Let’s first define life. According to the online Merriam-Webster Dictionary, life is “an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction.”
Viruses are not living things. Viruses are complicated assemblies of molecules, including proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and carbohydrates, but on their own they can do nothing until they enter a living cell. Without cells, viruses would not be able to multiply. Therefore, viruses are not living things.
When a virus encounters a cell, a series of chemical reactions occur that lead to the production of new viruses. These steps are completely passive, that is, they are predefined by the nature of the molecules that comprise the virus particle. Viruses don’t actually ‘do’ anything. Often scientists and non-scientists alike ascribe actions to viruses such as employing, displaying, destroying, evading, exploiting, and so on. These terms are incorrect because viruses are passive, completely at the mercy of their environment.
Update: See a more recent post for my thoughts on this question.
so viuses aren't alive?
Viruses are not alive. Throughout history there have been many
definitions of life. Viruses do not meet the criteria for any of them.
They lack any form of energy, carbon metabolism, and cannot replicate
or evolve. They are reproduced only within cells, and they also evolve
within cells. Without cells, viruses are “inanimate complex organic
matterâ€. Nevertheless, you will find that others do believe that
viruses are living, or that they occupy a space between the living and
non-living.
for me they are living. They evolve,replicate,mutate.
Even in vaccine we have live attenuated viruses
I think you're being unnecessarily restrictive in your definition. Since viruses do reproduce, even though they hijack the cell's system to do so, they are clearly alive in that respect. There are no other chemicals that would reproduce in such a fashion (toxins or otherwise),so it is clearly a unique attribute which requires consideration beyond simply being a complex molecule.
And prions? 😀
Precisely my thought. Prions can enter a cell and induce the formation
of more prions. And they are only proteins. Are they living?
Absolutely not.
I have to disagree, although clearly they are not in the general category of what we consider living. In particular, viruses have to hijack the cell to replicate, but this is clearly behavior that doesn't occur in any other molecular model. Venomous proteins don't reproduce, nor do they incubate or interact in any manner that is unusual for a toxin. Similarly with other chemical toxins, we have a clear separation between chemical toxicity and the chemistry of viruses.
Prions are perhaps more obscure, representing an intermediate step between pure chemical toxins and viruses, so consideration for them being living is far more nebulous. Perhaps they are related to biological toxins.
While they may not fit the normal definition of being alive, neither do they fit the normal definition of simply being toxic chemicals.
Sorry I have to disagree with you there. You're personifying the viruses, they're not “thinking” to hijack cells. The way i see it is that this bundle of nucleic acid, over millions of years of selection, has been selected for traits that allow itself to propagate.
With regards to being more than “Toxic chemicals” because they reproduce. Given appropriate chemical conditions you can have nylon polymers form. Now I know this is a bit of a leap here but what's different? Are nylon polymers “hijacking” the original solutions? No! That'd be silly, it's a chemical reaction that happens to occur when conditions are right. Viral nucleic acid is an organic molecule that happens to polymerize and replicate under specific conditions. It doesn't have a choice of when to replicate, just when it hits the right environment it'll replicate. There's no “intention” to infect or cause harm, all is neutral. This is where bacteria
Now yes it is a very elaborate version of “nylon” since viruses also produce protein coats and are able to integrate into host genomes… etc etc… All of these traits are selected for through evolution (in a sense by selection) of the viral genomes and by evolution, I mean versions of the genomes that allow specific chemical environments to allow this genetic element to reproduce. While their “behaviour” is far from your run of the mill venom, toxin or chemical compound, think of them as a highly evolved version of a venom. What allows the venom to work? Specific protein sequence that allows venom to block (keep open? i forget) sodium channels. Change the sequence and you can render it useless or give it additive toxicity. Same goes with viral genomes… change the sequence and either or happens. It just happens that viral genomes evolved in a different fashion with a different purpose than venom.
I disagree with profvrr when he says that viruses aren't alive because they don't evolve. I view evolution starting from the genetic level where mutations can occur in the nucleic acid and confer better reproduction in a given environment of anything viral to eukaryotic, irrespective of living or not.
My apologies for the word salad… but in summation: viral genome = super elaborate and complex prion or venom.
