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Do viruses react to stimuli?

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In isolation, viruses and bacteriophages show none of the expected signs of life. They do not respond to stimuli, they do not grow, they do not do any of the things we normally associate with life. Strictly speaking, they should not be considered as "living" organisms at all. read more

As you say Viruses are not alive and thus do not respond to anything directly. Once a virus has infected a cell and taken over its synthetic machinery to make more virus then at that point that cell will still respond to external stimuli albeit not as well as a "normal" uninfected cell. read more

Viruses aren't able to respond to stimuli when outside of a host cell because outside host cells, viruses are dormant and sometimes even considered dead. Only when a virus starts reproducing in a cell can it weakly respond to stimuli. read more

Viruses and bacteriophages invade cells and use the host cell's machinery to synthesize more of their own macromolecules. For example, bacteriophages attack bacteria (prokaryotes), and viruses attack eukaryotic cells. read more

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