I got educated as an undergraduate with the whole "are viruses alive or not????" debate. I feel totally over it now. There's no abrupt boundary dividing "living thing" and "non-living thing", and viruses are part of the graduated zone between the two.
If there's no other (compatible) life around, viruses are effectively dead. But if there's life around for them to infect, you need to consider them a part of the living system.
And there certainly are viruses that infect bacteria and fungi, so I would expect them to be part of a space station's ecosystem.
Proving how much of a *%&@^# evolutionary biologist I am, "viruses, bacteria, protists, fungi" makes me cringe. Let's just lump together everything that isn't a plant or an animal. Clearly I should not be let near children; they're unlikely to learn much from me :-).
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-03-10 08:03 am (UTC)If there's no other (compatible) life around, viruses are effectively dead. But if there's life around for them to infect, you need to consider them a part of the living system.
And there certainly are viruses that infect bacteria and fungi, so I would expect them to be part of a space station's ecosystem.
Proving how much of a *%&@^# evolutionary biologist I am, "viruses, bacteria, protists, fungi" makes me cringe. Let's just lump together everything that isn't a plant or an animal. Clearly I should not be let near children; they're unlikely to learn much from me :-).