutation and reassortment. Zimmer explains that “reassortment allows flu viruses to mix genes together, into new combinations” (Zimmer, 18). At first, Zimmer explains how the word “Virus” had a different meaning in the beginning and had changed to acquire the meaning it is now. He then talks in each chapter about various viruses such as, HIV, swine flu, small pox and many other. He discusses about their impact on our environment, and how they originated. Viruses spread by animals, air or even mosquitos. This book also shows how the viruses are becoming more and more resilient to antibiotics, which controls the environment, our fate and the aspects of health.

do not have their own energy, but rely upon the energy available within the living cell which the virus has infected.” (MadSci). Without a host cell, viruses do not have any energy to do their thing.

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