RJA#11

RJA#11A


You begin to cough then body aches and chills finally a fever and your body is almost to the point of immobility. It feels like your being destroyed from the inside out and in fact you are. A microscopic entity is destroying your cells and replicating hundreds of species to continue the cycle. This entity is a virus and most of us have had contact with one in our life and would like that to not happen again. Now how is it we feel like something is living in us and taking over our body to do whatever it pleases but it is exactly not considered a living organism. What does it mean to be a living organism? Must you walk, talk, and eat or is it more complexed. Turns out it is more complexed and viruses sometimes fall short of the required characteristics. At the same time viruses also have points in their life when they meet the majority of these requirements. So I ask why do we not consider them living organisms? I believe that viruses have stages in their life that they are more alive than some people. They eat, evolve, replicate, and move and do so with the assistance of a host. A brief explanation of a virus is in order to understand what a host cell is and how a virus does certain things to live. In this paper I will explain how a virus lives and how it meets the qualifications of a living organism at certain points in its life. Some people believe that special circumstances are the case for some viruses and are said to be living. Also included is an interview with a teacher of sciences who researches viruses in her own time.
RJA#11B
For my visual aids I will provide a picture of a virus to show certain characteristics, a video for my presentation to show how a virus works, a table comparing a virus to the qualifications of a living organism, and possibly the results of an online survey(once i figure out how to do that).
RJA#11C
http://jalves1.blogspot.com/2009/10/research-journal-assignment-10a.html

http://stinoeng.blogspot.com/2009/10/rja-10a.html