As a physician, I have to say that I think this was a brilliant presentation! As I was in medical school in the 70's, and haven't studied viruses since then, I was amazed at the depth and breadth of new information, and the clarity of his explanations!
@@brianeaton3734 Some of it is, but some of what he is saying is absolutely absurd. For example, the demonstration of the fused cells of the placenta, being mandatory for the survival of the fetus, and therefore REQUIRED for human reproduction (that much is true). But then he says the genes for the molecules responsible for the required fusion of the placenta cells are from a virus, and that quote "None of us would be here without those viral genes".. Ok, so if that is true, how did the virus infect a human that isn't there to begin with? Since we wouldn't be here without those viral genes to begin with?
@@trevorjameson3213 Sort of like asking if chickens come from eggs laid by chickens where did the egg come from before there was a chicken to lay it. It came from a chicken ancestor, The virus infected some ancestor(s) of placenta mammals.
@@cheapmovies25 As complicated as all this talk of Viruses is, I wonder, if maybe children should be learning this information by junior high school or even before. I studied for years to learn about them and yet in school, there is so few courses teaching what I believe our new world needs to know. If they are in us all than some of us must be in an adaptation mode right now,no matter what our age or? We will cease to exist? Yet we are still here, so why? We must be adapting to these. The people that die? Maybe, just maybe their body can not adapt quickly enough or maybe not at all. I am on Facebook. Care yo comment. I would very much like to hear from you but hope you have some background in this. It is pretty deep, mind blowing stuff. I wondered for years if viruses that land on us like a rocket ship are alive? Till now a window has opened for me, thanks to Carl and his various explanations. Much study may come up with better ways to travel in space. Possibly Robots to the stars injected with RNA altered to protect them? If we can’t go? Or other ways of getting there. Could be the aliens are now studying us for just such reasons, so they can reach further into space. See the Movie War Of The Worlds, either one if you wonder what killed the aliens anyway. Bye for now. Look for the cat in the window. That is me. Always Marva or Marva Huff. 🙋🎆. P. S. Have a Wonderful Holiday!
Just a supplement: Dmitri Ivanovsky was the first who performed that experiment with filters and who found that the remained liquid - which could not contain bacteria anymore - stood infectious. Beijerinck repeated Ivankovsky's experiment 6 yrs later.
The question of whether viruses are alive is a topic of debate among scientists. Viruses possess some characteristics of living organisms but lack others, leading to varied classifications. Some scientists consider viruses to be at the edge of life, as they exhibit some life-like qualities only when inside a host organism. Others classify them as non-living entities due to their dependency on host cells for reproduction and lack of metabolic activity. Thus, whether viruses are considered alive largely depends on the definitions and criteria used for life.
What a delightful lecture! I haven’t been as enthralled since hearing Stephen Jay Gould lecture in Australia many years ago. I look forward to reading your book with relish.
The Q&A link in the description seems to lead to the wrond video. It sent me to a video of a panel discussing how well the UK presented pandemic information. Edit: I see it's been fixed, it now leads to the actual Q&A.
It happens to be killing a whole lot of people right now going on two years running... it's defined our times in major ways and not the least bit surprising to find mentioned in ANY conversation about viruses since its inception...
This lecture has put me firmly on the side of viruses as definitively alive. If we think of the isolated virus as a seed, and not the adult virus, then it becomes clear that just as a maple seed outside of the ground cannot sprout or reproduce or any of the things we understand as life then a virus-seed outside of a cell will obviously not "sprout" or "reproduce". A virus is more like a plant than like bacteria. A virus is dependent on fertile soil (a cell) to become itself, and expecting the seed of the virus in isolation to demonstrate all the aspects of life is as preposterous as expecting a grain of rice in a jar to spontaneously reproduce, collect energy, and all this.
@@Euruzilys I admit, I'm only Wikipedia informed on prions. But they seem to be a separate case. Although we "vaccinate" for prions, that language just indicates that we can teach the immune system to recognize these dysfunctional proteins. I imagine the language of "replication" is also misguiding with prions. My cursory readings suggest this disease is something of a crystallization event, where proteins in a stable arrangement like to pull other proteins into the same arrangement. It would make sense that if that a crystalline-ready protein is in a favorable environment, it would continue its formation, and in that way imitates "transmission" and "infection". The main thing for prions is that they appear to have no DNA/RNA, and its progression happens extra-cellularly., which reads more like a purely chemical issue than anything else.
I would like to ask, how are seeds of plants described? Are seeds alive? There are a great many things they can't do until they find themselves in an environment conducive to growth. In many ways this seems to be a similar condition to the Virus. Once a Virus finds its way into a host medium it then becomes something new capable of producing fruit so to speak, these new fruit then go in search of a medium to grow much as a seed would also need to do. Maybe the entity created by the Virus and the host cell is the organism and what we recognize as the Virus really just a seed.
Almost lost me in the middle but the end is so posh By the way, I guess seeds are considered just a stratum of an organism's lifetime, though it kinda work like a virus it does not really "last forever" when dormant, wakes itself up from the dormant state, and do not get inside another organism to replicate, it grows by itself. We can't say the same about viruses because they are basically encased DNA or RNA. Does basically nothing, when it meets a cell the D-RNA just inserts itself in another's to make it replicate the D-RNA and the casing, and throughout all of this it seems to always be dormant. It does not protect itself, run away, seek prey, digest, metabolise, seek mates, communicate, sense stuff, avoid or seek environments, move... it's just there, then eventually the casing touches a cell's membrane and it plops in.
Yes they are. They are incredibly resiliant and t and efficient hey carry all their food inside them. But a seed can die, get old, run out of food, and so on. But at the end of the day, its just a big collection of living cells, just like any other multicellular organism.
I don't agree. A seed is capable of growing into a plant which can grow, metabolise, reproduce etc. A virus just triggers a living cell to make copies of the virus which, in themselves, do nothing, like the original virus. If you want to call the virus and cell an "entity", it's really just a hijacked cell which is then killed by the copies, and only the viruses are left, exactly the same as before, just more of them. Seeds produce life, viruses destroy it. And after all, poison can do the same, but does that make it alive? It's the cell that makes new viruses, not the virus.
No disrespect, but asking this question indicates that you've missed the key point. Viruses are incomplete in a sense; the baggage required for the boring parts of existence aren't there. A seed by definition carries a genome, not bits of one. Parts of our genome are wandering around replicating themselves. They'll exist as long as we do. Same with prions, but on an even lower level. They're part of us, albeit a rogue one, and destructive. But a part of life. If you consider the whole planet as an organism (seeing as we all most likely sprang from a single event) the question of what's alive entirely disappears. Philosophical twiddle... not very useful.
Viruses are alive and should have their own kingdom. Some parasites need a host to reproduce, so viruses aren't actually that different from parasites. If something has a genome, it's definitely a living thing.
It's all just semantics. Viruses are what they are. Bacteria are what they are. Multicellular organisms are what they are. What we chose to use the word "life" for is subjective. Personally I think it's useful to call viruses alive. Lifeologists, aka "biologists" are going to be far better at studying and understanding them than e.g. geologists.
elinki -------Everyting is semantics right ? - Someone told me that its simple - just say what life is and then check it against virus = simple either fits or not.
My definition of living organisms goes as follows. An entity is living if it is a survival machine of its genes. I must stress that by survival machine, I am referring to a complex or simple entity- it doesn't matter, whatsoever it must respond to biotic/abiotic factors via a stable evolutionary strategy. The response to biotic/abiotic factors would, in principle, evolve to assure the survival of genes among generations. A virus is a such machine. Although it lacks metabolism, reproductive organs, ATP, and other essential characteristics of complex life, a virus must be considered as a living entity since it assures the survival of the copies of its genes. So, yes, viruses are alive!
Maybe some viruses are nothing more than a way for higher life forms to transfer genes. Bacteria do it. We have "leftover" chunks of virus in our DNA, but perhaps it's not leftover from infections, but actually the origin of a virus. Whether it happens to pass genes to help the species or compete, it seems they do indeed pass changes to cells / DNA.
Great lecture. I learned a lot. The basic question of whether or not viruses are alive depends on how the word "alive" is defined. I think the main source of the consternation over this question is rooted in mankind's strong predisposition to classify things into finite categories. Not only do our brains seem to be wired this way, but this practice is very useful for communication and for putting a sense of order to our universe. In the real world, though, many things, especially in biology, don't fall neatly into categories. There are shades of gray and transitional properties that fit into more than one category. For instance, most organisms are either clearly plants or clearly animals, but there are some organisms that aren't clearly either one. The classification of species runs into serious problems too. With the "alive or not alive" question, it is pretty apparent that viruses don't neatly fall into either classification. Viruses have properties of both, and I can accept that.
Yes. I point out how we put our human values, so to speak, on things. We know how a tennis ball, baseball and marble operate, so when we do a bunch of tests and we see that the electrons and photons act similarly, we view them as tiny little balls or particles. When we do other types of tests, we see that they behave like waves and we know how waves behave. However, it is baffling for one thing to have both characteristics for they are so different. Therefore, our ability to combine those concepts is very limited based upon our everyday experience. Cheers
@@Observ45er Well said. I agree completely. Our ability to analyze and interpret complex aspects of our world is limited by our main analyzing equipment -the human brain. Our brains evolved for very specific purposes primarily related to survival and preservation of our species. It is not surprising that it has it has difficulties with some more esoteric issues.
There is a group of Dr's and biologist that do not believe this theory. You go back to Antoini Bechamp with the terain theory you find what the powerful pharma builds on falls apart. You can not say to much as it will be censored. There is plenty of alternative theories on alternative video platforms. The world is being lied to.
Its a slippey slope. Alive defined one way or the other. If we define it one way, countless other things will be define alive aswell. So how do we handle this? Define anything that sorta does it as the same or not? I’m all for not putting things into boxes but, at some point there is a logical distinction . My opinion is that as long as we agree there are exceptions, we can use the boxy terms. Good comment cheers👍
Kurzgesagt explanation is better, buy their calendar with more precise history age, which abandoned by all religions because they may become less important and not so fundamental
I agree that the scientific community needs to update its stance on this and begin treating Viruses as living entities. I can't wrap my head around why we even began to define Viruses as not being alive in the first place when clearly they have displayed the ability to not only propagate more of its own kind via replication like any other living entity is motivated to do in order to stick around on this planet and "survive" as a "species" in a sense... Equally amazing and telling is the ability of Viruses to "evolve" or "mutate" into other more effective strains of themselves in order to become more potent and increase their chances of surviving through a host's immune defenses again with the express end goal of successfully entering their intended target cells just to be able to replicate and spread more of their own kind. To me at least if something displays a clear "drive" or motivation" to create and spread more of itself across the environment, then it's clearly exhibiting at least some tell tale traits of what it means to be alive... How can the scientific community continue to act like Viruses are inert and "dead" despite all observations which show they have a literal "life cycle" that they actively take part in and can influence for better or worse via replication and mutation, vs. any other known examples of "non-living" objects like grains of sand or rocks which quite clearly have never and will never exhibit any kind of similar "life cycle" that they could actively take part in and influence the outcome of through the same abilities of mutation and replication that Viruses have? If Viruses are as dead and inert as say rocks are, then how/why do they seem to have any kind of motivation to "survive" by propagating more of their own kind?
Heads up, RI RUclips -- you've got the wrong Q&A linked in this description. Link goes to: "Q&A: How Well Has the Science of the Pandemic Been Presented?" instead of Carl's Q&A.
