Related topics: protein · cancer cells · cancer · stem cells · immune system

The black spots on salmon filets found to contain melanin

More than 20% of the filets of Atlantic salmon may have unattractive black and red spots, which are often >1 cm and create substantial financial losses. The spots are far more abundant in reared than in wild salmon, and their ...

Scientists tame chaotic protein fueling 75% of cancers

MYC is the shapeless protein responsible for making the majority of human cancer cases worse. UC Riverside researchers have found a way to rein it in, offering hope for a new era of treatments.

Mature sperm lack intact mitochondrial DNA, study finds

New research provides insight about the bedrock scientific principle that mitochondrial DNA—the distinct genetic code embedded in the organelle that serves as the powerplant of every cell in the body—is exclusively passed ...

Big bang: Dutch firm eyes space baby

Climate crises, nuclear Armageddon, or a sudden meteor strike—it's clear humanity could do with Planet B. But first we need to learn to reproduce safely in space, says Dutch entrepreneur Egbert Edelbroek.

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Cell (biology)

The 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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