Because they rely on hosts for a majority of functions, viruses aren’t considered alive. But entities like this one complicate matters.
Because they rely on hosts for a majority of functions, viruses aren’t considered alive. But entities like this one complicate matters.
I wonder if this is a single cell bacteria in the process of becoming a virus? This could be an important evolutionary link to how viruses come about.
It’s an archaeon, not a bacterium. But that’s one hypothesis, yes. The scientists themselves don’t want to make that claim yet. https://www.science.org/content/article/microbe-bizarrely-tiny-genome-may-be-evolving-virus
By Sigmar’s grace, better summon the elector counts!
Or a kind of proto-cell.