An interesting answer to what, to me, boils down to an uninteresting question. Viruses just are; what you call them won't change them. The 'debate' is between people who use a definition of life that includes viruses and people who use a definition of life that does not. And mostly what definition a person uses (assuming they're even consistent at all) comes down to utility - if I study metabolism, viruses are uninteresting and considering them 'alive' doesn't add anything, but if I'm an epidemiologist, they are perhaps the most 'alive' component of my field of study. But beyond that, it's no more interesting than the first centuries of the Christian church with the endless bickering over which adjectives could be applied to the trinity and which ones would label you a heretic and, regardless of your definition of life, likely make you very dead if they caught you. Might as well ask if 'white chocolate' is chocolate.
There was s life on other planet, but for god sake, and the alive one, lets get on sone magnetic fields that will attract him, and please let us do is the old fashioned way, heal the people, make hassidim, heal the darkness we got in too. We can get out our self from dead places, do good, make well, and heal evil.
Agreed. Viruses do shed light on what we consider life to be, but whichever side of wherever we (somewhat artificially) place the divide of life versus non-life viruses fall upon only shows our prejudices, not anything intrinsic about viruses.
wow. your video popped up on my youtube homepage and i really wasn't expecting to sit through the entire video. well, i did watch your entire video and was thrilled to have something to actually THINK about and debate. thank you.
Wow, my mind was blown! When I was young, I learned that our bodies are made of many cells. Much later, I learned that many bacteria are living in our bodies. Today I learned that many viruses are living in our bodies. Maybe the concept of "self-contained" does not really apply to any life. How many of us can exist outside of our biosphere? We live in a niche, and so do viruses. One of the main things this talk made me think of is, how are viruses related to the beginnings of life on Earth? The concept is that somehow chemical reactions let to an organization that became more complicated and started replicating. Are viruses somehow the "atom" of life? One of the most basic and fundamental building blocks??? Could life even exist without viruses? It sounds like maybe the answer is no.
Agreed. Having the same thoughts here. To me, It looks like the simple RNA guided structures could be the primordial kickstarter. However it still begs the chicken and egg issue, but that is just a limitation of perspective with us now being on this end of the time scale.
Well that just blew my mind. I have always thought of viruses as a packet of protein, lipid and RNA or DNA. I had never considered that an infected cell is also effectively "the" virus. Some bacteria can form inactive spores and they could be considered not alive. That concept is now extended in my mind to viruses. Where the packet of protein, lipid and genetic material are simply the spore phase of the organism.
Thank you Mr. Zimmer and Royal Institution for this very instructive journey about viruses, and where we are as of today. Clearly the question is complex, and I can't wait to hear more about it in the next decades, just as Mr. Zimmer said. This question may seem simple, but indeed the legacy of viruses over life itself, as we know it, goes so deep that it would be such a waste not to look for a clear scientifical answer to it. The subject is connected to so many other questions and fields, other than just microbiology or virology ! Cheers "Ri" ! Love you guys, the content you deliver has always been of incredible quality ! We're lucky to have you on RUclips, so accessible.
Great lecture as always @The Royal Institution and @Carl Zimmer. Most people don't understand the complexity of biology, so good information for all. Best wishes for all in 2022!
I would go as far as to speculate that Micro-biological Life evolving up to single then multi-cellular evolved from a primordial viral soup of some kind.
This presentation was most informative. I was not aware of what questions scientists are still struggling. This talk puts it in perspective. Thank you.
As is pointed out, the true answer to the question, "Are viruses alive?" is "What does 'alive' mean?" As is always the case, everything depends on the definition of terms, such that both NASA's hard "no" and Forterre's hard "yes" are absolutely and fundamentally true. It is the chicken-and-egg debate writ small - or large - depending on your definition of "size".
@@dn1697 Given that evolution is gradual, there's no line where a non- chicken suddenly lays a chicken egg. Thus, eggs come clearly before chickens. As to where eggs come from, they are single cells, in the case of chickens (and humans, etc) fertilized by another single cell. Eggs obviously evolved from cell division in single celled animals, but we don't know the details.
Great explanation of what viruses are and how they function. Very esoteric for a non-scientist, but fascinating none the less. Thanks for making this video!
This reminded me of a Star Trek episode when they find a living alien that does not fit their definition of life. Our "standard" definition of life seems to put a great weight in those individuals who are similar to us... The closer the individuals are to us, the "more alive" they are.
I remember the episode with the Horta, a creature which tunneled through rock and looked a bit like a massive limpet. In that one it was more the question of 'intelligent' life. In the episode, the miners eventually came around and learned to cooperate with their new friends. Win-win, in galactic space.. I'm all for that! :)
Given the need for lucky viruses to create placental mammals, you've got to wonder where all the humanoid aliens come from. Science fiction hasn't really helped our understanding of aliens (humans in funny suits), robots (humans in funny suits) and AI (human characters in a metal box).
Excellent talk, thanks! I think the definition of life which Carl presents - a chemical system which can reproduce and is subject to evolution - is useful from a scientific viewpoint e.g. if you wanted to determine if a process found on another world was life or not. It's a science-based definition, so it tries to be objective and remove the observer, the self, from the question. When a lay-person poses the question, "what is alive?", they generally want to know what differentiates themselves from an inanimate object such as a book or a table. From this perspective, reproduction with evolution is merely the mechanism by which the complex wobbly blobs which we call people have been assembled from the elements available in this universe. A person who is biologically unable to reproduce for some reason is just as alive as someone who has ten children, even though the former can no longer participate in evolution. The same would be true for a single cell which has a mutation that prevents it splitting in two but which otherwise behaves just as a normal cell.
I don't think that that definition breaks down if we look at a sterile individual. Even if that particular individual was unable to reproduce, it is still an example of a set of similar individuals who are able to reproduce Also, we'd still have to consider how the person or unicellular organism came into being: it came into being through that method of reproduction.
@@cykeok3525 Yes, how something came into being itself is definitely part of the information I would use for a definition of "life." Something that exists through its own evolved symbiotic or parasitic reproductive process is still reproducing, it just isn't capable of self-sustaining, so to me the angle would be "the _use of cellular reproduction_ whether internalized or through parasitic or infectious mechanism."
A person who cannot reproduce is participating in evolution big time! As a host for billions of microorganisms! Those little critters are having huge rave parties in every nook and cranny of our bodies!
"We have a feeling that life is different from other things. So we ask...'what is life'?...there's not really a good agreed on answer yet, to that question. There's no standard definition of life, which is kind of weird. Imagine chemists, for example, not having an agreed on definition of an electron. Or of hydrogen. Yet somehow biologists manage to do lots of important work without actually agreeing on what it is that they're studying."
Great presentation! Can someone please clarify something for me: 1. When he mentions there are 10^30 viruses, does that number represent a count of all unique virus types, not the total quantity of all viruses on earth regardless of type? 2.When he says a stack of all viruses would reach 200,000,000 light years, is that a stack where each unique virus is counted once, or stack of all viruses on earth regardless of type? Thanks.
1. He refers to what science knows of viruses. 2. All known viruses on earth. (Earth/sea & space explorations might reveal more viruses & other evolving matters.)
No. To get an idea of the actual size of a virus if every single SARS CoV 2 virus on the planet were concentrated into a mass it would fit into an egg cup with ease.
@@justadam1917 One of the more interesting definitions of life I have come across is "an active participant in the biosphere." With this definition viruses are most definitely alive.
any definition would be not difficult but entirely arbitrary and thus the answer to the question. Like "species" it's an artificial construct/category that doesn't help with understanding the phenomena at all.
You should of gone into biology for a career. It's such an interesting field these days with so many research areas. I am fascinated with Astrobiology.
Very educational and enjoyable. I like that you presented both sides and did not make any definite assertions either way, leaving it up to people to decide for themselves. Very factual, and you also give references so people can research themselves.
@@lepidoptera9337 no, I think its more or less just a fundamental question as to how we view what life is. I think the constraints of our cataloging process keeps our minds open to possibility but the correct conclusion may be more complicated. Take agency for example. A single called organism has a fair amount of agency, as to where is may find food or have responses to its environment, actively and with seeming choice at the expense of other organisms in its environment. Does that mean that a chemical process has agency over its environment, such as in crystallization or ion pathway processes? Not sure attempting such a refinement of what life means can possibly come up with an answer. Another example may be prion replication. As you may know, prion proteins are free radical chains of protein strands that replicate on their own without any intervention from processes of division and reproduction and survive simply by adding to the chain and breaking free to form more individual clusters of prions, thus exponentially replicating until organism death. But I dint think that prions are alive, or have agency. Very complicated subject.
It is easy to answer the question of are viruses 'alive'. The answer is NO, but they are biological organisms. The reason I say this is that life has a series of characteristics which include such things as nutrition, respiration and reproduction. A virion (virus particle) is unable to provide its own energy, or to reproduce without the help of a host cell. For this reason viruses are OBLIGATE PARASITES. If the host species of a virus was suddenly wiped out, then in principle the virus would cease to exist too. In reality it is not this simple because real viruses tend to have some 'plasticity' (versatility) in the species they can infect. The best way to view viruses is as inanimate macromolecular assemblages which can delver an INCOMPLETE package of genes to a host cell which it hijacks. The virus depends on the host providing other genetic functions necessary for its reproduction, which its own, usually tiny, genome does not contain. Viruses are a good demonstration of how natural selection can throw up all sorts of oddities.
The definitions for ANYTHING are created and updated by humans to represent their current LIMITED understanding of it. Are viruses alive? Depends when you ask.
I had a question about 51:45 where he talks about the protein from a viral gene helping fuse cells for the outer layer of the placenta. It seems like the expression of this gene would need to be tightly controlled to ensure that the proteins are only produced in the right cells at the right time. So when our ancestors captured that viral gene, how did they "learn" to control it's expression fast enough to prevent all their cells from creating the protein and trying to fuse?
I guess it just goes through the same evolutionary process as any other random genetic mutation fixed into DNA. I imagine our ancestors that captured that viral gene were so primitive that they still laid eggs, and the gene was more or less "useless". Over millions of years of evolution, our ancestors gradually ditched the egg and evolved the placenta using this inherited viral gene in their DNA. That's one possible scenario.
@@FatFilipinoUK ...Macro evolution is a hoax & there is zero evidence that any species has ever evolved into a different species...micro evolution is a different story with clear evidence that a species will adapt to it's environment with changes within this species...thousands of scientists after new discoveries in recent decades have debunked the old worn out macro evolution theory.
FatFilipinoUK guessed the same, could’ve been a dormant gene in the DNA which activated and introduced a different more energy efficient way to latch specific cells together. I know there are multiple ways cells are held together
@@FatFilipinoUK Human beings have eggs but women do not expel the egg but keep it inside of their bodies rather than exposing it to the environment. Except those women who arrange to have it removed.
Question: Are viruses needed? That is, are they essential to life functions? -- Not theirs, but ours and those of the organisms which we all agree are alive. And I'm not asking if viruses--or the actions they may have caused or influenced or catalyzed within evolutionary change, such as your example involving placental cells--may have been necessary for organisms to have evolved to their current state. That's the past, and perhaps some other mechanism could have brought us there. But my this question is whether there is some life-essential symbiosis involving viruses. If all viral function were to be stopped, would life (nonviral life) continue, now and over successive generations? Thank you!
From a small seed, a crystal can continually grow...layer after layer...year after year...all the while flipping the bird to entropy. Hence planets, stars and even black holes are alive.
