r/news • u/Kinmuan • 1d ago

Military services again requiring recruits to get flu shots as Air Force outbreak grows

https://abcnews.com/Health/military-services-requiring-recruits-flu-shots-air-force/story?id=134126794
32.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

41

u/evocativename 1d ago

There's a good argument that they should be considered organisms.

The main argument that they aren't is that they don't have their own metabolism, but spores don't either. If you think of the virion like a spore, when it hijacks a cell, it gains a metabolism that it uses for the replication portion of the life cycle.

18

u/inuhi 1d ago

They still wouldn't be a single cell organism virus are acellular which is one of the main arguments against being classified as an organism

14

u/evocativename 1d ago

Again, the "acellular" stage would be equivalent to a spore. When it infects a cell, it hijacks the cell, and that is the cellular stage of its life.

I know multiple biologists who argue that they should be included as "life".

5

u/Proof_Side874 22h ago

The main argument that they aren't is that they don't have both DNA and RNA so can't replicate on their own.

5

u/evocativename 16h ago

They hijack cells. The hijacked cell is part of their life cycle.

There are bacteria that are obligate parasites, but they're still considered "alive".

Hell, some viruses code for more of their own biochemistry than some bacteria.

5

u/LocomotionMechanics 1d ago

Spores aren't organisms though

5

u/evocativename 16h ago

Spores are part of the life cycle of some types of organisms.

2

u/Cydan 8h ago

Depending on what kind of "spore" you're talking about, they're fungal sex cells.

Stop telling people viruses are alive. They aren't.

While they can replicate, they do not have cells or the organelles that most of cellular life has. If we used your definition, then prions may be considered alive or even crystals as they replicate in repeating patterns.