Virions:Dead or Alive?

[Ed Rybicki]

To:            Mark Jude Hyman <mh691292 at net.bio.net>
Subject:       Re: Virions:Dead or Alive?

> To me, it's always been more of a philosopical argument. 

Exactly.  And one really not worth the effort, except that it gets 
people thinking about what they blithely accept as LIFE.  And riles 
people like Jim Carrigton B-)  (sorry, Jim)

Whether a virus is
> living or not depends purely on your definition of that term. I prefer to
> expand my definition to include viruses, but thern again, I work with them. :-)

Quite.  So do I.  And if I worked with prions, I'd probably stretch 
the definition to include them too....

No more, Jim, I promise...!

 ______________________________________________________
 |     Ed Rybicki, PhD      |  ed at molbiol.uct.ac.za   |
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