@@jaybingham3711 not an expert but i'm pretty sure stars' and blackholes' entropy increases. In the case of stars, as they expand they occupy more space and hence have more microscopic configurations. Black holes increase their surface area, which is a direct measurement of their entropy. Unlike stars or blackholes, living organisms tend to stick to a particular configuration, as our DNA would suggest, in a sort of equilibrium, hence not increasing in entropy.
i have some questions, about this crystallize experiment. First he cooked the virus, so he heated them up above 100 degrees and later they were still alive? Really, I mean that can be, there are actually fungus, which needs a temperature above 125 degrees, for a longer time, like an hour or two, otherwise the spores are still alive and also there are bacteria that can stand temperatures above 100 degrees. They don't act like dead, but the point is they don't denature. Secondly there are now also bacteria which can stand without water and act like dead and under the right circumstances they come back to live and ain't there also fungus which can dry completely and than come back to live if there is water again. Ok at that time they didn't knew about all these things, but today? And self-sustained chemical system, absolut. There are having a chemical structure and reproduce it, in a special way, by there own death in a host. When we look at insects they change very strongly sometimes threw their live phases (in one they eat other insects, in the next they eat pollen from plants or plants itself or blood or what ever, so their chemical structure must change very strong just in order to digest all the different food and they look totally different and live in totally different habitats) and on top of this parasites need a host to reproduce and than we can ask the question how dead are seeds, which sometimes over hundred of years or more sustaining under harsch conditions, in which the plant would never be able to live and there chemical structure is also very different then the one from the plant its self. There are other definition which are more commonly by biologist, in which viruses are not fitting.
as a lay person this explanation is awesome. And whether right or wrong I can link viral infections to cancer (new evolution?) ... thank you this is mind boggling
What dismays me is the use of language (verbs) even by experts when describing the activity of Covid-19 (etc) - by making a virus sound more ominous or having evil intent, which might subconsciously frighten the public - variations seem to be formed haphazardly and some endure longer due to being the "fittest" (a Victorian term for suitability, not physical strength).
Thank you. Very nice talk. I don’t understand the importance to call viruses alive or not. They are crucial for cells, the evolution of cells and much more. So is carbon. In my mind viruses are external cell parts that can interact (if they have the right keys) or not. I think only about 200 viruses species can interact with human cells. Another life definition I like is: living things can be characterized by high energy consumption needed in the pursuit not to succumb to entropy (meaning it maintains its entropy or can pass it on). This is true for viruses as long as there are hosts. But then we are dependent on oxygen and much more too (plants, etc).
those are exosome. virus are more like nanomachines.. (can't remember which type of virus, second larges i think. literally creates a dimensional portal for inserting genetic material, apply named a 'stargate'. viruses are veery weird... thusly the distinction. also, i'm just putting myself out there, but, if they are non alive, ie, non-metabolizing, then they must persist off of the ambient electrical radiation generated by the human body.(which has particular connotations)
I am not a scientist just scientifically curious. I understand what you are saying, but even a scientist cannot say a specific virus is extinct. For me that is an impossibility. Unless he or she created that virus and contained it. In nature you can never be sure because even with whatever measures you take to destroy them they can still be out there even if humans in this century think they got rid of them. Unfortunately we are not privilege to get on that magic bus and travel to destination planet virus.
@@valcerinemouton7627 sorry, I don’t understand the comment about extinct viruses. One way a virus will become extinct is if there are no more matching hosts for its receptors to bind with. Which is pretty unlikely with all the life forms around. Viruses cannot survive indefinitely because they are fragile (e.g sun exposure will destroy most).
Great video, i think it would probably be good to also talk about retrotransposons, for further insight into how viruses came to be and why this further blurs the line of what's alive.
As a biochemist, my impression was that the debate was in fact long settled: the answer is that it depends how you define life, and there is more than one reasonable definition, and you pick whichever is clearest and most useful in a given context. There is such a thing as a bad question: asking "are viruses alive" is just as unproductive as asking "what is the meaning of life". If you don't change the question, you can't make progress towards a useful answer.
To a certain degree it's a matter of semantics of course... but if we look at the commonly accepted notion of "life", don't all forms of life have in common some sort of autonomous metabolism, some set of metabolic activities and processes with which they sustain their "life"? It seems like the viruses are simply genetic material encapsulated in proteins... they are for all practical purposes inert unless they have the good fortune to encounter a host cell that will cooperate with the instructions encoded in the genetic material and become a factory for replicating the virus. That is when they could maybe be said to spring to life, but yet, even then it is a simple mechanical process in which all of the magic is contained in the fact that the genetic material can hijack the metabolism of the cell to do its bidding in such a specific way.
@@NondescriptMammal It's a bit more complicated than that. There are examples of other, more complex, life forms that also require a host in order to "live", there are viruses and virus-like extracellular vesicles that are metabolically active (there are even some that contain functional organelles like mitochondria; mitochondria are interesting on their own even in this respect), and even the most complex cells can be reduced to a collection of chemical reactions. I encourage you to delve into this topic, you will find plenty of examples to add to the confusion, no matter where you prefer to draw the line. IMO, there is no clear line that can be drawn without some arbitrary classification.
@@epgui That is very interesting, thank you... I can see why a line would have to be drawn, but I don't think it would be totally arbitrary to say, for example, that a self-sustaining metabolism of some kind is a requirement for categorizing an individual entity as "life"
@@sternamc919sterna3 There is always a possibility that this will happen, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter all that much whether it's an embryonic cell or not. A very large proportion of the human genome comes from what was originally viral genetic material.
Viruses are so integral with living cells that it seems reasonable to consider them alive. Still it is a definitional question and therefore depending on definition accepted they are or aren't.
But they do operate more like small machines, which is a troubling feature. Your computer is capable of doing things far more than any life can and is arguably just as complex. Yet, computers are not alive as of now. Viruses are less complex than any computer, but they do strange things. It is a puzzling question.
I agree except I would lean more towards the utility of the word "life" more than it's agreed on "definition". Words are useful fictions that refer to observables. If we can't agree on what a word refers to - it's not very useful - but it can be "good enough". Perfection is the enemy of good. Voltaire.
@@NoobNoobNews "Your computer is capable of doing things far more than any life can and is arguably just as complex. Yet, computers are not alive as of now" The difference is that a virus is tiny. Like 100nm. Our computers are made of transistors which are 5nm. So a computer is actually huge. We just don't have enough computers. "But they do operate more like small machines, which is a troubling feature." Why would that be troubling ? what if life is nothing but a process, that can happen on any complex enough system ? Why do you think wetware is special in any case, its not.
One of the fundamental features of life is that it is active. There is no chemistry happening in a virus body. Viruses are inert, at least until they come into contact with a host cell. This world would be as inactive as that jar of crystallized viruses if there were no host cells to infect. To me, it is clear that viruses are not alive. I think that the one way you can try to argue otherwise it's to say that virons are just an intermediate life stage, and that the true "living" form is the virocell, but to me that is really stretching it. A host does not become its parasite when it gets infected. That's because a cell can resist zombification by a virus.
Okay. What iff Earth’s position is off, out of alignment, sort of wrong cadence. Maybe even it’s molecular structure as it refers to core electric dynamo is imbalanced and out of resonance with the sun? All of life has been affected water’s, trees, plants, animals, birthing.. air, the encyclopedia. some conjecture but if what sustained life is breaking down then viruses are those empty shells .
That may be a little unfair to the argument though due to the fact that there are many cells and multicellular organisms that would die if they did not have other organisms to feed off of or infect. The number of organisms that are truly independent are extraordinarily low in comparison to the total sum of interconnected organisms that rely off of other organisms to survive. Now it is true that a virus suspended in time when it is not inside of a cell is completely inactive while an isolated cell can remain active for some time. But, if it would benefit virus to be active in some way, viruses would evolve over a long course of time to enact such mechanisms. The only problem is that it's actually beneficial for the virus to be as inert as possible for its own preservation. There are times when living creatures also perform similarly, such as tardigrades, by halting metabolism and attempting to reach an inert state. Then when conditions are met they're inert State ends and they become active. This is similar to the notion of viruses activating a reproductive cycle once they reach a cell breaking down and then rebuilding when it is time and beneficial to be active. In addition there's some speculation that life itself may have originated from simple viral like structures that evolved a metabolism. If this is true, then these viral-like structures were very much so independent perhaps reacting with complex chemical conditions in the same way they react with the complex chemical conditions within a cell. I'm not saying you're wrong I'm just saying that it's worth giving me the the other end of the argument the respect it deserves
Very interesting. I have a two part question. Since the body always wants more energy, Can a virus use bacteria to create energy in the body? and could viruses offer energy to the body as currency to trade and gain access to use parts of the body?
The important point is not whether viruses are alive, but that the existence of viruses demonstrates there isn't a clear separation between living and non-living. That ambiguity is essential for the concept of abiogenesis to be possible without a pre-existing intelligent creator. For life to arise spontaneously, it needs to be possible for combinations of molecular machines to produce some of the characteristics of life, but not all of them, increasing in complexity until all of the characteristics of life are achieved. Indeed, the process of abiogenesis may not be complete even now. For all we know, billions of years from now, our own definition of "life" could be seen as incomplete compared to what organisms at that time are capable of.
Excellent presentation and I look forward to reading your book. Defining terms both offers the ability to discuss and to limit the scope of a discussion. Too many professionals get hung up on their meaning for a term as well and lose the most import tool of human thought--an open mind.
I learned so much in just the first 2 minutes. Wonderful talk. Tank you. That 65 galaxies part blew my mind and I had to stop the video for a bit to gather my brain matter.
It feels coincidental, but I find it eerily appropriate that computer viruses are named viruses because both the biological virus & a properly written code of computer virus shared too much uncanny similarities. To anyone who says that viruses are alive due to all the arguements presented, could you argue against the notion that "computer viruses are alive" since we can also use every rationale applied by supporters of "viruses are alive" to support claims that "computer viruses are alive" as well? Instead of seeing virus as an independent living organism, I think its more appropriate to look at viruses as nature's own tiny nano-machines(just like how advancement in nano-technology today has enabled mankind to produce self-replicating, self-repairing nano-particles). Viruses are experts in introducing mutations, both to themselves & also to the host cells that the viruses have infected. Although we are more familiar with viruses when they cause damage by forcefully capturing & disrupting the normal host cell replication processes to create copies of new viruses instead & then destroying the host cells after all resources are depleted & new virions are release from the dead & rupturing host cell. There exist the lysogeny state where viruses remain dormant while the genome that codes for the virus are inserted into the genome of the host cell & gets replicated everytime the host cell reproduce. Even though in most instances, this dormant lysogeny state will end shortly after which the virus proceed into their usual lysis reproductive stage. There always remain the possibility for exceptions, where the inserted virus genome continue to remain dormant in host cells indefinitely without causing further harm to replicating host cells containing the viral sequences. There are still so many things that scientists cannot yet comprehend. To be fixated in a debate of whether viruses are alive can become detrimental to scientific progress, as opposing views find themselves debating over "chicken or egg first" situation when we could be making use of both the chicken & the eggs to enjoy a delicious breakfast instead.
There is a trivially easy answer to the chicken and egg question: The egg came first. Chickens came along much later. A coronavirus can mutate seemingly endlessly, and most mutations are not beneficial, but its 'descendant' will still be a coronavirus at the end of the process. It has not evolved into another type of virus, a chicken, a tulip, or even a bacterium. It has simply mutated, and nothing more. It may happen that some of those virus 'descendants' could become essential parts of some larger organism, as suggested by the speaker, but that RNA still exists within the genome of that larger organism. So viruses can be regarded as coded information, just as are computer viruses. They are not a living thing, but they can become a part of that living thing. Likewise, a crystal of sugar is much simpler than a virus, but it also becomes a part of a living organism, such as a plant or an animal. A virus is no more alive than that sugar crystal.
