Related topics: proceedings of the national academy of sciences , cancer , cancer cells , stem cells , immune system
Cell (biology)
hideThe cell is the structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of an organism that is classified as living, and is often called the building block of life. Some organisms, such as most bacteria, are unicellular (consist of a single cell). Other organisms, such as humans, are multicellular. (Humans have an estimated 100 trillion or 1014 cells; a typical cell size is 10 µm; a typical cell mass is 1 nanogram.) The largest known cell is an unfertilized ostrich egg cell.
In 1835 before the final cell theory was developed, a Czech Jan Evangelista Purkyně observed small "granules" while looking at the plant tissue through a microscope. The cell theory, first developed in 1839 by Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann, states that all organisms are composed of one or more cells. All cells come from preexisting cells. Vital functions of an organism occur within cells, and all cells contain the hereditary information necessary for regulating cell functions and for transmitting information to the next generation of cells.
The word cell comes from the Latin cellula, meaning, a small room. The descriptive name for the smallest living biological structure was chosen by Robert Hooke in a book he published in 1665 when he compared the cork cells he saw through his microscope to the small rooms monks lived in.
For more information about Cell (biology), read the full article at
Wikipedia.
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News tagged with cells
Bacterial protein mimics its host to disable a key enzyme (w/ Video)
3 hours ago |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Bacteria use all sorts of cunning to trick hosts into doing their bidding. One con in their bag of tricks: the molecular mimic. In this ruse, bacteria or their agents look for all purposes like some native ...
Researchers identify a scaffold regulating protein disposal
3 hours ago |
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How does a cell manage to identify and degrade the diverse types of defective proteins and thus protect the body against serious diseases? The researchers Sabine C. Horn, Professor Thomas Sommer, Professor Udo Heinemann and ...
Elusive 'hot' electrons captured in ultra-thin solar cells
8 hours ago |
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Boston College researchers have observed the "hot electron" effect in a solar cell for the first time and successfully harvested the elusive charges using ultra-thin solar cells, opening a potential avenue to improved solar ...
RXR activation -- hope for new Parkinson's disease treatment
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
9 hours ago |
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Following up on their previous work showing the rescue of dopamine neurons by chemicals that interact with the retinoid X receptor (RXR), researchers have now investigated the potential of these chemicals, known as RXR ligands, ...
Staying Power: Senate Hearing Focuses On Energy Storage
22 hours ago |
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Thursday's Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing featured testimony from experts about the power industry's need to develop systems capable of storing large amounts of electricity if the nation's ...
Killer catfish? Venomous species surprisingly common, study finds
22 hours ago |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Name all the venomous animals you can think of and you probably come up with snakes, spiders, bees, wasps and perhaps poisonous frogs. But catfish?
Scientists find way to catalog all that goes wrong in a cancer cell
Dec 10, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Princeton University scientists has produced a systematic listing of the ways a particular cancerous cell has "gone wrong," giving researchers a powerful tool that eventually could make possible ...
Mechanism discovered by which body's cells encourage tuberculosis infection
Dec 10, 2009 |
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Scientists have discovered a signaling pathway that tuberculosis bacteria use to coerce disease-fighting cells to switch allegiance and work on their behalf. Epithelial cells line the airways and other surfaces ...
Tiny molecule slows progression of Lou Gehrig's disease in mice
Dec 10, 2009 |
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Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that a molecule produced naturally by muscles in response to nerve damage can reduce symptoms and prolong life in a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). ...
Finding the Achilles' heel of cancer
Dec 10, 2009 |
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A never-approved drug developed to prevent the death of nerve cells after a stroke can efficiently kill cancer cells while keeping normal cells healthy and intact, an international team led by a Tel Aviv University ...
New ethical questions are being raised in stem cell research
Dec 10, 2009 |
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A groundbreaking discovery two years ago that turned ordinary skin cells back into an embryonic or "pluripotent" state was hailed as the solution to the controversial ethical question that has plagued stem-cell science for ...
Drug kills cells through novel mechanism
Dec 10, 2009 |
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MIT and Boston University researchers have discovered that the drug hydroxyurea kills bacteria by inducing them to produce molecules toxic to themselves — a conclusion that raises the possibility of finding ...
Successful stem cell therapy for treatment of eye disease
Dec 10, 2009 |
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Newly published research, by investigators, at the North East England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) in the journal Stem Cells reported the first successful treatment of eight patients with "Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency" (LSCD) ...
Researchers show 'trigger' to stem cell differentiation
Dec 10, 2009 |
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A gene which is essential for stem cells' capabilities to become any cell type has been identified by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of California, San Francisco.
Irregular arm swing may point to Parkinson's disease
Dec 10, 2009 |
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Irregular arm swings while walking could be an early sign of Parkinson's disease, according to neurologists who believe early detection may help physicians apply treatments to slow further brain cell damage until strategies ...
