ARE VIRUSES ALIVE ?
Anyone who has had the flu knows that his or her body has been attacked by something.
The virus that causes flu symptoms not only gets under your skin, it gets right
into your cells and takes over. You can’t treat the disease with antibiotics, though, as
you can a bacterial infection. Antibiotics kill bacteria but they have no effect at all on
a virus. Are viruses living things like bacteria?
Believe it or not, this is a question that does not have a clear answer. Viruses are
particles, consisting of a DNA or RNA molecule surrounded by a protective protein
coat. Viruses reproduce by transferring their DNA to a living cell. Essentially, they
hijack the cell, turning it into a factory to produce new viruses. The host cell uses
all its energy producing hundreds or thousands of new viruses and then bursts apart,
sending them out into the world.