The term ‘virus’ comes from the Latin word for poisonous, virulentus. Initially, viruses were classified as living organisms, but over the last 100 years there has been considerable debate in the scientific community over whether viruses are indeed living organisms. Your essay post should be ~500 words in length and should utilize at least 3 references outside of your textbook. You may use any reference style you’d like as long as it is organized and one of the standard formats for scientific writing. For example, it is common to put a number in parentheses (1) or superscripted1 at the end of the sentences or paragraphs to which a specific reference was applied, and then to have a corresponding numerical list of references at the end of the essay.
Your paper should touch on the following topics:
On what grounds are viruses considered non-living?
On what grounds are they considered living?
After interpreting the evidence, what is your position on the question, “Are viruses alive?”
citations whould be no more that 10 per cent of the paper.