Are Viruses Alive?: Mind-Altering Stories about Life and Evolution

What, exactly, is life?

As young children we are taught about animals such as giraffes, lions, elephants and itsy-bitsy spiders with eight legs; we learn about trees and flowers from the plant kingdom, about toadstools in the woods and fish in the sea. This teaches us to think of living things as discrete entities with characteristic distinguishing features. Later, in school, we find out that all organisms are made up of cells, and that they evolve by natural selection. This trains us to con...