Quoting G Adam: “Since viruses do reproduce, even though they hijack the cell's system to do so, they are clearly alive in that respect.” While the former part of the statement is true, the latter is a little dicier. So how do we define life? Profvrr posted earlier a few characteristics of living things that viruses definitely do not have, yet all other “life” on earth does. Why is reproduction a trump card for life more so than energy and metabolic pathways? If reproduction is the trump card, then prions by all means do. The important thing here is to understand that viruses do not have any intent or personal wills. They contain information that allows them to propagate when chemical conditions are right… as do prions. Everyone needs to stop seeing viruses with humanized traits… once you get there you'll see why profvrr is so adamant about them not being alive.
uhhh sorry… “There's no “intention” to infect or cause harm, all is neutral. This is where bacteria “
My thoughts run a bit 🙂 i cut that bacteria idea off but forgot to delete
all life forms need their conditions and environment without which they can't live.
As a computer-programmer I see the virus-program, the code which reproduces and evolves
and adapts and improves – not so much the metabolism or features or structure
which it has.
That's a very interesting comparison gsgs… So is the computer virus a living thing then?
hmm…
No. They require active willingly initiative by humans to replicate,evolve.
They have no own initiative at all.
Viruses can replicate without the host wanting it or actively planning to contribute to it.
A computer program without hardware is just “thought”.
A computer-virus does replicate without willingly contribution of the host,
but it doesn't evolve.
Well, in theory it could be made to evolve but then that evolution would not be essential
to it's survival and spread. (I think)
Humans could collect virus-code on computers and manipulate it and calculate useful mutation
and compete with other “developers” and the fitness of the mutated virus might be
estimated. But that involves too much foreign thought for my taste of living.
It's getting difficult, I'm becoming uncomfortable…
While “intent” is certainly not the correct term, it does describe a fundamental difference between living things and non-living. Basically the “intent” is reproduction. In other words, if I take a biological chemical like venom, regardless of how many animals I were to inject with it, it would never reproduce nor mutate. However the same cannot be said of viruses.
Obviously, all biology can be reduced to chemical interactions, so there is little we can look at there that couldn't ultimately be explained in such terms. But one of the distinguishing characteristics is the ability to reproduce.
Admittedly, many chemical reactions can be self-perpetuating so one could arguably make the case that they are also reproducing. But when that capability is coupled with the ability to mutate (while still retaining the essential elements that allow it to be identified), begins to strengthen the argument that they are distinguishable as being alive.
A chemical reaction that “mutates” would become a different chemical, however a virus that mutates does not. It is still the same thing albeit with a variation.
In many cases, when one gets so close to the chemical/biological line it can be difficult and quite arbitrary as to where that distinction is made, but I think the fact that we experience viruses as capable of mutation and reproduction makes them different from biological toxins that don't (even though it appears that our immune systems don't differentiate between them).
In effect, it forces me to conclude that when proteins become complex enough to mutate and reproduce they've begun the transition as living organisms.
Two problems with the computer virus scenario.
The first is that it involves only inanimate objects, so while it may have similarities with the biological counterpart, it isn't alive in any way.
The second, is that there is no difference in terms of the volume of viruses involved. A singular virus is all that is needed to “infect” a computer system whereas a biological system depends on virus load. This latter difference makes the computer virus more akin to simply throwing in the proverbial “monkey wrench” rather than anything more specialized.
I would be careful with the 'hijack' notion. Many viruses reproduce without doing harm to the cell; they utilize the machinery but the cell is not harmed.
Do we want to use life to define life? Saying that computer viruses are not living because they only infect inanimate objects seems circular. Also – in some cases a single virus particle is sufficient to infect a cell. So that can't be a way to distinguish computer and other viruses.
I don't believe the term “hijack” denotes harm.
Computer viruses don't “infect”. That is a human term to describe introducing an unauthorized program into a system. Similarly we know that software “bugs” aren't actual insects.
We don't consider the failure of a engineered system to be a “disease”, so we shouldn't use terms like that as if they represented true corollaries to biological systems. Similarities in behavior are insufficient to assign the attribute as a true characteristic
If viruses are just dead bits of DNA or RNA (not even microorganisms in the strict sense) and are completely passive and do not 'do' anything then how can they be said to 'infect' anything?
The term 'infection' does not imply life, nor does it imply taking an
active role in the process. When viruses infect a cell, the virions
bind to cell receptors, the nucleic acid enters the cell, and new
virion production initiates. Infection is a series of chemical
reactions.
