Are viruses alive or dead?

Question

Although viruses are not made up of living cells, could they still be considered alive since that is only one "characteristic" of life? Or are they dead?

Answer 1

Most virologists will tell you viruses are alive. The problem isn't the viruses, it's the arbitrary definition of life...

"Their are 7 characteristics of life: homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction."

Homeostasis - many bacteria don't maintain a stable internal environment, are they dead?

Organization - Viruses are organized, have you ever seen a crystal structure of a virion

Metabolism - agreed, no

Growth - agreed yes

adaptation - agreed yes

response to stimuli - Viruses respond to stimuli, just not the stimuli you think of naturally. Viruses modulate their reproduction and life cycles based on the "stimuli" in the host cell

Reproduction - agreed yes

So the only characteristic that viruses fail to qualifiy as alive for is metabolism, and it could easily be argued that metabolism is the least important and most arbitrar characteristic of living organisms since viruses do a fine job of gathering energy from their environment (host cell).

Answer 2

2

Answer 3

It difficult to say one or another. It does take the 7 characteristics of life: homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction. Unfortunately these are applied to more complex beings. I would definitely say that a virus is not living but I would not say it was dead. To say that it was dead, means that it was living in the past. I have heard it termed as pre-bacterial life form but even then it falls into a catagory of chemical versus biological prevalence.

You've hit a grey area, not based on facts, but based on definition.

Answer 4

when viruses are in the cells of living things ,they are said to be alive bcos they undergo all the characteristics of a living thing,but when in the cells of non living things they are said to be dead

Answer 5

Alive:
It is a surprise to most who think of viruses simply as parasites that they make up the largest component of biomass on this planet (Bamford 2003, Research in Microbiology 154; 231-236). So far every living organism that has been studied to date has had at least one virus associated with it, and viruses out number all other life forms by at least an order of magnitude. When considering that not only is viral presence on this planet all encompassing, but every sequenced organism to date has a major component of its genome that is viral in origin, it becomes apparent that viruses are integral players in the evolution of what we presently consider life.

Answer 6

They cannot be alive as you say.
Yet they are the largest biomass on the planet, more species than we can dream of and they live in close communion with all l living things. Its dna and it replicates and it kills us.
They cannot be dead as you say.
They are undead!!!!!!!!
We need a word for replicators that are neither alive nor dead. How about replicators?
Angels and heads of pins come to mind.

Answer 7

That's a great question. In order to be living, one has to reproduce, use energy, grow and develop, and respond to their surroundings. Viruses don't use energy, drow, or respond. You might also recall learning that all living things are made of cells and viruses arn't made of cells therefore, arn't alive.

Answer 8

They are dead. Their are 7 characteristics of life: homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction. A virus shows signs of growth, adaptation and reproduction. And basically, they are mainly consisting of protein and nucleic acid. So final answer is they are dead.

Answer 9

Viruses that attack humans and animals are alive.

Viruses that attack computers are dead.