Why Are Viruses Alive

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.

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

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

A virus is a small nucleic acid molecule that can only multiply within a living cell of the actual host. It can produce a copy of that specific virus at an alarming rate. They are becoming more dangerous today. We need to build a better knowledge base to educate healthcare professionals and parents that bacteria and viruses are two different animals. Giving an antibiotic for a virus is not going to help; it will eventually cause antibiotic resistance. With viruses, the symptoms just need to be managed with over the counter medication, rest, and letting it run its course.

A virus is an infecting agent. Viruses are non-living they need a living host, a living organism to replicate themselves. When it invades a cell it will implant their code that is capable of copying itself. This will cause a detrimental effect, corrupting the system ti its advantage or complete destruction.

3.Most virus's stay and affect peple in the same way which means thta they aren't really changing

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,

Growth: Viruses themselves do not grow. For true growth to occur, an organism must change and become larger in both size and complexity. When a new virus forms, it is already in its fully developed state, therefore no growth has actually occurred. Instead, what happens is viruses "trick" cells to become host cells that form new viruses, serving as the host cells.

Personally, I believe that there cannot be a present scientific answer, but a philosophical answer. First, there are a few things I would like to point out on which the author of the article is wrong. According to Science Line , viruses are considered to be non living. It says that, “Primarily, they lack the ability to reproduce without the aid of a host cell, and don't use the typical cell- division approach to replication.” That means that there is no present gray area, and the main consensus says that they are non living. In the article, it says that, “[Viruses] May be destroyed… viruses resemble seeds more than the do living cells.(103)” That entire statement is false. According to Dr. Mikhail Grinberg, viruses are, “Generally incurable, but

Collins (1997) stated that Viruses are not true living cells and are much smaller than bacteria. Viruses are composed of a protein coating around genetic material (DNA or RNA) and are unable to reproduce unless they are inside a living cell. Viruses do not multiply in food. They do multiply in cells in various organs or tissues of the body. For example, Hepatitis A virus replicates in cells of the liver. It is quite difficult to isolate viruses on or in food. Normally, the best treatment for viral infections is allowing time (bed rest) for each individual's functioning immune system to combat the virus Viruses are much smaller in size. The viruses differ from bacteria are they cannot live outside without living host human or animals. The two important viruses are Hepatitis A virus and nor viruses

2. The two examples for viruses in which were considered to be “emerging” are that of the ebola virus and the Hanta virus. The emergence of a virus can be done through a mutation in the old virus, these viruses can jump from one host to another, and they can even come from once isolated populations. The aspects of the modern life can contribute immensely to the emergence of viruses since now there are better methods of transportation, immigration, emigration, and even vacations like tourists and travelers. This can cause the people that came from their home town to bring their viruses with them and

A big reason of why viruses should not be considered a living thing is because they are not able to reproduce sexually or asexually. Instead the only way they can reproduce is to attack cells by injecting DNA in the cell. Then the cell makes more viruses and splits open, releasing the viruses and letting them spread. That means that viruses can only reproduce when there is a living organism. Without them, they will never exist. All living things are able to reproduce sexually or asexually, which means that no matter what, they can reproduce in most situations. Viruses on the other hand, cannot reproduce on its own, or with a mate, so it would definitely not be a living thing.

Viruses have been on earth long before we knew what they were. We did not begin to study viruses until 1798 when Edward Jenner decided to search for the correlation between small pox and cowpox. In his study, he found out that if exposed to cowpox, one did not become inflicted with small pox. This was the beginning of the first known vaccination. The discovery of viruses was revolutionary because it allowed us to be able to understand what happens in our bodies or other organisms when things seem abnormal. We also learn how a virus may attack a particular cell and can use this knowledge to treat other viruses. Viruses are very important from a biological standpoint because during research they can be transported as vectors. This is significant because scientists are able to create and alter the genetic makeup of a cell that may not have been able to perform a certain way. In doing so, this can help fight against genetic