Viruses do not have all of the characteristics of living things.

They consist of a
protein coat which contains either DNA or RNA. They are not made of cells. They
have no cellular structures. They do not require nutrients. They do not have
metabolism. They do not grow or develop. They do not reproduce on their own.
They must high-jack a living cell, inject it's genetic material, which then takes over
the host cell which then becomes a virus factory. Eventually the cell becomes so full
of replicated viruses that they burst, releasing the viruses so they can go on to
attack other cells.
Viruses fascinate me. How is that they are not living
organisms? Do you have an idea how did they evolve from
other organisms? I was thinking that they probably evolved
from the mitochondria, is it possible?
Answer 1:
Viruses are not classified as being alive because they dont have
their own machinery for reproducing. They can only take over the
machinery of cells, turning them into virus factories. But not
everyone agrees with this system. Someone might say, Hey,
parasites need to reproduce inside other organisms, but theyre
alive. That would be a reasonable argument for saying that viruses
are a form of life. I tell my students that people like to make nice
neat categories, but the natural world almost never fits into them.
Putting things into categories can be helpful, but we have to
remember that the categories are usually artificial and should not
get in the way of understanding all of the amazing diversity of the
world.
Im really impressed that you thought about the mitochondria as a
possible ancestor for viruses. They best story we have today is that
mitochondria were once free-living bacteria. Did viruses evolve from
bacteria? Maybe. It is difficult to say because it may have happened
3 billion years ago, and DNA just doesnt last that long. Viruses
dont seem to fossilize well, either. Since bacteria were around
before the cells that we call eukaryotic (plant, animal, fungal, and
protist cells), that may be what happened. Some scientists think that
different groups of viruses evolved independently, maybe some
even came from eukaryotic cells, and some from bacterial cells.
If viruses are basically parasites that evolved from living bacteria,
would that be another argument for saying that they are a type of
life?
We still know very little about viruses and bacteria, compared to
what we know about multicellular organisms. You may want to
consider a career in microbiology if you want to explore them.
Thanks for asking,

Answer 2:
Viruses fascinate me too, so I actually wrote an article all about
them. Feel free to check it out here:
viruses origins
I think it will answer your questions (and maybe raise some more!).
There's actually a lot of debate over whether they are "alive" or not,
and some scientists think that we might have evolved from viruses,
or something like them! Viruses have definitely been around for a
very long time. See the article for more details.

Answer 3:
Viruses are not considered "alive" because they lack many of the
properties that scientists associate with living organisms. Primarily,
they lack the ability to reproduce without the aid of a host cell, and
don't use the typical cell- division approach to replication.
Essentially, however, this is just how scientists have defined the
word. If viruses were classified as living, other types of selfreplicating genes, proteins, and molecules would make the list as
well.
There are a few theories on the origin of viruses. Since there is no
historical record of the earliest viruses, the only evidence available
is from current species. Indeed, one theory suggests that viruses
may have arisen from parasitic cells which lost their cellular
structure through evolution. However, there isn't a lot of evidence
from current cells that shows this type of transition is possible.
Another theory is that they evolved along with living cells, from
genes or proteins that happened to be self-replicating. It would
seem that since the spectrum of viruses around today is so wide,
they likely evolved through many different pathways.

Answer 4:
Yes, viruses are interesting. Viruses don't fit the definition of life, but
they're certainly not dead either! They're an interesting example of
how we can't really separate stuff into 2 simple categories - Living
and Non-living. Viruses seem to be in between those 2 categories.
And the question gets even more interesting when scientists talk
about life on other planets, because this might be very different from

life on earth. They call it "Life as we Don't know it."

