Okay, this got me curious. From the wikipedia article on viruses:
Viruses are considered by some biologists to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection, although they lack the key characteristics, such as cell structure, that are generally considered necessary criteria for defining life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as “organisms at the edge of life” and as replicators.
They’re not compromised of cells, can’t self regulate, and can’t replicate on their own and other organisms have to do that for them. The last point being important to our criteria for living. I was never taught as a biologist by anyone that they were alive
“Obligate intracellular parasite” was drilled and showed up on multiple exams, along with all that you mentioned. I’ve also heard “escaped cellular machinery.”
For reproduction purposes, many parasites require a specific host to reproduce in. An interesting example is a worm that mind controls a snail and gets itself eaten by a bird, and then reproduces in the bird. Surprisingly, both the snail and the bird survive this process. (Granted, the difference between this and a virus is the virus uses the RNA decoding infrastructure in the infected cell to reproduce itself, while a parasite just is adapted to reproducing in the environment of the hosts body, but uses its own cells to do the reproduction).
However, there are many, many examples in nature of some essential task (often some part of the energy production/absorption process) that are done by a different organism. Some particularly interesting examples:
there are a handful of animals that eat plants, absorb the chloroplasts, and use those to do photosynthesis
In most animals, even in humans, a lot of the digestion process is done by bacteria living in your digestive tract. Some illnesses are caused by issues with the digestive tract bacteria, such as them dying out.
There are other animals adapted to living in environments or using things produced by other organisms. Hermit crabs get their name from their behavior of borrowing shells created by other organisms.
Really the only organism that can truly live “by itself” would probably be something like algae.
Worth mentioning: life is a construct created by humans. We decide if it’s alive, just like we decided if anything else was alive. There’s no definite answer that science can provide on this topic. It can only provide humanity with more facts with which we can contrive a distinction.
Okay, this got me curious. From the wikipedia article on viruses:
They’re not compromised of cells, can’t self regulate, and can’t replicate on their own and other organisms have to do that for them. The last point being important to our criteria for living. I was never taught as a biologist by anyone that they were alive
o7
“Obligate intracellular parasite” was drilled and showed up on multiple exams, along with all that you mentioned. I’ve also heard “escaped cellular machinery.”
Absolutely fascinating…if a tad frightening.
There are plenty of organisms we generally consider “alive” that can’t replicate or do other key functions without other organisms.
Like what? Sorry my comment posted so many times my phone was messing up
For reproduction purposes, many parasites require a specific host to reproduce in. An interesting example is a worm that mind controls a snail and gets itself eaten by a bird, and then reproduces in the bird. Surprisingly, both the snail and the bird survive this process. (Granted, the difference between this and a virus is the virus uses the RNA decoding infrastructure in the infected cell to reproduce itself, while a parasite just is adapted to reproducing in the environment of the hosts body, but uses its own cells to do the reproduction).
However, there are many, many examples in nature of some essential task (often some part of the energy production/absorption process) that are done by a different organism. Some particularly interesting examples:
there are a handful of animals that eat plants, absorb the chloroplasts, and use those to do photosynthesis
In most animals, even in humans, a lot of the digestion process is done by bacteria living in your digestive tract. Some illnesses are caused by issues with the digestive tract bacteria, such as them dying out.
There are other animals adapted to living in environments or using things produced by other organisms. Hermit crabs get their name from their behavior of borrowing shells created by other organisms.
Really the only organism that can truly live “by itself” would probably be something like algae.
Are these requirements for your definition of life? Is it possible for us to reproduce without relying on other organisms?
There you go defining humans as not alive again
Worth mentioning: life is a construct created by humans. We decide if it’s alive, just like we decided if anything else was alive. There’s no definite answer that science can provide on this topic. It can only provide humanity with more facts with which we can contrive a distinction.
Yes, everything is a social construct and reality is fake and bad
ok i’m not a biologist but having a cell structure as a prerequisite for defining life sounds very arbitrary to me.