Others have taken this view. Famously, Richard Dawkins coined the idea of a "meme", an information structure that propagates analogous to genes. His book "The Selfish Gene" is well worth a read.
@@RWBHere But don't viruses depend on how life is defined? If viruses are the biotic equivalent of mathematical functions, are they always seeking biological systems (equations) to modify (by integration) or to gain an advantage in proliferating itself over other viruses previously like itself? If it is too selfish it gets destroyed, though.
Thank you for your time and enjoyed listening and learning from another perspective. However, I think the NASA definition for life (and what is in most college biology text books), is that there are Five criteria for life. One of these five, is that the organism must be able to reproduce on their own. Viruses cannot do that. They need to hi jack host DNA. Therefore, a great number of scientists consider them to be abiotic, like a plant seed. They have the potential for life. Another thing that was omitted in the lecture, was that the Wuhan lab was working specifically on amplifying a bat corona virus . This is the same lab where USA laboratory inspectors went to conduct a bio security inspection, as we were funding the research. I believe this was 2018/2019. The report they came back with was very disturbing and alarming because the lab was not following safety protocol and their staff was poorly trained. And the shortly thereafter, a plague starts in Wuhan. Of bat corona virus. I doubt such things as this much coincidence.
I just wanted to say, that I told my kids some months ago I did believe bats are the carrier. Basically they are just about everywhere. A number of different times, in many places and like the Vampire bat, can draw blood. Feed on bigger animals like cows and even us. So good carriers as well, as helpers to us since they eat insects, so just part of our world but what to do well that I could not r tell them. Good number of animals can carry these viruses to humans, as we can’t just destroy all animal life. We just have to find ways to do what we can do. Make ourself or future humans immune to these things as much as we can but some are even in us and they can sometimes come back later in life and cause more problems but better to have some life than die before you even had a chance at life. If my mom had died from the virus that attacked her young, I would not be alive now and have fifteen grandchildren, and to great grandchildren. My mom died later from the virus I think, so that is that. Life is worth every moment we have for humanity, as we get smarter we will learn ways to deal with even the smallest enemy but some are already in us and maybe good? So we have a lot to learn yet about that too. If we go space ourselves maybe someone out there will help us find some of these answers, that’s if course if they don’t eat us in the process! Ha Ha. Just a joke. I used to work in a lab. An’t life wonderful? So much to learn. Bye. See you on Facebook . 🙋🎆.
Amazing presentation from Mr. Zimmer! Ancient Indian Jain philosophers came up with a very simple definition for 'life': if its hungry then it is alive.
Very interesting stuff. I was wondering during this if we or any life could exist without viruses. And thinking maybe viruses are just a life form we don't understand.
We could exist without viruses, but viruses not without us. On the other hand we could not exist without plants, we are very dependent on other life to allow us to live. Viruses only take this further.
@@noelburke6224 They are control mechanisms used by aliens controlling the planet ,if someone else wanted to control life on earth what better than a virus would that be ? when released they don't stop till they reach all corners of the earth , lots of power vested in it .
In terms of planetary evolution, the viruses seem to be creating biospheres under the skins of animalia parallel to what other organisms did in the oceans before coming onto the land.
The part that blew my mind was that porcelain can be a filter. But considering its porous it's like a sponge but on a much smaller scale (and not Alive)
I sometimes wonder if our difficulty in defining issues such as; "what is life?", "what is a planet?", or even "what is a fish?" has more to do with the our limited cognition not being up to describing the subtleties of nature than these being difficult questions. At heart we function by symbolic, pattern recognition. That requires we attach labels to everything, and labels require we parcel up the things we label in to neat packages. But that doesn't work well if the 'things' we are trying to package up aren't neat entities - if 'life' is an emergent property it isn't a 'thing'. I suspect the real answer to such issues is a new paradigm in how we think; a way of thinking that uses something better than symbolic thought and labels. The trouble is the very way we perceive reality is in terms of our hard-wired 'symbolic' thinking. Are we capable of 'thinking' in any other way? Could we even conceive of a way in which that could be done? On a slightly less philosophical front I tend to see what we try to label as 'life' to be an emergent property of the interaction between information and physical systems - a meta state of matter if you like. A virion is not 'alive' because it is only a package of information, chemical processes are not 'alive' because there is no information in them ... But a cell is 'alive' because it has the emergent property of 'life' that may appear out of the combination of the two. Equally, while a virion is not 'alive' a virally-infected cell is it's own living entity; having the emergent property we call 'life' as a result it's specific combination of chemical processes and information. As a aside, 'my' not entirely useful definition of 'life' may not require 'living things' to have the property of self-replication. The issue with considering 'life' to be an emergent property is the properties of emergent systems are by definition not predictable. Yes, self-replication is a very useful ability indeed but I'm not so sure it is fundamental. To put it another way; if I am sterile does that mean I am not alive? I think I'd consider myself to be alive. If I am a self-aware AI that emerged out of the combination of my programming (information) and a computer (chemical processes), I would consider myself to be 'alive' even though I might have no means by which to replicate. Conversely if a self-replicating machine is not 'alive', just a machine that functions to make copies of itself, that would suggest replication is not a fundamental aspect of 'life'. Unless, of course, once considers a bacterium to be nothing more than a self-replicating machine, but that would also imply it is not alive. But more; what is true of a bacterium could surely be applied to any seemingly living entity that is self-replicating system. That might suggest what we label as 'life' does not exist in any meaningful sense, it is noting more than an artefact of our symbolic way of thinking. The upshot would be we don't need to define a thing that doesn't exist, but also that 'we' must consider ourselves no more 'alive' than any other inanimate matter. So many things turn out to be 'rabbit holes' when one gets down to really thinking about it.
A fascinating and clever presentation. Thank you. Having toyed with the aforementioned definitions of "alive" my question is: are societal cellular level congregates alive?
I do not like the structure of this talk. To me it appears rather obfuscated. If the question is whether something is alive or not, then the discussion should start with a definition of what it means to be alive. This definition can then be used as premise to answer the question by iterating over the each single defining criterion and checking whether viruses fulfill the criterion or not. As it turns out at 33:19, the problem is not that viruses are new to science (as stated at the beginning of the talk), but rather that different discplines use different definitions of what it means to be alive. If life includes everything that can evolve, then viruses are clearly alive, but if an organism must be able to reproduce on its own, then they are clearly not alive. There does seem to be a big controversy, just two different definitions of what it means to be alive. Do not make it more complicated than it actually is.
- i could , for example , ask what do You mean by " able to reproduce by it's own" .. ?? .. - Most Certainly 'we' ( - with all sorts of other animals .. ) are NOT ,,, we Need 'input' from a variety of 'outside' sources , for the simplest 'form' of survival : Where would You ( - and Mr. Dukakis .. ) be without your daily dose of Broccoli ?!!? - Your mother 'needed' it's folic acid to produce You !! - and so on and on ..... Show me a 'Life-form' that grows to 'reproduction' ".. on it's own " , ,,, You'd be hard pressed , me thinkx ....
Thank you for a wonderful presentation. I was in Medical school in the 70's and I learned that viruses were thought to have originally been bacteria that somehow lost all of their other parts, in a sort of reverse evolution. It is obvious, I think, that viruses could not have emerged first before they had host cells to use for their own propagation. The certainly are strange compared with other forms of life. How did they evolve?
As a physician, I have to say that I think this was a brilliant presentation! As I was in medical school in the 70's, and haven't studied viruses since then, I was amazed at the depth and breadth of new information, and the clarity of his explanations!
It's a whole new age now...
As someone who is not a physician, I think this was a brilliant presentation.
@@brianeaton3734 Some of it is, but some of what he is saying is absolutely absurd. For example, the demonstration of the fused cells of the placenta, being mandatory for the survival of the fetus, and therefore REQUIRED for human reproduction (that much is true). But then he says the genes for the molecules responsible for the required fusion of the placenta cells are from a virus, and that quote "None of us would be here without those viral genes".. Ok, so if that is true, how did the virus infect a human that isn't there to begin with? Since we wouldn't be here without those viral genes to begin with?
@@trevorjameson3213 Sort of like asking if chickens come from eggs laid by chickens where did the egg come from before there was a chicken to lay it. It came from a chicken ancestor,
The virus infected some ancestor(s) of placenta mammals.
@@cheapmovies25 As complicated as all this talk of Viruses is, I wonder, if maybe children should be learning this information by junior high school or even before. I studied for years to learn about them and yet in school, there is so few courses teaching what I believe our new world needs to know. If they are in us all than some of us must be in an adaptation mode right now,no matter what our age or? We will cease to exist? Yet we are still here, so why? We must be adapting to these. The people that die? Maybe, just maybe their body can not adapt quickly enough or maybe not at all. I am on Facebook. Care yo comment. I would very much like to hear from you but hope you have some background in this. It is pretty deep, mind blowing stuff. I wondered for years if viruses that land on us like a rocket ship are alive? Till now a window has opened for me, thanks to Carl and his various explanations. Much study may come up with better ways to travel in space. Possibly Robots to the stars injected with RNA altered to protect them? If we can’t go? Or other ways of getting there. Could be the aliens are now studying us for just such reasons, so they can reach further into space. See the Movie War Of The Worlds, either one if you wonder what killed the aliens anyway. Bye for now. Look for the cat in the window. That is me. Always Marva or Marva Huff. 🙋🎆. P. S. Have a Wonderful Holiday!
Just a supplement: Dmitri Ivanovsky was the first who performed that experiment with filters and who found that the remained liquid - which could not contain bacteria anymore - stood infectious. Beijerinck repeated Ivankovsky's experiment 6 yrs later.
Carl, this is one of the best presentations I've seen from the RI channel. Thank you.
I agree 100%.
The question of whether viruses are alive is a topic of debate among scientists. Viruses possess some characteristics of living organisms but lack others, leading to varied classifications. Some scientists consider viruses to be at the edge of life, as they exhibit some life-like qualities only when inside a host organism. Others classify them as non-living entities due to their dependency on host cells for reproduction and lack of metabolic activity. Thus, whether viruses are considered alive largely depends on the definitions and criteria used for life.
What a delightful lecture! I haven’t been as enthralled since hearing Stephen Jay Gould lecture in Australia many years ago. I look forward to reading your book with relish.
The Q&A link in the description seems to lead to the wrond video. It sent me to a video of a panel discussing how well the UK presented pandemic information.
Edit: I see it's been fixed, it now leads to the actual Q&A.
Funny how you mention any virus and it is explained somehow with current pandemic info
It happens to be killing a whole lot of people right now going on two years running... it's defined our times in major ways and not the least bit surprising to find mentioned in ANY conversation about viruses since its inception...
This lecture has put me firmly on the side of viruses as definitively alive.
If we think of the isolated virus as a seed, and not the adult virus, then it becomes clear that just as a maple seed outside of the ground cannot sprout or reproduce or any of the things we understand as life then a virus-seed outside of a cell will obviously not "sprout" or "reproduce".
A virus is more like a plant than like bacteria. A virus is dependent on fertile soil (a cell) to become itself, and expecting the seed of the virus in isolation to demonstrate all the aspects of life is as preposterous as expecting a grain of rice in a jar to spontaneously reproduce, collect energy, and all this.
