Are viruses a life form? like cell or not? what is the primary difference?

Question

Are viruses a life form? like cell or not? what is the primary difference?

Answer 1

viruses are not life form or living things.......they are not like cells....the primary difference is that cell made your body and in the other hand, virus gives you sickness.

Answer 2

A VIRUS IS NOT ALIVE BECAUSE IT REQUIRES A HOST IN ORDER TO be active

Single-cell organisms have everything they need to be self-sufficient.

Answer 3

.http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art....

the best I could find.

if I had to look for an ALIEN....

a VIRUS would be it !!!!

Answer 4

To be classified as a 'living thing' it must do majority of  MRS GREN ( Move, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion, Nutrients).  A virus only does two of these, reproduce and move, this is not enough to classify it as a living thing.

Answer 5

there are alot of answers on here that have said that viruses are life forms but they are wrong.

there are five rules to which a substace has to abide to be considered living

1.it must maintain homeostasis(regulation of eternal enviorment)

2. it must have some kind of cellular orginization(composed of one or more cells)

3.it must metabolize(carry out fundamental chem reactions for energy ie. cellular respiration)

4.it must have heriditary information(DNA)

5.It must reproduce

Viruses cant control their enternal temperature, they arent composed of celles but a tight protein chain with DNA housed inside, they dont metabolize energy, the only thing it has in common with living organisms is the genetic material inside the protein housing.  it reproduces by attatching to a cell and releasing the genetic material inside.  the cell reads this material and stops its normal functions to create more copies of this virus.  once the cell is full, it burst releasing these viruses to attach to more cells and repeat this process.  so they dont technically reproduce on their own either.

in conclusion they are not living organisims

Answer 6

yes it is form of life but destructive it harms other life and repeatably increase himself

Answer 7

A virus (from the Latin virus meaning "toxin" or "poison"), is a sub-microscopic infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a host cell. Each viral particle, or virion, consists of genetic material, DNA or RNA, within a protective protein coat called a capsid.

The capsid shape varies from simple helical and icosahedral (polyhedral or near-spherical) forms, to more complex structures with tails or an envelope. Viruses infect all cellular life forms and are grouped into animal, plant and bacterial types, according to the type of host infected.

Outside the body of the host they are just inactive and like non living particles.But inside the host body they are active and show cellular activities.Biologically speaking they are non-living things.As you can see they need a host cell to carry out their activities.

Best Wishes :)

Answer 8

If viruses weren't a life form they would probably be not threat to living organisms. A virus could be considered a cell but a virus is more of a parasitic bug. They need a host to live in and enery to sustain its life and to preduce offspring. And just like a parasite they usually feed on the living cells of an organism to produce that energy. Viruses also multiply and spread at a rapid rate sometimes causing the host to become ill or to die.Also a virus may also alter its genetic codeing like some insects and aracnids can and become immune to something that used to be a poison to its system. Viruses are not that different from parasitic creatures in terms of how they act and live, even their mottos have something in common..."DIVIDE & CONQUER!"

10th Grade High School Student

Answer 9

There is a great dispute between scientist about whether viruses are alive or not. Some consider it as a living organism because it has genetic material (DNA or RNA) and having genetic material is one of the characteristics of living organisms. Others, however, argue that viruses can not perform normal life activities (reproduction, growth, ...) without using a host and therefore they are not alive (but then again, many parasites can't survive without a host either).

The best description of a virus is a packaged genetic material that can get active as soon as it enters a living cell.

Living cells (including bacteria, animal and plant cells) can survive without a host.

Answer 10

Yes it is a life form. A virus is a single cell (bacteria have more cells) - it cannot live with a HOST eg. It can't live outside our bodies or animals. That's the main difference between a Virus and Bacteria as bacteria can live outside our bodies on benches etc.

Answer 11

A virus is a group of proteins. It is not a living being, unlike a cell which has its own set of organs and specific functions.

Answer 12

A virus is not considered to be a living organism -- all it does is reproduce (make copies of itself by infecting a host's cell). A Virus does have a form of nucleic acid (such as DNA or RNA) but that's about it! They have no special parts inside (called "Organelles" [organelles are like TINY organs inside a cell that help it "live"]) that regulate its ability to live.

To be living, you must:

* Eat

* Grow

* Adapt to your environment

* Respond to the environment around you

* Reproduce

* Must be "organized" (in terms of looking at cellular organization - having special parts that aid your living ability).

* Must use energy to carry out some kind of action, movement. This energy comes from the chemicals in nutrients such as food.

A cell is the smallest unit or structure of all living organisms - some living organisms can be unicellular (that is, they are a single cell and have the ability to LIVE [look above for what makes an organism living]).

Other organisms, such as ourselves are multicellular (we are made up of many cells). A cell has special structures inside called organelles - I mentioned them above by describing them as being "like organs inside cells". Organelles organize cells's by putting things into special compartments - for example, DNA in cells are kept inside a nucleus or are held together in a mass. Viruses don’t have organelles and do not carry out the essential actions it takes to be living.

Hope this helps!