Strange as it may seem. I and Dr Stefan Lanka [virologist and molecular biologist] among others cannot obtain any substantive scientific evidence from ANYONE – and believe me we have tried, that conclusively proves that any of the human disease causing viruses have been isolated, biochemically characterized and physically exist. So, if you know anyone out there that can deliver the beef [no textbook references or secondary sources please] copies of any original scientific papers only – Dr Lanka still has his offer standing to pay 10,000 euros for the info.
Bear in mind that because the belief in pathogenic viruses is so entrenched nobody questions it including the scientists themselves. Science is supposed to be about posing and solving questions. However, today's scientific position regarding viruses is rather like the phlogistic theory of gases that was so entrenched likewise in the 17th and 18th centuries until Lavoisier came along and demolshed it. Are virologists not prisoners of a flawed germ theory of disease, operating with flawed or inadequate concepts as to what constitutes a virus. After all the term virus derives from the latin meaning TOXIN or POISON and some toxins are energy substances
and although some of these energy substances cannot be physically observed they can stress the cells so that they release particles that are 'virus-like'. It is the bits of RNA or DNA deriving from these virus-like particles that are usually and erroneously identified by virologists as viruses.
Here's a thought if viruses [assuming they really do exist in a physical form as described by the concepts deployed in virology] have no energy of their own, then they can't act, simply because there's nothing in a virus that would enable it to do just that, so how can a virus 'hijack' anything????? The only thing that can do any 'hijacking' in that case is the living host cell that can act – not the virus!
You are defining infection in mechanistic material terms – a series of chemical reactions -a sort of 'billiard ball' causality. It is difficult to see how virions can bind to cell receptors without implying that they have 'acted' in some way i.e. that there is an act of binding.
The scientific materialist position in virology and molecular biology is still based on PHILOSOPHY which is ultimately speculative regarding the origin and precise nature of matter in general including the properties of the matter on which the current notion of particular viruses is based . In other words, things in science are not always what they appear to be and it has not all been sewn up.
The only proof of life in viruses are reproduction and they also have genetic material. Following the 7 characteristics of life only two characteristics are present and viruses have been declared non-living. They can not be killed nor they can die but they can be inactivated. So technically speaking they are non-living organisms.
If organisms are generally defined as LIVING SYSTEMS in biology, does it make any sense to refer to viruses as [a] organisms , and [b] as non-living ORGANISMS at all ? ???????
Think of inert bits of RNA or DNA wrapped in a protein coat, period, no energy, no life or activity – just an assembly of inert chemicals – unless you believe in zombies – the 'living dead' that are alleged to obtain their reproductive energy by somehow using the inherent vampire tactics of these inert chemicals to selectively parasitize susceptible living host cells. Also note that cells must generally be 'susceptible' [i.e. capable of submitting to an action, process or operation] to viral infection. In other words, not just any old cells will do. It gets curiouser and curiouser cried Alice!
Echan. There is no evidence that viruses have ever evolved in any physical sense of the word – its all speculation and junk science.
If viruses do not do anything and are completely passive then it follows that they are also completely subject to the action of the environment in which they find themselves. The environment must therefore miraculously 'do' EVERYTHING for the virus in question since no other determinations are possible
Unfortunately, the 'environment' must also include the virus and the extracellular environment of the cell to make this miracle possible, including all the specific chemical reactions involved- remember the virus does NOTHING and can do NOTHING and is at the complete mercy of its environment. But if the virus is also conceived as PART of the environment and is completely dependent upon it if things are to happen then all things are possible including miracles!!!!!!!!!!!! Really!
Sorry for cross-posting. But there is another discussion on this forum on the same exact topi.
Viruses are both, dead AND alive. Outside a living cell they are nothing but a large complex of organic chemicals. Inside the cell they assume some properties of life. I believe it's impossible to truly create life from inert matter, without using another life form to assist in the process. Or at least we are a very long way from it.
