The Wonders of Cells

We have come a long way since Robert Hooke built his own microscope and discovered what he called "cells". Nicolaus Hartsoecker, thought that tiny humans "homunculi" were found inside of sperm cells, and for some time most people believed this to be true. Then soon the cell theory slowly began to develop as technology advanced. Today, a light microscope is merely a common object amongst classrooms and laboratories, where as during Leuuwenhoek's time his technological discoveries on the microscope was all kept in secret. In the past few decades alone we have uncovered so much information about cell, it's hard to keep up with. It's easy to imagine the vast amount of knowledge we would have about the cells only a few decades from now. We don't give much thought to the cell in everyday life and its enormous impact on us as individuals. The human gene or any organism for the matter has information readily embedded into the cell, and from there it goes on to perform its functions making us who we are. It's amazing when you think about how the cell system works. It has no one but its neighboring cells telling it what to do, and yet most of these cells can perform its function efficiently.

Individually, we understand how the cell works. They have nuclei and organelles that help them function as cells. But when we put these cells together in their environment, we understand no more than two percent of what they do and how they behave. Cells evolve, just like organisms do. From the simple unicellular bacterias, to plants, to animals, cells have been evolving since the beginning to form these organisms. Because of this, surprises about the cells turn up all the time. Nitric oxide, a toxin and a common component of air pollution was found inside human cells during the mid-1990s. Scientists were surprised to find such a toxic substance in the human cells. They later discovered that the substance was helping the cell to carry out many of its necessary functions. Cells adapt well to the functions they have to carry out. Such as the red blood cell in that it contains hemoglobin to carry the oxygen around the body, the white blood cell have the ability to phagocytose foreign materials, the sperm cells have tails to help it swim, and the neurons contain axons to pass on messages. All this development makes its seem as though our cells live in a whole different world, they make up every little bit of who we are. There is nothing that our cells don't know about us.