Your thoughts are compelling. Thank you for sharing.
I agree, however where does this put prion?
@@Euruzilys I admit, I'm only Wikipedia informed on prions. But they seem to be a separate case. Although we "vaccinate" for prions, that language just indicates that we can teach the immune system to recognize these dysfunctional proteins. I imagine the language of "replication" is also misguiding with prions.
My cursory readings suggest this disease is something of a crystallization event, where proteins in a stable arrangement like to pull other proteins into the same arrangement. It would make sense that if that a crystalline-ready protein is in a favorable environment, it would continue its formation, and in that way imitates "transmission" and "infection". The main thing for prions is that they appear to have no DNA/RNA, and its progression happens extra-cellularly., which reads more like a purely chemical issue than anything else.
@Scott Beck Thanks for the additional sources, i will check it out.
@Scott Beck Who ties your shoe-laces?
Hmmmm ... .where you are, do you even have shoe-laces??
I would like to ask, how are seeds of plants described? Are seeds alive? There are a great many things they can't do until they find themselves in an environment conducive to growth. In many ways this seems to be a similar condition to the Virus. Once a Virus finds its way into a host medium it then becomes something new capable of producing fruit so to speak, these new fruit then go in search of a medium to grow much as a seed would also need to do. Maybe the entity created by the Virus and the host cell is the organism and what we recognize as the Virus really just a seed.
Almost lost me in the middle but the end is so posh
By the way, I guess seeds are considered just a stratum of an organism's lifetime, though it kinda work like a virus it does not really "last forever" when dormant, wakes itself up from the dormant state, and do not get inside another organism to replicate, it grows by itself.
We can't say the same about viruses because they are basically encased DNA or RNA. Does basically nothing, when it meets a cell the D-RNA just inserts itself in another's to make it replicate the D-RNA and the casing, and throughout all of this it seems to always be dormant. It does not protect itself, run away, seek prey, digest, metabolise, seek mates, communicate, sense stuff, avoid or seek environments, move... it's just there, then eventually the casing touches a cell's membrane and it plops in.
Yes they are. They are incredibly resiliant and t and efficient hey carry all their food inside them. But a seed can die, get old, run out of food, and so on. But at the end of the day, its just a big collection of living cells, just like any other multicellular organism.
I don't agree. A seed is capable of growing into a plant which can grow, metabolise, reproduce etc. A virus just triggers a living cell to make copies of the virus which, in themselves, do nothing, like the original virus. If you want to call the virus and cell an "entity", it's really just a hijacked cell which is then killed by the copies, and only the viruses are left, exactly the same as before, just more of them. Seeds produce life, viruses destroy it.
And after all, poison can do the same, but does that make it alive? It's the cell that makes new viruses, not the virus.
No disrespect, but asking this question indicates that you've missed the key point. Viruses are incomplete in a sense; the baggage required for the boring parts of existence aren't there. A seed by definition carries a genome, not bits of one. Parts of our genome are wandering around replicating themselves. They'll exist as long as we do. Same with prions, but on an even lower level. They're part of us, albeit a rogue one, and destructive. But a part of life. If you consider the whole planet as an organism (seeing as we all most likely sprang from a single event) the question of what's alive entirely disappears. Philosophical twiddle... not very useful.
It's a manifestation of information.
Viruses are alive and should have their own kingdom. Some parasites need a host to reproduce, so viruses aren't actually that different from parasites. If something has a genome, it's definitely a living thing.
Nice to see EO Wilson won't be forgotten, if only for what he missed.
I really learned a lot from this lecture.
It's all just semantics.
Viruses are what they are. Bacteria are what they are. Multicellular organisms are what they are.
What we chose to use the word "life" for is subjective.
Personally I think it's useful to call viruses alive. Lifeologists, aka "biologists" are going to be far better at studying and understanding them than e.g. geologists.
If viruses are alive then earth should be considered a living organism and us the virus
elinki -------Everyting is semantics right ? - Someone told me that its simple - just say what life is and then check it against virus = simple either fits or not.
In a sense, 'A chicken is the egg's way of making another egg.'
My definition of living organisms goes as follows. An entity is living if it is a survival machine of its genes. I must stress that by survival machine, I am referring to a complex or simple entity- it doesn't matter, whatsoever it must respond to biotic/abiotic factors via a stable evolutionary strategy. The response to biotic/abiotic factors would, in principle, evolve to assure the survival of genes among generations.
A virus is a such machine. Although it lacks metabolism, reproductive organs, ATP, and other essential characteristics of complex life, a virus must be considered as a living entity since it assures the survival of the copies of its genes.
So, yes, viruses are alive!
Maybe some viruses are nothing more than a way for higher life forms to transfer genes. Bacteria do it. We have "leftover" chunks of virus in our DNA, but perhaps it's not leftover from infections, but actually the origin of a virus. Whether it happens to pass genes to help the species or compete, it seems they do indeed pass changes to cells / DNA.
As a complete layman this is the best explanation I've heard. So well presented. Thank you 🙂
Great lecture. I learned a lot.
The basic question of whether or not viruses are alive depends on how the word "alive" is defined. I think the main source of the consternation over this question is rooted in mankind's strong predisposition to classify things into finite categories. Not only do our brains seem to be wired this way, but this practice is very useful for communication and for putting a sense of order to our universe. In the real world, though, many things, especially in biology, don't fall neatly into categories. There are shades of gray and transitional properties that fit into more than one category. For instance, most organisms are either clearly plants or clearly animals, but there are some organisms that aren't clearly either one. The classification of species runs into serious problems too. With the "alive or not alive" question, it is pretty apparent that viruses don't neatly fall into either classification. Viruses have properties of both, and I can accept that.
Yes. I point out how we put our human values, so to speak, on things. We know how a tennis ball, baseball and marble operate, so when we do a bunch of tests and we see that the electrons and photons act similarly, we view them as tiny little balls or particles.
When we do other types of tests, we see that they behave like waves and we know how waves behave.
However, it is baffling for one thing to have both characteristics for they are so different. Therefore, our ability to combine those concepts is very limited based upon our everyday experience.
Cheers
@@Observ45er Well said. I agree completely. Our ability to analyze and interpret complex aspects of our world is limited by our main analyzing equipment -the human brain. Our brains evolved for very specific purposes primarily related to survival and preservation of our species. It is not surprising that it has it has difficulties with some more esoteric issues.
There is a group of Dr's and biologist that do not believe this theory. You go back to Antoini Bechamp with the terain theory you find what the powerful pharma builds on falls apart. You can not say to much as it will be censored. There is plenty of alternative theories on alternative video platforms. The world is being lied to.
So how do you define "alive" ?
Its a slippey slope.
Alive defined one way or the other.
If we define it one way, countless other things will be define alive aswell.
So how do we handle this? Define anything that sorta does it as the same or not?
I’m all for not putting things into boxes but, at some point there is a logical distinction .
My opinion is that as long as we agree there are exceptions, we can use the boxy terms.
Good comment cheers👍
I'm going to buy this chap's book. Everything is explained so well in this film. Thanks for putting this on here.
A Planet of Viruses - third edition . #1 Best Seller.
Kurzgesagt explanation is better, buy their calendar with more precise history age, which abandoned by all religions because they may become less important and not so fundamental
I agree that the scientific community needs to update its stance on this and begin treating Viruses as living entities. I can't wrap my head around why we even began to define Viruses as not being alive in the first place when clearly they have displayed the ability to not only propagate more of its own kind via replication like any other living entity is motivated to do in order to stick around on this planet and "survive" as a "species" in a sense... Equally amazing and telling is the ability of Viruses to "evolve" or "mutate" into other more effective strains of themselves in order to become more potent and increase their chances of surviving through a host's immune defenses again with the express end goal of successfully entering their intended target cells just to be able to replicate and spread more of their own kind. To me at least if something displays a clear "drive" or motivation" to create and spread more of itself across the environment, then it's clearly exhibiting at least some tell tale traits of what it means to be alive... How can the scientific community continue to act like Viruses are inert and "dead" despite all observations which show they have a literal "life cycle" that they actively take part in and can influence for better or worse via replication and mutation, vs. any other known examples of "non-living" objects like grains of sand or rocks which quite clearly have never and will never exhibit any kind of similar "life cycle" that they could actively take part in and influence the outcome of through the same abilities of mutation and replication that Viruses have? If Viruses are as dead and inert as say rocks are, then how/why do they seem to have any kind of motivation to "survive" by propagating more of their own kind?
This presentation got me thinking: Is sentience a trait given to us from an ancient virus?
Heads up, RI RUclips -- you've got the wrong Q&A linked in this description. Link goes to: "Q&A: How Well Has the Science of the Pandemic Been Presented?" instead of Carl's Q&A.
Thank you so much for this fascinating talk !
An interesting answer to what, to me, boils down to an uninteresting question. Viruses just are; what you call them won't change them. The 'debate' is between people who use a definition of life that includes viruses and people who use a definition of life that does not. And mostly what definition a person uses (assuming they're even consistent at all) comes down to utility - if I study metabolism, viruses are uninteresting and considering them 'alive' doesn't add anything, but if I'm an epidemiologist, they are perhaps the most 'alive' component of my field of study. But beyond that, it's no more interesting than the first centuries of the Christian church with the endless bickering over which adjectives could be applied to the trinity and which ones would label you a heretic and, regardless of your definition of life, likely make you very dead if they caught you. Might as well ask if 'white chocolate' is chocolate.
There was s life on other planet, but for god sake, and the alive one, lets get on sone magnetic fields that will attract him, and please let us do is the old fashioned way, heal the people, make hassidim, heal the darkness we got in too. We can get out our self from dead places, do good, make well, and heal evil.
Agreed. Viruses do shed light on what we consider life to be, but whichever side of wherever we (somewhat artificially) place the divide of life versus non-life viruses fall upon only shows our prejudices, not anything intrinsic about viruses.
This is a wonderful take highlighting the range of what "is" is.
White chocolate is not. Alive.
@@corneliusprentjie-maker6715 Unless by White Chocolate you mean Jason Williams.
wow. your video popped up on my youtube homepage and i really wasn't expecting to sit through the entire video. well, i did watch your entire video and was thrilled to have something to actually THINK about and debate. thank you.
Wow, my mind was blown!
When I was young, I learned that our bodies are made of many cells. Much later, I learned that many bacteria are living in our bodies. Today I learned that many viruses are living in our bodies.
Maybe the concept of "self-contained" does not really apply to any life. How many of us can exist outside of our biosphere? We live in a niche, and so do viruses.
One of the main things this talk made me think of is, how are viruses related to the beginnings of life on Earth? The concept is that somehow chemical reactions let to an organization that became more complicated and started replicating. Are viruses somehow the "atom" of life? One of the most basic and fundamental building blocks???
Could life even exist without viruses? It sounds like maybe the answer is no.
Agreed. Having the same thoughts here. To me, It looks like the simple RNA guided structures could be the primordial kickstarter. However it still begs the chicken and egg issue, but that is just a limitation of perspective with us now being on this end of the time scale.
Definitely gets you thinking…
Well that just blew my mind. I have always thought of viruses as a packet of protein, lipid and RNA or DNA. I had never considered that an infected cell is also effectively "the" virus. Some bacteria can form inactive spores and they could be considered not alive. That concept is now extended in my mind to viruses. Where the packet of protein, lipid and genetic material are simply the spore phase of the organism.
