Viruses are not alive

Another sign of the fuzzy boundaries between living and non-living is that viruses share a lot of their genetics with their host cells. A study of protein folds, structures that change little during evolution, in thousands of organisms and viruses, found folds shared across all and only 66 that were specific to viruses.

The Royal Institution of Australia has an Education resource based on this article. You can access it here. Originally published by Cosmos as Why are viruses considered non-living? Cosmos is published by The Royal Institution of Australia, a charity dedicated to connecting people with the world of science. Financial contributions, however big or small, help us provide access to trusted science information at a time when the world needs it most.

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This suggests that certain types of viruses may actually be living. Viruses only become active when they come into contact with a host cell. Image by CarlosRoBe. Living things use energy. Outside of a host cell, viruses do not use any energy. They only become active when they come into contact with a host cell. Because they do not use their own energy, some scientists do not consider them alive. This is a bit of an odd distinction though, because some bacteria rely on energy from their host, and yet they are considered alive.

These types of bacteria are called obligate intracellular parasites. Living things respond to their environment. Whether or not viruses really respond to the environment is a subject of debate. They interact with the cells they infect, but most of this is simply based on virus anatomy. For example, they bind to receptors on cells, inject their genetic material into the cell, and can evolve over time within an organism.

Living cells and organisms also usually have these interactions. Cells bind to other cells, organisms pass genetic material, and they evolve over time, but these actions are much more active in most organisms. In viruses, none of these are active processes, they simply occur based on the virus's chemical make-up and the environment in which it ends up. When scientists apply this list of criteria to determine if a virus is alive, the answer remains unclear.

Because of this, the debate of whether viruses are living or non-living continues. Biodiversity Blog. Are Viruses Alive? Friday, 27 March Nicole L Elmer.

Illustration: Nicole Elmer Viruses are remarkably diverse. Austin Spring Insects: Crane Flies. About the author. Nicole L Elmer View author's profile More posts from author. Nicole handles the communications for the Biodiversity Center. Comments No comments made yet. Be the first to submit a comment.