Are Viruses alive do they have the 7 characteristics of life??

Question

can you help?

Answer 1

No. They do not have a metabolism and do not maintain homeostasis.

Answer 2

we should ask em'

Answer 3

No, They are not Alive.  They require a Host to do anything.

Answer 4

Search engines are a wonderful thing. Had you typed in 'are viruses alive' (no quotes) you could have found this:

"Viruses straddle the definition of life. They lie somewhere between supra molecular complexes and very simple biological entities. Viruses contain some of the structures and exhibit some of the activities that are common to organic life, but they are missing many of the others. In general, viruses are entirely composed of a single strand of genetic information encased within a protein capsule. Viruses lack most of the internal structure and machinery which characterize 'life', including the biosynthetic machinery that is necessary for reproduction. In order for a virus to replicate it must infect a suitable host cell"

Answer 5

An argument can be made that it has all of these properties, however. This whole idea of 7 characteristics of life seems so arbitrary anyway and I do not believe them to be truly living but heres how you could argue for all of them.

Reproduction-They can replicate their DNA, even though they have to hijack another cells processes to do so the virus still has the genetic information to enable the replication of its heriditary material.

Growth-This one is tricky but single cell organisms can have difficulty truly fulfilling this, viruses do replicate their DNA and also encode for the formation of the multiple proteins needed for the virus so in a sense it could be said to utilize materials from the environment in order to grow as a population, all be it while needing a host to do so. Certainly, however, a virus is able to mass produce itself and grow its population

Have a cell-Well the virus can be seen to maintain a decent portion of its life within its own coded for protein coat, an organized capsule that holds the genetic information needed for the virus itself to infect another cell and thrive.

Having some way to pass on heriditary information-While most life forms utilize DNA, RNA could very well be seen as a medium for holding heriditary information just not as stable. It may have even served as a form of information storage in the past, even proteins may have. In any case there are viruses that have DNA storage as well.

Requires energy/has metabolism-Well while the virus particle itself has no metabolism in its capsule, one could simply say it is dormant. The virus certainly requires an energy source, and hence a metabolism, in order to reproduce. Again its simply the metabolism of the cell it infects, you have to determine for yourself if the distinction really matters that it hijacks energy.

React to environment-Through mutation and selection the virus is certainly able to evolve and hence react to the environment around it, this is perhaps one of the greater arguments for viruses actually being alive. This and actually having an information storage system which allows change and evolution.

Homeostasis-This one is open for interpretation, one could say the protein coat offers at least a form of regulation for its environment, just kind of miserable at it.

Again I don't really think of them as living entities, however for nearly all of these 7 arbitrary characteristics of life there is an argument to be made that can raise doubt.

Answer 6

No. They only appear to be alive when using the machinery of a living cell in order to reproduce, etc.

They do not have the 7 characteristics of life.  Think of them as "particles" - they become animated inside a living cell.

Answer 7

No, the viruses are NOT alive in the biological term because

1. They do not reproduce by themselves

2. Not organized. It's very zimple

3. Don't really maintain a homeostasis. They're just there for no particular reason unless it enters a host.

4. Metabolism? Not really...

5. No growth (unless you wanna call them committing suicide to "reproduce" more then...)

6. They do respond to stimuli based on the host cell.

7. They don't adapt (never heard of a virus that adapts).