From owner-cellbiol@net.bio.net Wed Feb 05 22:00:00 1997 Path: biosci!agate!nntpfeed.doc.ic.ac.uk!sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk!warwick!leicester!usenet From: "Dr E. Buxbaum" Newsgroups: bionet.cellbiol Subject: Re: RE: Is a virus alive? Date: 6 Feb 1997 15:59:33 GMT Organization: University of Leicester (PCFS User) Lines: 18 Message-ID: <5dcv55$plj@falcon.le.ac.uk> References: <199702052207.IAA01882@arnie.cfi.unsw.EDU.AU> NNTP-Posting-Host: pc47.msb.le.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.22 (Windows; I; 16bit) p.french@ARNIE.CFI.UNSW.EDU.AU (Peter French) wrote: >From which I conclude that s/he thinks that a virus is not alive. This is >clearly nonsense. If a virus is not alive how can it be killed by viricidal >agents? Saying it is not alive because it uses cellular metabolism to >propagate itself is like saying that humans are not alive because we need >the earth's atmosphere to be able to live. Clearly under any sensible >definition of life, viruses are living organisms. A better question is "Are >prions alive?" Unfortunately, it is part of the common definition of living organisms, that they have a metabolism and that they are able to reproduce themselfs. That bit with the atmospere is irrelevant, by the way. Every organism needs material from its surounding, otherwise metabolism would be impossible. .