Are viruses alive?

Prions are the Enron of the NIH and the TSE labs
Have you read Dr. Frank Bastian's,
(the foremost authority on CJD) research on CJD. He implicates and
certainly proves to the satisfaction
of anyone who will listen that the main culprit
behind all TSE infection, including Alzheimer's,
is the spiroplasma bacteria. Please carefully investigate his claims.
I think you also might investigate
how the majority of respected scientists arrived
at conclusions that ignore basic biology and the rules of evidence.
The prion will soon become known for the joke that it is
(Stan said PRIONsounded good, a great name). But what
about all those folks that might have been helped if science
had been chosen over self serving politics and incompetence.

I am currently a 1st year student of Biology in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. During my studies we have talked alot about viruses. One thing which troubles me is the question, are viruses alive? In my opinion they are, i feel that many biologists will not accept that they are as the whole definition of LIFE would have to be changed, however the definition of life has changed many times over the past few centuries, why can't it again? I would really like to hear your opinion on this. http://www.dvds-online-rental-review.com

adamTS1107835 wrote:

All viruses have genes

Thus "viruses Are Alive"

Dov

On The Virosphere

Highly recommended

A. "Enter the Virosphere"

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/47695/title/Enter_the_Virosphere
As evidence of the influence of viruses escalates, appreciation of these master manipulators grows

- "Now a more productive view of death by virus is emerging".

- "In death, victims of viruses release nutrients. Their killing feeds the world.”

Koonin argues that viruses may have predated cellular life.

B. Henis argues that independent, not-yet-genomed-nucleated-celled, genes, predated viruses and cellular life

and that life survival, replication, dates viruses either co- or post-cellular evolution.

Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
Updated Life's Manifest May 2009
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/140/122.page#2321
Implications Of E=Total[m(1 + D)]
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/180/122.page#3108

Unlike a bacterium or a cell of an animal, a virus lacks the ability to replicate on its own. A virus does contain some genetic information critical for making copies of itself, but it can't get the job done without the help of a cell's duplicating equipment, borrowing enzymes and other molecules to concoct more virus.

" It's not a living organism, " said immunologist Fabio Romerio of the Institute of Human Virology, founded and directed by Gallo. " It's simply a well organized molecular parasite. " ( By Corey Binns, Inside Look : How Viruses Invade Us, LiveScience, 05 June 2006 ).

Hi, I like this question for a number of reasons.

I have been folding protein for just around a year and a half now, and I have been folding a lot of stuff related to viruses.

I would call those Aminals. Amino Acids within a certain range that are able to mutate or have the ability to use a part of it'self or another protein, DNA of a host or nature to have further revelance to its own survival, communication, disguise, target, knowledge of other cells binders... etc etc... it somehows obtains a kind of conciousness or instinct to which it's living for what would be called in it's lifetime, propagated.

This entity (external or Internal) I believe doesnt need to be residing or resonating within a host/nature environment / cell to be part of life, as they know it. something is keeping these things exploring new avenues, to evolve, adding to their knowledge... if we don't also evolve and learn new ways to defend ourselves, they will find a way to replace us in the bigger game of life. as we know it.

they are very interesting indeed. I think they have a "life" of their own. for sure.

Misfolding proteins, cause cancers and other disease... but im not an expert. fold.it.

Aotearoa.

GatotICN000316476 wrote:To MichaelTS863182 :

As already been known, the radiation photons constitute a pack of discrete energy from light or electromagnetic wave. Its biological impacts can cause the gene mutation, and in my opinion .....resulting a certain toxic particle ( molecular parasite or toxic organic compound ? ), which is then identified as a type of virus.

For example, some villages in Brazil and in India are built accidentally on the land containing a great amount of Thorium element. Also, the water from several wells and mineral springs in Italy, Australia and in many other parts contain of million times regular radioactive. Researches have been performed in such places, and it is found out that the growing speed of cancer is tremendously high.

Beside Thorium, the esteemed gas of radioactive is discovered and named : Radon ( 222^Rn ). Radon and output of its disintegration transmit the alpha particles, and it has been analyzed that it becomes the prominent cause of lung cancer for the mine workers.

Basically, Radon is a very compacted gas and contained in ground, rocks or water. Once Radom releases from the ground, this gas tends to be trapped inside the house or building. Therefore, the more compacted the building is, the bigger chance to have the Radon gas trapped.

Ironically, crushing the rocks to be used as building materials means releasing Radon gas trapped inside the rocks. Not to be counted yet the release of Radon gas due to the expansion of the land and rocks caused by the global warming in earth.

