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A comment on New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life. Parent comment

Re:New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life by novia on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @01:05AM (#16527190)
Neither do rickettsia or chlamydia, two bacteria. Honestly, whoever was deciding on the definition of "what is life" knew ahead of time the kinds of things they wanted to include and they worked backwards from there.

We want to exclude viruses because they are too mechanical. There's no magic to them. That's the way it appeared before we started finding all these giant viruses anyways.

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Re:New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life by thaumasiotes on Tuesday March 06, 2018 @02:51AM (#16527529)
They're not more mechanical than cells are, and that's been known since viruses were distinguished from cells.

But the presence of a cell wall is a pretty significant feature nonetheless.

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