Living organism must be the following:
-made up of cells
-must obtain and use energy
-grow and develop
-reproduce
-respond to changes within enviornment
-adapt to enviornment
So what is my side, without sitting on the fence about it? Here it goes. Viruses are living organisms; plain and simple. They ADAPT to their enviornment (when in the host) by quickly replicating to spread and take over...sounds a bit like the living organism called a human. Of course replicating means that they REPRODUCE like the above mentions. When a change such as penicillin is injected to the bloodstream to get rid of the impending virus, it will RESPOND by mutating sometimes. Also they can be immune to medecines that are made to destroy them as well.
A mutated virus such as this picture to the left has caused death to 10 [in 2007] people so far. The name of the cell is called the adenovirus which as some may know it as, is the common cold (also causes pnemounia and other diseases as well). When mutated the cell will GROW AND DEVELOP until it enters the respiratory system and kills its host, the human.
(picture from http://www.ctv.ca)