Yea, but the virocell does not replicate itself. It just hijacked to produce some pieces of rna
I suppose when a spore of mold drops on a piece of bread and multiplies itself, the bread is effectively "the mold"? semantic somersaults
Thank you Mr. Zimmer and Royal Institution for this very instructive journey about viruses, and where we are as of today.
Clearly the question is complex, and I can't wait to hear more about it in the next decades, just as Mr. Zimmer said. This question may seem simple, but indeed the legacy of viruses over life itself, as we know it, goes so deep that it would be such a waste not to look for a clear scientifical answer to it.
The subject is connected to so many other questions and fields, other than just microbiology or virology !
Cheers "Ri" ! Love you guys, the content you deliver has always been of incredible quality ! We're lucky to have you on RUclips, so accessible.
there are no coming decades you (we) don't even have one decade left
@just another human
Everything that has been hidden will be exposed.
Great lecture as always @The Royal Institution and @Carl Zimmer. Most people don't understand the complexity of biology, so good information for all. Best wishes for all in 2022!
Anyone who has been in a personal relationship knows the complexity of biology.
and others DO.
@@brontehauptmann4217 Obviously; he has already indicated that by using the word, "most." What's your point?
I would go as far as to speculate that Micro-biological Life evolving up to single then multi-cellular evolved from a primordial viral soup of some kind.
This presentation was most informative. I was not aware of what questions scientists are still struggling. This talk puts it in perspective. Thank you.
As is pointed out, the true answer to the question, "Are viruses alive?" is "What does 'alive' mean?" As is always the case, everything depends on the definition of terms, such that both NASA's hard "no" and Forterre's hard "yes" are absolutely and fundamentally true. It is the chicken-and-egg debate writ small - or large - depending on your definition of "size".
Agreed, except the chicken-and-egg debate has a clear answer: the egg came first. The precursors of chickens also had eggs.
@@therealzilch ... yes ... the egg ... which wasn't a chicken ... but this falls short of understanding where the egg came from ...
@@dn1697 Given that evolution is gradual, there's no line where a non- chicken suddenly lays a chicken egg. Thus, eggs come clearly before chickens.
As to where eggs come from, they are single cells, in the case of chickens (and humans, etc) fertilized by another single cell. Eggs obviously evolved from cell division in single celled animals, but we don't know the details.
One of the most question triggering presentations I saw in my life! Thanks so much!
- Are viruses alive?
- Well, it's complicated...
- So you don't know, right?
- Don't tease me...
Yeah, this type of video is annoying. You watch an hour to learn that we don't know.
@@noahway13He said in the first couple minutes they still don't know.
Great explanation of what viruses are and how they function. Very esoteric for a non-scientist, but fascinating none the less. Thanks for making this video!
Nice of him to promote his book within the first 15 minutes.
This reminded me of a Star Trek episode when they find a living alien that does not fit their definition of life. Our "standard" definition of life seems to put a great weight in those individuals who are similar to us... The closer the individuals are to us, the "more alive" they are.
I remember the episode with the Horta, a creature which tunneled through rock and looked a bit like a massive limpet. In that one it was more the question of 'intelligent' life. In the episode, the miners eventually came around and learned to cooperate with their new friends. Win-win, in galactic space.. I'm all for that! :)
Given the need for lucky viruses to create placental mammals, you've got to wonder where all the humanoid aliens come from. Science fiction hasn't really helped our understanding of aliens (humans in funny suits), robots (humans in funny suits) and AI (human characters in a metal box).
good work blur the distinction between life and non-life. Create confusion and mess with everyone's mind. You are evil.
@@brontehauptmann4217 Who is this evil entity you "spake" of? Who defined between life and non-life? Humans. And subject to change.
Read the book "His Master's Voice" by Stanislaw Lem, who also wrote Solaris.
Excellent talk, thanks! I think the definition of life which Carl presents - a chemical system which can reproduce and is subject to evolution - is useful from a scientific viewpoint e.g. if you wanted to determine if a process found on another world was life or not. It's a science-based definition, so it tries to be objective and remove the observer, the self, from the question. When a lay-person poses the question, "what is alive?", they generally want to know what differentiates themselves from an inanimate object such as a book or a table. From this perspective, reproduction with evolution is merely the mechanism by which the complex wobbly blobs which we call people have been assembled from the elements available in this universe. A person who is biologically unable to reproduce for some reason is just as alive as someone who has ten children, even though the former can no longer participate in evolution. The same would be true for a single cell which has a mutation that prevents it splitting in two but which otherwise behaves just as a normal cell.
I don't think that that definition breaks down if we look at a sterile individual.
Even if that particular individual was unable to reproduce, it is still an example of a set of similar individuals who are able to reproduce
Also, we'd still have to consider how the person or unicellular organism came into being: it came into being through that method of reproduction.
@@cykeok3525 Yes, how something came into being itself is definitely part of the information I would use for a definition of "life."
Something that exists through its own evolved symbiotic or parasitic reproductive process is still reproducing, it just isn't capable of self-sustaining, so to me the angle would be "the _use of cellular reproduction_ whether internalized or through parasitic or infectious mechanism."
A person who cannot reproduce is participating in evolution big time! As a host for billions of microorganisms!
Those little critters are having huge rave parties in every nook and cranny of our bodies!
What do you mean by evolution?
@@cykeok3525 Then interpret 'system' as a population rather than an individual.
What a fantastic presentation. Thank you Mr. Zimmer.
@Scott Beck I did look it up. Not compelling at all as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for sharing though.
The point about how high the stack would be is absolutely mind blowing.
Thanks Mr Zimmer. Great exposition on the incredible complexity and beauty of life.
"We have a feeling that life is different from other things. So we ask...'what is life'?...there's not really a good agreed on answer yet, to that question. There's no standard definition of life, which is kind of weird. Imagine chemists, for example, not having an agreed on definition of an electron. Or of hydrogen. Yet somehow biologists manage to do lots of important work without actually agreeing on what it is that they're studying."
Great presentation! Can someone please clarify something for me: 1. When he mentions there are 10^30 viruses, does that number represent a count of all unique virus types, not the total quantity of all viruses on earth regardless of type? 2.When he says a stack of all viruses would reach 200,000,000 light years, is that a stack where each unique virus is counted once, or stack of all viruses on earth regardless of type? Thanks.
1. He refers to what science knows of viruses. 2. All known viruses on earth. (Earth/sea & space explorations might reveal more viruses & other evolving matters.)
@@gunnargervin1275 Thanks.
No. To get an idea of the actual size of a virus if every single SARS CoV 2 virus on the planet were concentrated into a mass it would fit into an egg cup with ease.
The answer depends on how you define life. Defining life is the difficult part.
Very much agree just had this discussion
Alive and life are very different
@@justadam1917 One of the more interesting definitions of life I have come across is "an active participant in the biosphere." With this definition viruses are most definitely alive.
any definition would be not difficult but entirely arbitrary and thus the answer to the question. Like "species" it's an artificial construct/category that doesn't help with understanding the phenomena at all.
@@rockets4kids then you have to define biosphere.
Thank you,
Your effort to make it understandable was appreciated ,
Thank you
even I can understand more than half of the talk, great job! Thank you.
What a brilliant lecture. This reminded me why I loved biology at school and college many decades ago.
brilliant???
You should of gone into biology for a career. It's such an interesting field these days with so many research areas. I am fascinated with Astrobiology.
@@JaquelineVanek Interesting, accessable, insightful and in depth = brilliant. 😎
Very educational and enjoyable. I like that you presented both sides and did not make any definite assertions either way, leaving it up to people to decide for themselves. Very factual, and you also give references so people can research themselves.
Interesting and informative. I agree the question is non sensical because it depends on your definition, but beyond that virus are fundamental.
I am so glad for this video. Each minute was gold. Everything was explain as simple as it could.
Great Job on the topic, it was very clear about what a virus is and you really dove into it.
Incredibly interesting talk. Kind of knew viruses were on the division between living and dead but this put it on a whole new level. Thank you.
A stone is dead. It doesn't reproduce and it doesn't adapt. A virus does both. It's not at all like a stone.
@@lepidoptera9337 some stones do, and even move. As a chemical process, by growth, division, then spalling.
@@AnyMotoUSA Fair enough. We might even be looking at one of the chemical foundations for the development of the first chemical replicators there.
@@lepidoptera9337 no, I think its more or less just a fundamental question as to how we view what life is. I think the constraints of our cataloging process keeps our minds open to possibility but the correct conclusion may be more complicated.
Take agency for example. A single called organism has a fair amount of agency, as to where is may find food or have responses to its environment, actively and with seeming choice at the expense of other organisms in its environment. Does that mean that a chemical process has agency over its environment, such as in crystallization or ion pathway processes? Not sure attempting such a refinement of what life means can possibly come up with an answer.
Another example may be prion replication. As you may know, prion proteins are free radical chains of protein strands that replicate on their own without any intervention from processes of division and reproduction and survive simply by adding to the chain and breaking free to form more individual clusters of prions, thus exponentially replicating until organism death.
But I dint think that prions are alive, or have agency. Very complicated subject.
It is easy to answer the question of are viruses 'alive'. The answer is NO, but they are biological organisms. The reason I say this is that life has a series of characteristics which include such things as nutrition, respiration and reproduction. A virion (virus particle) is unable to provide its own energy, or to reproduce without the help of a host cell. For this reason viruses are OBLIGATE PARASITES. If the host species of a virus was suddenly wiped out, then in principle the virus would cease to exist too. In reality it is not this simple because real viruses tend to have some 'plasticity' (versatility) in the species they can infect. The best way to view viruses is as inanimate macromolecular assemblages which can delver an INCOMPLETE package of genes to a host cell which it hijacks. The virus depends on the host providing other genetic functions necessary for its reproduction, which its own, usually tiny, genome does not contain. Viruses are a good demonstration of how natural selection can throw up all sorts of oddities.
6:49 "You can't make people into crystals."
My dreams are shattered...
Only crystals shatter... 😔
@@CompetitionChris if dreams ain't alive, then they can be crystallised too
This guy has never watched Star Trek, obviously.
A shame about Lot's wife, too.
University of California San Diago (not Colorado)
Just learned a few things from you here that I can now teach my chemistry and physics students. Your book is now on my wishlist. 👨🔬
The definitions for ANYTHING are created and updated by humans to represent their current LIMITED understanding of it.
Are viruses alive?
Depends when you ask.
I had a question about 51:45 where he talks about the protein from a viral gene helping fuse cells for the outer layer of the placenta. It seems like the expression of this gene would need to be tightly controlled to ensure that the proteins are only produced in the right cells at the right time. So when our ancestors captured that viral gene, how did they "learn" to control it's expression fast enough to prevent all their cells from creating the protein and trying to fuse?
I guess it just goes through the same evolutionary process as any other random genetic mutation fixed into DNA. I imagine our ancestors that captured that viral gene were so primitive that they still laid eggs, and the gene was more or less "useless". Over millions of years of evolution, our ancestors gradually ditched the egg and evolved the placenta using this inherited viral gene in their DNA. That's one possible scenario.
@@FatFilipinoUK ...Macro evolution is a hoax & there is zero evidence that any species has ever evolved into a different species...micro evolution is a different story with clear evidence that a species will adapt to it's environment with changes within this species...thousands of scientists after new discoveries in recent decades have debunked the old worn out macro evolution theory.
FatFilipinoUK guessed the same, could’ve been a dormant gene in the DNA which activated and introduced a different more energy efficient way to latch specific cells together. I know there are multiple ways cells are held together
@@FatFilipinoUK Human beings have eggs but women do not expel the egg but keep it inside of their bodies rather than exposing it to the environment. Except those women who arrange to have it removed.