Some scientists are still debating about What is Life? In fact, I wrote
a little article about it last fall, for a collection of journal articles all
about that subject.
I think viruses probably evolved from simple cells such as bacteria
and archaea that don't have a nucleus. Keep asking questions!
Best wishes,
Answer 5:
Excellent, viruses ARE fascinating! A virus particle is made up of 2
main parts: genetic material (either RNA or DNA) and a coat that is
made up of protein and sometimes lipids (fats) that protect the
genetic material. A virus can live outside of a host cell but it can not
reproduce without a host!
Scientists argue a lot about whether viruses are in fact living
organisms or just organic structures interacting with living
organisms. Some properties of viruses make them seem alive like
the fact that they have genetic material and that they make copies
of themselves to reproduce. On the other hand, people will argue
that viruses do not have any structure to their cells (which even
simple living organisms have), they do not have the ability to make
their own chemical products and need a host cell to do that for them
and that is why they can not reproduce without a host cell. This
debate is not going to be settled anytime soon, but you can decide
for yourself whether you think viruses are living or not!
Where viruses originated is also something that scientists disagree
about. There are 3 main ideas for how viruses evolved in the first
place. 1) Viruses could have started out as bacteria and just lost all
the genes they needed to survive on their own. 2) Viruses could
have begun as small pieces of genetic material that escaped from a
larger organism and infected another. 3) Viruses simply started out
as viruses when proteins and genetic material mixed and that these
particles have been living this way (infecting living cells to replicate)
for billions of years, ever since life itself began. Viruses do not form
fossils, which makes it really hard for scientists to determine where
exactly they came from.
For some more information on viruses, check out these two links:
virus1
virus2
Answer 6:

Viruses are very strange organisms. They are not really considered
to be living creatures. This is because they are not capable of
replicating themselves on their own. Viruses need to infect another
cell in order to replicate. This is because they do not have all the
genes necessary for replication. Viruses are made up of their
genetic material and a few proteins, which is encapsulated in a
protein coat. They attach to a living cell and inject their nucleic acids
(and sometimes release their proteins as well) into a cell. The viral
nucleic acids then takes over the cell's own proteins and makes the
cell replicate the viral genetic material. Once the virus has
replicated its genome and made the proteins for its coat, it will
assemble and then cause its host cell to burst open. This releases a
new set of viruses to infect other cells. Thus, without another living
cell, viruses cannot replicate and spread.
The evolutionary origin of viruses is something that is unknown. It is
possible that viruses were actually cellular organisms once, which
became adapted to an intracellular life style. This is similar to how
mitochondria are believed to have evolved. However, it is unlikely
that viruses evolved directly from mitochondria. Viruses were likely
around long before mitochondria existed. Another theory is that
viruses originated from genetic material that co-evolved with cellular
organisms to become separate from the cellular genome and
eventually became more complex, resulting in the virus particles we
know today.

Answer 7:
Viruses lack the cellular machinery to be able to reproduce
themselves; without using the genetic code of a cell as their host,
the genetic information contained within a virus is meaningless. An
analogy I could make is that viruses are basically software, and
software requires hardware (in this case, a cell) to run on. For this
reason, most definitions of life do not identify viruses as living
organisms, because they aren't actually *organisms*.
This said, viruses do possess a lot of life- like qualities, including the
ability to carry information, reproduce (with help), and evolve under
natural selection. Saying that viruses aren't living in some sense is
also missing the point.
Viruses are strands of DNA or RNA contained within protein
sheathes and seem to be genetically related to the organisms that
they infect, as if they evolved from their hosts' genomes. This
means that viruses probably evolved multiple times from different
ancestors. I don't know of any viruses thought to have evolved from
mitochondria, or that can even infect mitochondria, but I see no

reason why it isn't possible that some could have.

Why are viruses considered non living?

I know that they don't fit the criteria but why not change the criteria? its like saying that a new species of
spider is discovered, but it does not fit all of the criteria ...show more
Update : Living organisms undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow,
respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive
generations. Life according to wikipedia.
Virus have been described as "organisms at the edge of life", since they resemble organisms in that they
possess genes and evolve by natural selection, and reproduce by creating multiple copies of themselves
through self-assembly. Although they have genes, they do not have a cellular structure, which is often
seen as the basic unit of life. Viruses do not have their own metabolism, and require a host cell to make
new products.Viruses according to wikipedia.
so therefore they fit half of the criteria. let set another example as this one is badly stated. Suppose there
is life on other planets that need other kind of properties to live. say, an ape like creature that has no cells
but a different type of enclosure to keep its genes it does not maintain homeostas
They are considered non-living because they do not have cells, which is commonly used as part of the
definition of what constitutes life. However, viruses do reproduce, which is another descriptor of life, so
there is not a definitive answer as to whether viruses are alive or not. They have been described as
"organisms at the edge of life."