In my opinion, a number of viruses : Smallpox, Influenza, Human T-cell leukemia, Human Papillomavirus ( HPV ), HTLV 1, HTLV 2 and many other( all viruses ).......including HIV/AIDS Viruses .......are caused by radiation. I am quite sure for Smallpox, Influenza and AIDS Viruses : the main causal factor is Ultra Violet ( UV ). In my opinion : The origin of viruses is Radiation.

The other factor for AIDS Viruses, I predict : Radon, and the Risk Group : which have the characteristic to absorb the UV, Although they were using condoms, still they make their bodies as an UV absorbent.

I'm sorry. If I'm wrong, nothing is lost.

GatotICN000313487

Yes, I have a tons of viruses on my laptop and pc.

Radiation from the sun is the main source of human exposure to UV radiation, which comprises UVA, UVB and UVC rays.

95 per cent of solar radiation that reaches the earth's surface is UVA, the other 5 per cent is UVB, while UVC is blocked by the atmosphere's stratospheric layer.

The authors wrote that:

"Epidemiological studies have established a causal association between exposure to solar radiation and all major types of skin cancer."

Also, until now, it was thought that the gene mutation that is caused by UV radiation from the sun was caused only by UVB rays, but experiments on mice have shown that UVA can also cause the mutation and skin tumours. Thus the IARC has moved UV radiation as a whole (UVA, UVB and UVC) to Group 1. These were all in Group 2 before.

Welders came under special attention in the report, but the authors were not able to conclude from the evidence available if the occurrence of melanoma of the eye in that group was as a result of UV radiation alone, or other agents or both. The authors said:

"A full review of the carcinogenic hazards of welding will be undertaken with high priority."

The IARC has also moved all types of ionising radiation into Group 1. This was the first time that all types of ionising radiation have been reviewed by one team of experts.

Ionising radiation includes:

* Radon gas, which damages the lungs. It can seep from soil, rocks and building materials. The Special Report says radon gas is the second leading cause of lung cancer after tobacco smoke.

( Sunbeds and UV Classed As Definitely Cancer-Causing, Medical News Today, 29 July 2009 )

Under such the facts, does it means that all the AIDS and Cancer sufferer should be prevented from the contact with the sunlight and the PUVA therapy, so that the AIDS and Cancer sufferer can be prevented from the deadly attack of AIDS and Cancer viruses ?

_________________________________________________________________________
One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not take medicine ( Sir William Osler, 1849 - 1919 ).

It's certainly an interesting area of science. However for anyone who is ill with cancer I guess it doesn't really matter whether cancer is a virus or not. What matters is finding a cure.

Im not going to add to this one but would like to say i enjoyed reading it guys...

I think that's a really interesting question, and not one with a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer.

In some ways they seem to be and others not. I'd probably say they are more alive than not even though that's not the popular opinion, just because they have genomes, they replicate, etc. But there's no right answer.

Acai Optimum

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.

I think that whether or not viruses are "alive" (whateve THAT means) is immaterial to whether they impact evolution. There are plenty of non-living things that impact evolution (like plate tectonics and other non-biological environmental factors). Evolution, by it's very nature, does not exist in a vacuum. Even if viruses are "non-living" the fact that they affect "living" things (particularly the fact that tey do this by phyiscally invading and biochemically changing "living" cella) means their impact on evolution cannot be ignored. Their impact on evolution may be different from, say, bacteria's effect, but that doesn't mean the effect doesn't exist.

Just another example of how narrow-minded people can be when the become highly specialized. Specialists are essential, but they need generalists to keep them grounded in something akin to reality.

Radiation can damage many cellular targets, and the result is that molecular parasite.

Virology is not Religion.

I guess I would prefer yes for an answer..the fact that they are able to penetrate and multiply to a certain hosts and live with it shows that they are alive, though in some cases virus are often undetected until further infections shows..

http://watch-trueblood.org

A virus isn't even alive. It is a strand of DNA or RNA inside a protein coat. Bacteria are thought to be the first life forms. Viruses are thought to have coevolved with life because they can only reproduce with the infection of a life form. A virus will put its DNA in a cell and then make the cell make more viruses until it dies. The virus doesn't eat or use energy and it can't reproduce on it's own so it isn't considered a life form. The only reason it is studied in biology is because it affects life so much.

No, they only consist of DNA/RNA and a protein coat. To be considered alive you have to at least be on the cellular level.

yup viruses are alive and they are everywhere.

REDBULL!!

viruses are considered to be on the borderline of life - but are not alive. Fundamental reason for that classification is that they do not metabolize.Livea

Well there are certain characteristics that technically make up an organism, and a virus doens't have all of them. But to me, if that matters, I consider anything that can attack my body, reproduce in some way, and continue to do so as being alive. According to this site, viruses are right on the border of being alive and non living.Submit Articles