Since it is now fairly easy to create certain viruses from scratch, as done by Eckard Wimmer of Stony Brook University, I think it's not really life that's being created, but rather at best “re-created” from known information. This life can be “molded” within certain parameters to be put to good use, for instance in the making of new vaccines, as the groups around Eckard Wimmer and Steffen Mueller subsequently showed (some explanation found here: http://ms.cc.sunysb.edu/~smueller/index.html )
The closest thing to creating some type of new life form is the group around Craig Venter. They use a completely synthetic bacterial genome, and try to transplant it into an empty bacterium, which had its genome completely taken out. However, as I said this process depends on an empty surrogate bacterium, which contains all the “stuff of life” in form of thousands of different proteins, EXCEPT the information (i.e genome) to replicate itself. So, even if they succeed in doing that, it may new life form, and after “booting” it from the synthetic genome, it will assume the properties encoded by the new genome, but it first needed that “empty” bacterial shell, and THAT perhaps can never be made from scratch, because it is way too complex.
Tony, I just cannot follow your train of thought. I think you read too much Hegel. Are you saying nobody has ever seen a virus? Are you saying there is no evidence they EXIST? You are seriously deluded. This is not what this discussion is about. Of course it is a fact that viruses EXIST! The question is are they ALIVE? The penny in your pocket EXISTS, right? I'm sure you would agree it is not alive. Your dog, if you have one, exists, and you would probably agree it is alive. The problem we're discussing here, is where do viruses fit in on this continuum. Viruses CAN be and HAVE BEEN seen, touched, photographed, isolated, broken up into there constituent, and yes for some of them even put back together from their constituent.
I think we want to be cautious about terms like “dead” when we really mean inactive. If we were to consider that the cell is the environment in which the virus “lives” and operates, then is that substantially different than arguing that water is the environment in which fish live and operate?
In particular, if we consider an animal like the lungfish which can enter a state of torpor for up to three years if the water dries up, it has a mechanism whereby it can maintain itself (so it's not dead), until the water returns. Many animals using varying adaptations of hiberation, estivation and torpor to enter such states when the environment is too hostile for their survival. Might such a state not describe a virus outside of the cell?
Bob – You cannot follow my train of thought because you simply do not wish to do so. If Hegelian philosophy is involved then it is you that has introduced it not me.
Why is it that when someone challenges an ALLEGED mainstream scientific 'fact' the one who is doing the challenging is usually and invariably branded as either deluded or heretical? Dr Fritz Albert Popp was branded a nutcase but turned out to be correct regarding his research into the biophoton emission of cells.
All I am asking anyone to do is to prove conclusively that pathogenic viruses have been isolated, photographed and biochemically characterized. It is one thing to state that viruses can be, and have been seen touched, isolated etc as you simply allege, it is another to prove that statement scientifically with the hard evidence. I bet you cannot do that can you! If pathogenic viruses do not exist then the question as to whether they are dead or alive is redundant, so it is a question of prime importance.
However, Bob do not worry about it because NOBODY to date has had the bottle to take up this challenge and I am still waiting for the proof – not textbook speculation, secondary sources and other twaddle. So unless you or somebody else can come up with the hard primary evidence the whole kit and caboodle of pathogenic viruses [dead or alive] as they are currently understood in virology is on a very shaky and speculative footing.
If and only if the latter issue has been done and dusted, can we say that human pathogenic viruses do really exist as a scientific 'fact' [whether they are dead or alive] within the context of scientific discourse. This includes the 'flying pig' virus too – H1N1. But one thing is for certain they have to exist in a specific form first in order for them to be isolated and predicated with life or death.
Sorry Bob but not BOTH as you clearly and categorically state but provide no proof only further speculation as to whether or not they may or may not 'fit' into your alleged 'continuum' between existences – a dead penny and a living dog. That is of course, if I have read you correctly – apologies if I have not.
Regards, Tony
THIS IS REPLY HAS BEEN WRONGLY POSTED TO G ADAM – IT WAS DIRECTED AT BLOGGERBOB
Bob – like the vast majority of microbiologists you are treating the physical existence of viruses as a fait accompli when they have not yet been effectively isolated, photographed and biochemically characterized scientifically, and despite all the usual objections to the contrary. Show me the beef!
Here, I am referring to the alleged human disease causing viruses. To date I have been unable to find any hard scientific evidence that these pathogenic viruses actually exist in isolation in the natural physical material world.
If viruses in general [assuming they do exist] are BOTH dead AND alive which you appear to be implying then their general form of existence is a CONTRADICTORY one. If that is the case then how are they able to function effectively as viruses at all whether inside or outside a cell??? Do you see the problem here?
