>I understand the jury is still out on whether a virus can be considered "alive"
I remember way back in med school in the mid-70s our infectious disease professor asking this same question, in a philosophical as much as a mechanistic sense.
Here is the fun thing to think about: If viruses aren't alive, neither are men. Men, too, lack the biological means of reproduction. On the other hand, parthenogenesis may even rarely happen in female humans.
