Viruses are typically not considered to be living things, due to the fact that they cannot replicate without a host (you for example.) So why are they now (possibly) being seen as living things? For one, some bacteria and fungi also need hosts to replicate, so this is not a feature that is exclusive to viruses. Another reason is the discovery of what are called mimiviruses, which are so large, they were originally mistaken for bacteria, and they contain mechanisms necessary for protein synthesis. Finally scientists performed a test in which they examined the folds of proteins within 5,000 organisms (3,500 of which were viruses) which led to the discovery of 442 protein folds that are common between viruses and cells.
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