This is fucking shit dont trust this little bitchfucker!!!
Hi Superbitch – I have been waitng for a really inspiring comment like yours to sooner or later pop up out of the woodwork to further our scientific knowledge (or rather the lack of it) when it comes to proving the physical existence of the so-called human disease causing viruses (whether live or dead).
Because I'm not sure who your comment was directed at, or who or what you are asking people not to trust, it would be very useful if you could specify precisely what part of the blog you have found to be 'excrement' and why. One can understand if you've just had a bad day at the lab and things haven't quite worked out in finding any pathogenic viruses in your cultures – well they say life's a BITCH and then ya die – so why worry my friend!!
Prof. Racaniello,
1. If your view is that viruses are not alive, are they dead? Or do you think they are neither alive or dead?
2. If viruses are not alive, why some viral vaccines contain live viruses?
3. Do you think that obligate intracellular bacteria are not alive either? They can't replicate without host cells, same as viruses.
4. I disagree with the view that viruses cannot adapt and evolve, in fact as a professor of virology, you should know this better than anyone. If they can, they should be consider as a living thing, despite lacking the “organismic” structure and ability to metabolize.
Sincerely
Prof. Racaniello,
1. If your view is that viruses are not alive, are they dead? Or do you think they are neither alive or dead?
2. If viruses are not alive, why some viral vaccines contain live viruses?
3. Do you think that obligate intracellular bacteria are not alive either? They can't replicate without host cells, same as viruses.
4. I disagree with the view that viruses cannot adapt and evolve, in fact as a professor of virology, you should know this better than anyone. If they can, they should be consider as a living thing, despite lacking the “organismic” structure and ability to metabolize.
Sincerely
Good point. Virus is a never ending circle:)
thanks a lot !! you helped me!! Ü
wow..so true:)
my boyfriend simply just LOVES viruses!!! this article just sttumulated him!
Thank You
This Helped Me On My Homework
omg its non living
good
I think it is also interesting that evolution, one of the basic foundations for the coming about of viruses as well as pretty much everything out there also has no solid scientific evidence yet is believed as fact and not questioned just like viruses
Whoever you are you certainly ain’t me.
I thought that this blog site was open to serious debate over issues like whether pathogenic viruses have actually been physically isolated as whole viruses and not in bits and pieces and then stuck together with a bit of imagination and wishful thinking alleging to end up with a patchwork quilt of gene substance as if it were the real thing. Until that question has been solved scientifically then the whole question as to whether or not such viruses are dead or alive is purely academic. Hope this one gets posted.
omg, thank you so much for that educational comment. Thanks to your amazing insight I understand viruses completely 😉 Seriously, get a life and leave the actual thinking for people who have brains….
Obviously someone out there doesen’t like scientific debate or discussion if it gets down to the nitty gritty. So the TONY who is trying to subvert my postings to bloggerbob and others is not me since I do not resort to assinine comments with malintent!!!!
I was a computer programmer for 40 years. During that time I created some things from scratch (editor, computer language, etc.) But I also found some other programs written by others which I modified so much you could hardly see the origins anymore. Some of those “hacks” were more useful than the programs I wrote from scratch.
So, that “empty” bacterial shell is simply some old code that Venter decided to hack rather than write from scratch. Some of the programs I hacked, I later went back and studied, eventually writing new code from scratch to do the same thing, but with cleaned up algorithms. I also moved to larger computers along the way.
When I first starting hacking code, I couldn’t see how anyone could write huge programs. Then I learned about modularization. Then I learned about the division of labor and interfaces.
Almost everything I ever learned about computers has some parallel in cell biology. With millions of brilliant minds reverse engineering everything inside that “empty” shell, we’ll simply create programming libraries (or dll’s) of all the components in a cell. I probably won’t live long enough to see it, but sans self destruction, I’d say in 30-50 years we’ll be building living cells from parts the same way we build new computer chips and drivers. In fact, it’s all pretty much software nowadays.
I think we should call it “Visual Biology” since our tools will be pretty high level by then. Want your microbe to have a propeller – just click on add genetic component…
This is a very interesting and appropriate way to look at the
engineering of viruses, bacteria, maybe even eukaryotes. I like the
‘visual biology’ parallel. If you don’t mind, I’m going to read this
on TWiV.
i think that viruses are alive
its true ?