Virus is a living organism

Answer 1

No, viruses are not alive. They don't have a characteristics of a living organism, nor do they have ANY speck of intelligence.

For example:

• A virus can only move by wind, water, blood streams, etc. whereas we can use energy to move ourselves.
• They only have a protein markers which may match that of a cell. When it matches, the viruses is attached to the cell and the nucleic acid (which can vary greatly) is injected. By making themselves out of materials inside the cell, invading a host is the only way they can reproduce.
• They cannot adapt and can be killed when heat is applied which will denature the protein coating.
• A virus cannot respond to stimuli because all it does is float around until it gets attached to a same protein marker.

Answer 2

Viruses are not considered living organisms because they cannot carry out essential life processes without a host cell. They lack the ability to replicate on their own and do not possess cellular structure or metabolism.

Answer 3

This is often disputed. You see, one of the 'functions' of life - in other words, one thing that makes a thing living - is the ability to reproduce. Viruses contain genetic material, but cannot express their genes by themselves. They invade a host cell and inject their DNA into it, and the 'hijacked' cell makes copies of the virus using the DNA. The viruses cannot reproduce by themselves as they have no nucleus. However, viruses are usually considered to be acellular organisms.