That is where natural selection comes from. But to your point. The probability is low to impossible. But miracles do happen.
A very useful lecture . Thank you very much .
This video is bound to go VIRAL!
Brilliant presentation! Cheers to Carl and the Royal Institute.
Question: Are viruses needed? That is, are they essential to life functions? -- Not theirs, but ours and those of the organisms which we all agree are alive.
And I'm not asking if viruses--or the actions they may have caused or influenced or catalyzed within evolutionary change, such as your example involving placental cells--may have been necessary for organisms to have evolved to their current state. That's the past, and perhaps some other mechanism could have brought us there.
But my this question is whether there is some life-essential symbiosis involving viruses. If all viral function were to be stopped, would life (nonviral life) continue, now and over successive generations?
Thank you!
Great lecture. Thank you!
i think schrodingers definition of life as systems that fight against increasing entropy holds an inkling to the truth
Yup
From a small seed, a crystal can continually grow...layer after layer...year after year...all the while flipping the bird to entropy. Hence planets, stars and even black holes are alive.
@@jaybingham3711 not an expert but i'm pretty sure stars' and blackholes' entropy increases. In the case of stars, as they expand they occupy more space and hence have more microscopic configurations. Black holes increase their surface area, which is a direct measurement of their entropy. Unlike stars or blackholes, living organisms tend to stick to a particular configuration, as our DNA would suggest, in a sort of equilibrium, hence not increasing in entropy.
Incredibly eye opening. Great exposition. Thanks a lot!
Great presentation. As a layman when it comes to microbiology, I was able to totally follow everything the scientist said
The answer to "what is life?" is whatever one chooses it to be. It is a definition, not a truth...
True, most , if not all problems/debates/ argumentation/ conflicts, are problems of DEFINITION.
Much like "Is Pluto a planet?" Pluto doesn't really care what we think. Viruses don't if we consider them life, either.
i have some questions, about this crystallize experiment. First he cooked the virus, so he heated them up above 100 degrees and later they were still alive? Really, I mean that can be, there are actually fungus, which needs a temperature above 125 degrees, for a longer time, like an hour or two, otherwise the spores are still alive and also there are bacteria that can stand temperatures above 100 degrees. They don't act like dead, but the point is they don't denature. Secondly there are now also bacteria which can stand without water and act like dead and under the right circumstances they come back to live and ain't there also fungus which can dry completely and than come back to live if there is water again.
Ok at that time they didn't knew about all these things, but today?
And self-sustained chemical system, absolut. There are having a chemical structure and reproduce it, in a special way, by there own death in a host. When we look at insects they change very strongly sometimes threw their live phases (in one they eat other insects, in the next they eat pollen from plants or plants itself or blood or what ever, so their chemical structure must change very strong just in order to digest all the different food and they look totally different and live in totally different habitats) and on top of this parasites need a host to reproduce and than we can ask the question how dead are seeds, which sometimes over hundred of years or more sustaining under harsch conditions, in which the plant would never be able to live and there chemical structure is also very different then the one from the plant its self. There are other definition which are more commonly by biologist, in which viruses are not fitting.
i love the RI lectures - so many , so enjoyable and so enriching
i share this views
“ Enriching”
“improve or enhance the quality...
make (someone) wealthy or wealthier
.
I don't.
Very, very comprehensible presentation; thanks so much.
as a lay person this explanation is awesome. And whether right or wrong I can link viral infections to cancer (new evolution?) ... thank you this is mind boggling
What dismays me is the use of language (verbs) even by experts when describing the activity of Covid-19 (etc) - by making a virus sound more ominous or having evil intent, which might subconsciously frighten the public - variations seem to be formed haphazardly and some endure longer due to being the "fittest" (a Victorian term for suitability, not physical strength).
Thank you Mr. Zimmer. We have a whole new world the think about. Thanks also to the Royal Institution.
yes you do but you are miles off in identifying that new world
Thank you. Very nice talk. I don’t understand the importance to call viruses alive or not. They are crucial for cells, the evolution of cells and much more. So is carbon. In my mind viruses are external cell parts that can interact (if they have the right keys) or not. I think only about 200 viruses species can interact with human cells. Another life definition I like is: living things can be characterized by high energy consumption needed in the pursuit not to succumb to entropy (meaning it maintains its entropy or can pass it on). This is true for viruses as long as there are hosts. But then we are dependent on oxygen and much more too (plants, etc).
those are exosome. virus are more like nanomachines.. (can't remember which type of virus, second larges i think. literally creates a dimensional portal for inserting genetic material, apply named a 'stargate'. viruses are veery weird... thusly the distinction.
also, i'm just putting myself out there, but, if they are non alive, ie, non-metabolizing, then they must persist off of the ambient electrical radiation generated by the human body.(which has particular connotations)
And CO2!!
I am not a scientist just scientifically curious. I understand what you are saying, but even a scientist cannot say a specific virus is extinct. For me that is an impossibility. Unless he or she created that virus and contained it. In nature you can never be sure because even with whatever measures you take to destroy them they can still be out there even if humans in this century think they got rid of them. Unfortunately we are not privilege to get on that magic bus and travel to destination planet virus.
@@valcerinemouton7627 sorry, I don’t understand the comment about extinct viruses. One way a virus will become extinct is if there are no more matching hosts for its receptors to bind with. Which is pretty unlikely with all the life forms around. Viruses cannot survive indefinitely because they are fragile (e.g sun exposure will destroy most).
@@fritsgerms3565 can they "survive" without a host?
Watched this video the third time. Always fascinating.
Great video, i think it would probably be good to also talk about retrotransposons, for further insight into how viruses came to be and why this further blurs the line of what's alive.
As a biochemist, my impression was that the debate was in fact long settled: the answer is that it depends how you define life, and there is more than one reasonable definition, and you pick whichever is clearest and most useful in a given context. There is such a thing as a bad question: asking "are viruses alive" is just as unproductive as asking "what is the meaning of life". If you don't change the question, you can't make progress towards a useful answer.
To a certain degree it's a matter of semantics of course... but if we look at the commonly accepted notion of "life", don't all forms of life have in common some sort of autonomous metabolism, some set of metabolic activities and processes with which they sustain their "life"? It seems like the viruses are simply genetic material encapsulated in proteins... they are for all practical purposes inert unless they have the good fortune to encounter a host cell that will cooperate with the instructions encoded in the genetic material and become a factory for replicating the virus. That is when they could maybe be said to spring to life, but yet, even then it is a simple mechanical process in which all of the magic is contained in the fact that the genetic material can hijack the metabolism of the cell to do its bidding in such a specific way.
@@NondescriptMammal It's a bit more complicated than that. There are examples of other, more complex, life forms that also require a host in order to "live", there are viruses and virus-like extracellular vesicles that are metabolically active (there are even some that contain functional organelles like mitochondria; mitochondria are interesting on their own even in this respect), and even the most complex cells can be reduced to a collection of chemical reactions. I encourage you to delve into this topic, you will find plenty of examples to add to the confusion, no matter where you prefer to draw the line. IMO, there is no clear line that can be drawn without some arbitrary classification.
@@epgui That is very interesting, thank you... I can see why a line would have to be drawn, but I don't think it would be totally arbitrary to say, for example, that a self-sustaining metabolism of some kind is a requirement for categorizing an individual entity as "life"
If a virus is hosted by an embryonic cell is there a possibility of the virus genetic code become a part of the new embryo-individual's genetic code?
@@sternamc919sterna3 There is always a possibility that this will happen, and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter all that much whether it's an embryonic cell or not. A very large proportion of the human genome comes from what was originally viral genetic material.
Viruses are so integral with living cells that it seems reasonable to consider them alive. Still it is a definitional question and therefore depending on definition accepted they are or aren't.
But they do operate more like small machines, which is a troubling feature. Your computer is capable of doing things far more than any life can and is arguably just as complex. Yet, computers are not alive as of now. Viruses are less complex than any computer, but they do strange things.
It is a puzzling question.
I agree except I would lean more towards the utility of the word "life" more than it's agreed on "definition". Words are useful fictions that refer to observables. If we can't agree on what a word refers to - it's not very useful - but it can be "good enough".
Perfection is the enemy of good. Voltaire.
I would agree. They are at least "pieces of life" -- and no organism is more than a piece, it seems.
@@NoobNoobNews "Your computer is capable of doing things far more than any life can and is arguably just as complex. Yet, computers are not alive as of now"
The difference is that a virus is tiny.
Like 100nm. Our computers are made of transistors which are 5nm. So a computer is actually huge.
We just don't have enough computers.
"But they do operate more like small machines, which is a troubling feature."
Why would that be troubling ? what if life is nothing but a process, that can happen on any complex enough system ?
Why do you think wetware is special in any case, its not.
We are machines, very complex ones.
One of the fundamental features of life is that it is active. There is no chemistry happening in a virus body. Viruses are inert, at least until they come into contact with a host cell. This world would be as inactive as that jar of crystallized viruses if there were no host cells to infect. To me, it is clear that viruses are not alive. I think that the one way you can try to argue otherwise it's to say that virons are just an intermediate life stage, and that the true "living" form is the virocell, but to me that is really stretching it. A host does not become its parasite when it gets infected. That's because a cell can resist zombification by a virus.
Okay. What iff Earth’s position is off, out of alignment, sort of wrong cadence. Maybe even it’s molecular structure as it refers to core electric dynamo is imbalanced and out of resonance with the sun? All of life has been affected water’s, trees, plants, animals, birthing.. air, the encyclopedia. some conjecture but if what sustained life is breaking down then viruses are those empty shells .
there is chemistry in a virus
I think disease is held in stasis until we lose dominion.
That may be a little unfair to the argument though due to the fact that there are many cells and multicellular organisms that would die if they did not have other organisms to feed off of or infect. The number of organisms that are truly independent are extraordinarily low in comparison to the total sum of interconnected organisms that rely off of other organisms to survive. Now it is true that a virus suspended in time when it is not inside of a cell is completely inactive while an isolated cell can remain active for some time. But, if it would benefit virus to be active in some way, viruses would evolve over a long course of time to enact such mechanisms. The only problem is that it's actually beneficial for the virus to be as inert as possible for its own preservation. There are times when living creatures also perform similarly, such as tardigrades, by halting metabolism and attempting to reach an inert state. Then when conditions are met they're inert State ends and they become active. This is similar to the notion of viruses activating a reproductive cycle once they reach a cell breaking down and then rebuilding when it is time and beneficial to be active.
In addition there's some speculation that life itself may have originated from simple viral like structures that evolved a metabolism. If this is true, then these viral-like structures were very much so independent perhaps reacting with complex chemical conditions in the same way they react with the complex chemical conditions within a cell.
I'm not saying you're wrong I'm just saying that it's worth giving me the the other end of the argument the respect it deserves
Excellent! Thank You!
Super interesting. Thank you.
Very interesting. I have a two part question. Since the body always wants more energy, Can a virus use bacteria to create energy in the body? and could viruses offer energy to the body as currency to trade and gain access to use parts of the body?
Yes. I recall| that somebody recently claimed to be able to do exactly that. Our body creates electricity & temperature showing energy production.
I think nature beat you to it; those little energy units in every cell are called mitochondria.
