Why aren't viruses classified as living organisms?

[Biosyn]

Perhaps we need a new classification that exists between life and non-life?

Gene Creatures

 

[Amiri Daudi]

Viruses are of botanical and zoological enigma.There some facts which shows that they are living and some facts that they are non-living.This is the reason why diseases cause by viruses are difficult to treat the only remedial measure is using the vaccines.The viruses replicate in this respect this is one characteristic of a living thing that of reproduction.On the other hand viruses can be crystalised and kept in a bottle and close even for 300yrs but when release and found their substrate organ they start to replicate again this charactiristic is not in living organisms.Viruses do not respire,digest or excrete as living organisms do.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

There some facts which shows that they are living and some facts that they are non-living.

It's more a case of we don't have a definition that can adequately deal with viruses rather than us not having enough facts about them.

This is the reason why diseases cause by viruses are difficult to treat the only remedial measure is using the vaccines.

Vaccines are not the only measure and for some diseases there is no vaccine but there are treatments (like interferon or anti-retrovirals). I'm not sure what you mean by difficult to treat as I am unsure what you are comparing it to.

The viruses replicate in this respect this is one characteristic of a living thing that of reproduction.On the other hand viruses can be crystalised and kept in a bottle and close even for 300yrs but when release and found their substrate organ they start to replicate again this charactiristic is not in living organisms.Viruses do not respire,digest or excrete as living organisms do.

You can also put the component parts of viruses into a vial and they self assemble, in that respect they are complex biological nanoparticles capable of self assembly.

 

[ViewsofMars]

The American Society of Microbiology states:

1. A virus is basically a tiny bundle of genetic material—either DNA or RNA—carried in a shell called the viral coat, or capsid, which is made up of bits of protein called capsomeres. Some viruses have an additional layer around this coat called an envelope. That's basically all there is to viruses.

2. Viruses are the simplest and tiniest of microbes; they can be as much as 10,000 times smaller than bacteria. Viruses consist of a small collection of genetic material (DNA or RNA) encased in a protective protein coat called a capsid. (Retroviruses are among the infectious particles that use RNA as their hereditary material. Probably the most famous retrovirus is human immunodeficiency virus, the cause of AIDS.) In some viruses, the capsid is covered by a viral envelope made of proteins, lipids and carbohydrates. The envelopes may be studded by spikes made of carbohydrates and proteins that help the virus particles attach to host cells. Outside of a host, viruses are inert, just mere microbial particles drifting aimlessly.

http://www.microbeworld.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=77&Itemid=72