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blacksheep998 t1_jbp6ca6 wrote

Reply to comment by InfamousAmerican in I just learned that the known shortest DNA in an “organism” is about 1700 base pairs in a certain virus. Is there a minimum amount of “code” required for an organism (or virus) to function in any capacity? by mcbergstedt

There exist self-replicating strands of RNA. All they are is RNA in solution that can gather and assemble loose nucleotides into copies of itself.

But if a virus is alive, then they could probably be considered alive too.

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omgu8mynewt t1_jbphzq3 wrote

I work with viruses, some virologist like 'genetic material replicating and closed in a membrane' which makes me laugh

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