The important point is not whether viruses are alive, but that the existence of viruses demonstrates there isn't a clear separation between living and non-living. That ambiguity is essential for the concept of abiogenesis to be possible without a pre-existing intelligent creator. For life to arise spontaneously, it needs to be possible for combinations of molecular machines to produce some of the characteristics of life, but not all of them, increasing in complexity until all of the characteristics of life are achieved. Indeed, the process of abiogenesis may not be complete even now. For all we know, billions of years from now, our own definition of "life" could be seen as incomplete compared to what organisms at that time are capable of.
Excellent presentation and I look forward to reading your book. Defining terms both offers the ability to discuss and to limit the scope of a discussion. Too many professionals get hung up on their meaning for a term as well and lose the most import tool of human thought--an open mind.
I learned so much in just the first 2 minutes.
Wonderful talk. Tank you. That 65 galaxies part blew my mind and I had to stop the video for a bit to gather my brain matter.
the ability create a protein model never cease to amaze me. So complicated
It feels coincidental, but I find it eerily appropriate that computer viruses are named viruses because both the biological virus & a properly written code of computer virus shared too much uncanny similarities. To anyone who says that viruses are alive due to all the arguements presented, could you argue against the notion that "computer viruses are alive" since we can also use every rationale applied by supporters of "viruses are alive" to support claims that "computer viruses are alive" as well? Instead of seeing virus as an independent living organism, I think its more appropriate to look at viruses as nature's own tiny nano-machines(just like how advancement in nano-technology today has enabled mankind to produce self-replicating, self-repairing nano-particles). Viruses are experts in introducing mutations, both to themselves & also to the host cells that the viruses have infected. Although we are more familiar with viruses when they cause damage by forcefully capturing & disrupting the normal host cell replication processes to create copies of new viruses instead & then destroying the host cells after all resources are depleted & new virions are release from the dead & rupturing host cell. There exist the lysogeny state where viruses remain dormant while the genome that codes for the virus are inserted into the genome of the host cell & gets replicated everytime the host cell reproduce. Even though in most instances, this dormant lysogeny state will end shortly after which the virus proceed into their usual lysis reproductive stage. There always remain the possibility for exceptions, where the inserted virus genome continue to remain dormant in host cells indefinitely without causing further harm to replicating host cells containing the viral sequences. There are still so many things that scientists cannot yet comprehend. To be fixated in a debate of whether viruses are alive can become detrimental to scientific progress, as opposing views find themselves debating over "chicken or egg first" situation when we could be making use of both the chicken & the eggs to enjoy a delicious breakfast instead.
Yes, great post.
There is a trivially easy answer to the chicken and egg question: The egg came first. Chickens came along much later.
A coronavirus can mutate seemingly endlessly, and most mutations are not beneficial, but its 'descendant' will still be a coronavirus at the end of the process. It has not evolved into another type of virus, a chicken, a tulip, or even a bacterium. It has simply mutated, and nothing more.
It may happen that some of those virus 'descendants' could become essential parts of some larger organism, as suggested by the speaker, but that RNA still exists within the genome of that larger organism.
So viruses can be regarded as coded information, just as are computer viruses. They are not a living thing, but they can become a part of that living thing.
Likewise, a crystal of sugar is much simpler than a virus, but it also becomes a part of a living organism, such as a plant or an animal.
A virus is no more alive than that sugar crystal.
Others have taken this view. Famously, Richard Dawkins coined the idea of a "meme", an information structure that propagates analogous to genes. His book "The Selfish Gene" is well worth a read.
@@RWBHere Well said!
@@RWBHere But don't viruses depend on how life is defined? If viruses are the biotic equivalent of mathematical functions, are they always seeking biological systems (equations) to modify (by integration) or to gain an advantage in proliferating itself over other viruses previously like itself? If it is too selfish it gets destroyed, though.
Thank you for your time and enjoyed listening and learning from another perspective. However, I think the NASA definition for life (and what is in most college biology text books), is that there are Five criteria for life. One of these five, is that the organism must be able to reproduce on their own. Viruses cannot do that. They need to hi jack host DNA. Therefore, a great number of scientists consider them to be abiotic, like a plant seed. They have the potential for life.
Another thing that was omitted in the lecture, was that the Wuhan lab was working specifically on amplifying a bat corona virus . This is the same lab where USA laboratory inspectors went to conduct a bio security inspection, as we were funding the research. I believe this was 2018/2019. The report they came back with was very disturbing and alarming because the lab was not following safety protocol and their staff was poorly trained. And the shortly thereafter, a plague starts in Wuhan. Of bat corona virus. I doubt such things as this much coincidence.
Dr Tom Cowan has proved viruses can not be transmitted from persons to persons or from animals to persons.
I just wanted to say, that I told my kids some months ago I did believe bats are the carrier. Basically they are just about everywhere. A number of different times, in many places and like the Vampire bat, can draw blood. Feed on bigger animals like cows and even us. So good carriers as well, as helpers to us since they eat insects, so just part of our world but what to do well that I could not r tell them. Good number of animals can carry these viruses to humans, as we can’t just destroy all animal life. We just have to find ways to do what we can do. Make ourself or future humans immune to these things as much as we can but some are even in us and they can sometimes come back later in life and cause more problems but better to have some life than die before you even had a chance at life. If my mom had died from the virus that attacked her young, I would not be alive now and have fifteen grandchildren, and to great grandchildren. My mom died later from the virus I think, so that is that. Life is worth every moment we have for humanity, as we get smarter we will learn ways to deal with even the smallest enemy but some are already in us and maybe good? So we have a lot to learn yet about that too. If we go space ourselves maybe someone out there will help us find some of these answers, that’s if course if they don’t eat us in the process! Ha Ha. Just a joke. I used to work in a lab. An’t life wonderful? So much to learn. Bye. See you on Facebook . 🙋🎆.
Unless you can present evidence regarding the supposed Wuhan Lab, then stop spreading misinformation.
Amazing presentation from Mr. Zimmer! Ancient Indian Jain philosophers came up with a very simple definition for 'life': if its hungry then it is alive.
Lol!
Very Very eye opening - THANK YOU - SS, UK
Great presentation! 👏👍
Very interesting stuff. I was wondering during this if we or any life could exist without viruses. And thinking maybe viruses are just a life form we don't understand.
We could exist without viruses, but viruses not without us.
On the other hand we could not exist without plants, we are very dependent on other life to allow us to live. Viruses only take this further.
YES, our bodies MAKE proteins, aka viruses, when we are in oxidative stress.
Viruses are not living cells they are dead matter expelled by the body
@@noelburke6224 They are control mechanisms used by aliens controlling the planet ,if someone else wanted to control life on earth what better than a virus would that be ? when released they don't stop till they reach all corners of the earth , lots of power vested in it .
@@mireyajones810 viruses arent solely proteinaceous
In terms of planetary evolution, the viruses seem to be creating biospheres under the skins of animalia parallel to what other organisms did in the oceans before coming onto the land.
In my undereducated upinion
Viruses are parasites
So I suppose they are alive
This was so fun to watch and I learned a lot. Thank you!
The part that blew my mind was that porcelain can be a filter. But considering its porous it's like a sponge but on a much smaller scale (and not Alive)
"fun" ffs
I sometimes wonder if our difficulty in defining issues such as; "what is life?", "what is a planet?", or even "what is a fish?" has more to do with the our limited cognition not being up to describing the subtleties of nature than these being difficult questions.
At heart we function by symbolic, pattern recognition. That requires we attach labels to everything, and labels require we parcel up the things we label in to neat packages. But that doesn't work well if the 'things' we are trying to package up aren't neat entities - if 'life' is an emergent property it isn't a 'thing'.
I suspect the real answer to such issues is a new paradigm in how we think; a way of thinking that uses something better than symbolic thought and labels. The trouble is the very way we perceive reality is in terms of our hard-wired 'symbolic' thinking. Are we capable of 'thinking' in any other way? Could we even conceive of a way in which that could be done?
On a slightly less philosophical front I tend to see what we try to label as 'life' to be an emergent property of the interaction between information and physical systems - a meta state of matter if you like. A virion is not 'alive' because it is only a package of information, chemical processes are not 'alive' because there is no information in them ... But a cell is 'alive' because it has the emergent property of 'life' that may appear out of the combination of the two. Equally, while a virion is not 'alive' a virally-infected cell is it's own living entity; having the emergent property we call 'life' as a result it's specific combination of chemical processes and information.
As a aside, 'my' not entirely useful definition of 'life' may not require 'living things' to have the property of self-replication. The issue with considering 'life' to be an emergent property is the properties of emergent systems are by definition not predictable. Yes, self-replication is a very useful ability indeed but I'm not so sure it is fundamental. To put it another way; if I am sterile does that mean I am not alive? I think I'd consider myself to be alive. If I am a self-aware AI that emerged out of the combination of my programming (information) and a computer (chemical processes), I would consider myself to be 'alive' even though I might have no means by which to replicate.
Conversely if a self-replicating machine is not 'alive', just a machine that functions to make copies of itself, that would suggest replication is not a fundamental aspect of 'life'. Unless, of course, once considers a bacterium to be nothing more than a self-replicating machine, but that would also imply it is not alive. But more; what is true of a bacterium could surely be applied to any seemingly living entity that is self-replicating system. That might suggest what we label as 'life' does not exist in any meaningful sense, it is noting more than an artefact of our symbolic way of thinking. The upshot would be we don't need to define a thing that doesn't exist, but also that 'we' must consider ourselves no more 'alive' than any other inanimate matter.
So many things turn out to be 'rabbit holes' when one gets down to really thinking about it.
An excellent comment by the way.
I like Patrick's definition of living matter - _"a complex, evolving form of matter."_ [28:25]
Fascinating! Could you comment on mitochondria? Perhaps you’ll write your next book on this interesting “life form?”
A fascinating and clever presentation. Thank you.
Having toyed with the aforementioned definitions of "alive" my question is: are societal cellular level congregates alive?
r mutter ... I would say "yes" ... it's a matter of cooperation and there's got to be impetus for this, IMO
I think his book sounds like a good read myself. Very interesting speaker who provides clear and understandable information.
I do not like the structure of this talk. To me it appears rather obfuscated. If the question is whether something is alive or not, then the discussion should start with a definition of what it means to be alive. This definition can then be used as premise to answer the question by iterating over the each single defining criterion and checking whether viruses fulfill the criterion or not.
As it turns out at 33:19, the problem is not that viruses are new to science (as stated at the beginning of the talk), but rather that different discplines use different definitions of what it means to be alive. If life includes everything that can evolve, then viruses are clearly alive, but if an organism must be able to reproduce on its own, then they are clearly not alive. There does seem to be a big controversy, just two different definitions of what it means to be alive. Do not make it more complicated than it actually is.
- i could , for example , ask what do You mean by " able to reproduce by it's own" .. ?? .. - Most Certainly 'we' ( - with all sorts of other animals .. ) are NOT ,,, we Need 'input' from a variety of 'outside' sources , for the simplest 'form' of survival : Where would You ( - and Mr. Dukakis .. ) be without your daily dose of Broccoli ?!!? - Your mother 'needed' it's folic acid to produce You !! - and so on and on .....
Show me a 'Life-form' that grows to 'reproduction' ".. on it's own " , ,,, You'd be hard pressed , me thinkx ....
Thank you for a wonderful presentation.
I was in Medical school in the 70's and I learned that viruses were thought to have originally been bacteria that somehow lost all of their other parts, in a sort of reverse evolution.
It is obvious, I think, that viruses could not have emerged first before they had host cells to use for their own propagation.
The certainly are strange compared with other forms of life. How did they evolve?