SO ENDS this two weekend series on prions. They reproduce and evolve into different strains. Yet they are simply naked proteins. Is it ridiculous to ask if this is an organism? If you thought that the debate about viruses being alive was quaint, then prepare yourself for a bigger paradigm breaker. As a community, biologists have failed to define life, and thus the search for new life is deeply flawed. Time to get to grips with the basics?