The Cell: A Visual Tour of the Building Block of Life - Hardcover

Challoner, Jack

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022622418X ISBN 13: 9780226224183

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2015

Synopsis

The cell is the basic building block of life. In its 3.5 billion years on the planet, it has proven to be a powerhouse, spreading life first throughout the seas, then across land, developing the rich and complex diversity of life that populates the planet today.

With The Cell: A Visual Tour of the Building Block of Life, Jack Challoner treats readers to a visually stunning tour of these remarkable molecular machines. Most of the living things we're familiar with--the plants in our gardens, the animals we eat--are composed of billions or trillions of cells. Most multicellular organisms consist of many different types of cells, each highly specialized to play a particular role--from building bones or producing the pigment in flower petals to fighting disease or sensing environmental cues. But the great majority of living things on our planet exist as single cell. These cellular singletons are every bit as successful and diverse as multicellular organisms, and our very existence relies on them.

The book is an authoritative yet accessible account of what goes on inside every living cell--from building proteins and producing energy to making identical copies of themselves--and the importance of these chemical reactions both on the familiar everyday scale and on the global scale. Along the way, Challoner sheds light on many of the most intriguing questions guiding current scientific research: What special properties make stem cells so promising in the treatment of injury and disease? How and when did single-celled organisms first come together to form multicellular ones? And how might scientists soon be prepared to build on the basic principles of cell biology to build similar living cells from scratch.

About this title

About the Author

Jack Challoner is the author of more than thirty books on science and technology. He also works as an independent science consultant for print, radio and TV.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Cell

A Visual Tour of the Building Block of Life

By Jack Challoner, Phil Dash

The University of Chicago Press

Copyright © 2015 The Ivy Press Limited
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-226-22418-3

Contents

INTRODUCTION Why the cell is Earth's greatest success story, and the basis of all life., 
CHAPTER 1 A Brief History of the Cell, 
CHAPTER 2 Inside Living Cells, 
CHAPTER 3 Cells Beget Cells, 
CHAPTER 4 Cellular Singletons, 
CHAPTER 5 Coming Together – Multicellular Life, 
CHAPTER 6 Life, Death and Immortality, 
CHAPTER 7 Taking in the Cytes, 
GLOSSARY, 
INDEX, 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, 

CHAPTER 1

A Brief History of the Cell

The earliest observations of cells were made in the late seventeenth century, but their fundamental importance in the natural world only became apparent over 150 years later, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Since then, increasingly rapid strides have been taken toward understanding what goes on inside cells — and how such processes relate to growth, reproduction, inheritance, disease, and the origin of life on Earth.

A whole new world

When seventeenth-century natural philosophers and physicians gazed through microscopes at plants, animals and fungi they were treated to tantalizing glimpses of anatomy and physiology on tiny scales. Microscopes allowed these scientists and doctors to discover "microorganisms" — entire living things too small to see with the naked eye — and to stumble across the existence of cells.

A revolution in seeing

The facts surrounding the invention of the microscope are about as clear as the images that early examples of these instruments produced. It was in the 1590s, or possibly the early 1600s, and probably in Holland, but possibly in England, that someone first placed two lenses in an arrangement that produced a magnified image. What is known is that the new instrument, more powerful than the hand lenses already in use, quickly captured the imagination of natural philosophers across Europe.

The magnifying power and optical quality of microscopes improved gradually during the seventeenth century. Although minerals and everyday objects were frequent subjects of study, it was closeup views of living things that really caught people's eyes. In 1660, the Italian physician Marcello Malpighi carried out microscopic studies of human flesh and found tiny blood vessels — the capillaries, which join arteries to veins. The discovery of capillaries confirmed a controversial theory: the circulation of blood, put forward by William Harvey in 1628. Malpighi studied many plants and animals with his microscopes, and in 1666, after studying a blood clot, he described "very small red particles" that "roll and turn helter-skelter", the first confirmed sighting of what we now call red blood cells.

Tiny boxes

The most influential microscopist of the age was Englishman Robert Hooke. While employed as "curator of experiments" at the new Royal Society in London, Hooke made many observations through microscopes and telescopes, and produced a beautifully illustrated book of what he had seen. Micrographia was published in September 1665 and its exquisite drawings and intriguing text gave readers an insight into a world hidden from everyday eyes. The now famous diarist Samuel Pepys was among those captivated, noting: "Before I went to bed, I sat up till 2 a-clock in my chamber, reading of Mr. Hooke's Microscopical Observations, the most ingenious book that I ever read in my life.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 022622418X
• ISBN 13: 9780226224183
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 192