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First Digital Simulation of an Entire Life Form
An anonymous reader writes "LiveScience is reporting on what appears to be the first digital simulation of an entire life form. Researchers created more than a million digital atoms to reverse engineer the satellite tobacco mosaic virus, a relatively simple organism. But is it really a life form? From the article: 'Viruses are tiny bundles of protein and genetic material that straddle the line between life and non-life. Many scientists prefer to call them "particles" because even though they contain RNA or DNA like other lifeforms, they can only replicate inside other living cells.'"
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To even have this discussion shows you don't know what a virus is. Effectivly a virus is a set of genetic programming code floating inside whats basically a floating syringe. Some do have mechanical like parts on the outside to help them attach and insert their code. They are much like computer viruses. When simply a file they have no life whatsoever. Thought once viruses enter a cell you would definatly consider the new cell that has the viruses code a lifeform, weither this new cell is a "virus" or not is another question, but it is a virus producing factory..