Simple Question: Are Viruses Alive?

That is what I want to know!!!!

Simple Question: Are Viruses Alive?liveupdate

There is a tremendous debate about this question - scientists do not agree

on the answer. Some people consider them to be just a bunch of chemicals. Other

people consider them to be living parasites, because they require the metabolic

machinery of host cells to survive. But they do reproduce, and they do have genetic

material, so many people consider them to be the simplest living organisms. Probably

the safest answer is that viruses have both living and nonliving characteristics.

Source: BIOLOGY, by Neil Campbell, third edition

Ellen Mayo

Simple Question: Are Viruses Alive?nortin

NO

Unless you are in a graduate level microbiology/virology class; at this level there is some debate about certain viruses, but even at this level the basic answer is still NO.
No the virus is not considered to be a living organism. It uses other living cells and their cellular machinery to replicate/proliferate and then spread.
Basically, no since viruses require a living host to survive. Some say yes, they are a living organism but, this has been an ongoing debate.
no
This is a highly debated subject by scientists. Some say yes, others say no. As far as I know, they have not agreed on an answer yet.
No. Viruses are acellular, obligate, intracellular parasites. They can only reproduce within a host's cell, basically by gaining entry into the cell and taking over the host cells machinery to carry about their replication. They cannot live outside a host cell, they just exist. Outside of the host cell they are called virions.
I am not an expert and do not know the answer to the question. However, this link should be able to help you:

http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/yel...