Are Viruses alive do they have the 7 characteristics of life??
An argument can be made that it has all of these properties, however. This whole idea of 7 characteristics of life seems so arbitrary anyway and I do not believe them to be truly living but heres how you could argue for all of them. Reproduction-They can replicate their DNA, even though they have to hijack another cells processes to do so the virus still has the genetic information to enable the replication of its heriditary material. Growth-This one is tricky but single cell organisms can have difficulty truly fulfilling this, viruses do replicate their DNA and also encode for the formation of the multiple proteins needed for the virus so in a sense it could be said to utilize materials from the environment in order to grow as a population, all be it while needing a host to do so. Certainly, however, a virus is able to mass produce itself and grow its population Have a cell-Well the virus can be seen to maintain a decent portion of its life within its own coded for protein coat, an or
