Are Viruses Alive?

Are viruses alive?

To be alive requires certain levels of interaction and complexity from the organism, according to the Scientific American. Viruses do not meet the critical complexity, though they do exhibit some characteristics of living organisms. However, in October of 2004, French researchers announced that they had sequenced the genome of the largest virus to date, the Mimivirus. They found that it had many genes previously thought to belong only to cellular organisms, and that it was also one of the most complex viruses to date. It challenged the previously established line between life and nonliving matter.

Most biologists, though, still posit that viruses are not alive, seeing as viruses are not made out of cells, do not grow, cannot produce their own energy, and cannot keep themselves in a stable state. So while viruses may be similar to living things, they are not alive.