Is a Virus a Living thing?
Chris Tarpey
Biology
1/25/15
1st Period
In my opinion, I think a virus is not a living because it does not reproduce without invading other cells, have no metabolism, and they do not grow. Viruses cause diseases inside humans and other living things like bacteria. But unlike bacteria, it is not made up of cells which means it is a-cellular. This is also an argument of why viruses are not living. All together viruses do not have properties of living things so that is why they are not living.
My first reason that a viruses is not living is that viruses cannot reproduce. Viruses rely on the things they invade to copy their genes and allow them to reproduce. Once viruses enter a host organism, they get into the cells in the body, injecting the cell with the viruses’ genetic information or DNA. They do not reproduce with another organism or by itself they have to take over another organism.
The next reason they are not living is they have no metabolism. Every living thing has a metabolism which breaks down things in foods such as fats. Viruses are nothing more than infectious genes which is able to put those genes into a cell and make the cell produce all the viral products to make more viruses. They do not break down their own food and so that’s another property of life they do not have.
The last reason viruses are not alive is that they cannot grow any bigger than what they already are. Viruses cannot eat food or grow on their own, but they can make more of themselves if they live inside the cells of other organisms, called "hosts". The viruses attack those host cells and make more of themselves. Then the viruses move on to other host cells and do it all over again. Basically they do not grow but just copy themselves by invading other organisms.
As my conclusion, viruses are not living they cannot live either. If they were living then they would be able to grow and develop and...