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.
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News tagged with living cells
'Powerhouses' from living cells power new explosives detector
Nov 17, 2008 |
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Researchers in Missouri have borrowed the technology that living cells use to produce energy to develop a tiny, self-powered sensor for rapid detection of hidden explosives. The experimental sensor, about the size of a postage ...
Nanotubes sniff out cancer agents in living cells
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Dec 14, 2008 |
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MIT engineers have developed carbon nanotubes into sensors for cancer drugs and other DNA-damaging agents inside living cells.
Researchers develop new way to see single RNA molecules inside living cells
Apr 06, 2009 |
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Biomedical engineers have developed a new type of probe that allows them to visualize single ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules within live cells more easily than existing methods. The tool will help scientists ...
Scientists determine 3D structure of proteins in living cells for the first time
Mar 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Glasgow scientist was part of a team of researchers which has, for the first time, been able to determine the three-dimensional structure of protein in living cells.
Nanoneedle is small in size, but huge in applications
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Apr 28, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a membrane-penetrating nanoneedle for the targeted delivery of one or more molecules into the cytoplasm or the nucleus of living cells. ...
Nanotubes Sniff Out Cancer Agents in Living Cells
Nanotechnology / Bio & Medicine
Jan 16, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A multidisciplinary team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed carbon nanotubes that can be used as sensors for cancer drugs and other DNA-damaging agents inside living cells. The ...
