Eli5: what exactly is a virus and are viruses alive?
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Oooo I love this debate. People will try to tell you it’s settled one way another but they are wrong. Personally I think if you looked at all this universe and classified them into living and not living viruses would very obviously be alive. They look so much more like life, but they don’t self replicate. It’s semantics but it does matter. What is life? Why do we are?
Oooo I love this debate. People will try to tell you it’s settled one way another but they are wrong. Personally I think if you looked at all this universe and classified them into living and not living viruses would very obviously be alive. They look so much more like life, but they don’t self replicate. It’s semantics but it does matter. What is life? Why do we are?
Viruses have RNA which is basically half DNA. They replicate by inserting their RNA into other beings which then replicate itself and the process repeats.
In the sense that it moves, replicates, and can be killed, it is a living thing and considered the most basic class of living thing AFAIK.
Viruses have RNA which is basically half DNA. They replicate by inserting their RNA into other beings which then replicate itself and the process repeats.
In the sense that it moves, replicates, and can be killed, it is a living thing and considered the most basic class of living thing AFAIK.
Viruses are bacterial pathogens. Bacteria are cells and organisms, so yes . They are alive. Fun fact; white blood cells engulf viruses and bacteria. They completely overtake the cell, as WBC’s are large, and then they break down.
Viruses are bacterial pathogens. Bacteria are cells and organisms, so yes . They are alive. Fun fact; white blood cells engulf viruses and bacteria. They completely overtake the cell, as WBC’s are large, and then they break down.
Viruses are bacterial pathogens. Bacteria are cells and organisms, so yes . They are alive. Fun fact; white blood cells engulf viruses and bacteria. They completely overtake the cell, as WBC’s are large, and then they break down.
Basically a protein with self-replication instructions that doesn’t have the tools to actually perform that self replication that finds a cell to latch onto to use the cell’s self replication tools for its own replication.
As for whether you can call them “alive” that’s entirely a gray area. The only aspect of the definition of a living thing that a virus doesn’t fit is that it can’t self replicate, it needs something else to perform its replication for it. It fits every other criteria for a living thing.
Does that one distinction make it technically not considered alive? Sure, technically yeah, but is that one distinction enough to REALLY say it’s actually not alive?
Life is kind of a nebulous thing, and applying that same standard of it not fully fitting the definition would also make sterile people technically not living things, so the answer for that question is kind of a big question mark.
Basically a protein with self-replication instructions that doesn’t have the tools to actually perform that self replication that finds a cell to latch onto to use the cell’s self replication tools for its own replication.
As for whether you can call them “alive” that’s entirely a gray area. The only aspect of the definition of a living thing that a virus doesn’t fit is that it can’t self replicate, it needs something else to perform its replication for it. It fits every other criteria for a living thing.
Does that one distinction make it technically not considered alive? Sure, technically yeah, but is that one distinction enough to REALLY say it’s actually not alive?
Life is kind of a nebulous thing, and applying that same standard of it not fully fitting the definition would also make sterile people technically not living things, so the answer for that question is kind of a big question mark.
Basically a protein with self-replication instructions that doesn’t have the tools to actually perform that self replication that finds a cell to latch onto to use the cell’s self replication tools for its own replication.
As for whether you can call them “alive” that’s entirely a gray area. The only aspect of the definition of a living thing that a virus doesn’t fit is that it can’t self replicate, it needs something else to perform its replication for it. It fits every other criteria for a living thing.
Does that one distinction make it technically not considered alive? Sure, technically yeah, but is that one distinction enough to REALLY say it’s actually not alive?
Life is kind of a nebulous thing, and applying that same standard of it not fully fitting the definition would also make sterile people technically not living things, so the answer for that question is kind of a big question mark.
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