Last year I had spare moments and wanted to learn something new. Hence I set out to familiarize myself with the full details of the cells' inner nature. After all, cells are small and undoubtedly without much room for complexities. As false as this assumption was - it got me engaged in a wonderful journey of learning and revelation.
After having been reading about microbiology for a while I have realized that most of this small scale natural wonder is amazing - while a few things are mind blowing.
Below are the topics I found most fascinating. NB: use with caution - my interpretation might be wrong or misleading.
Proteins, particularly enzymes, does their job propelled mostly by the vibrational force of ambient heat. As their molecules twists and wiggles, they grab their prey and mercilessly act upon them.
Viruses reproduce in host cells. Viruses break into cells, in various ways, and hijacks the cells DNA / RNA production line. When the needed components are reproduced, the virus self-assemble and blows up it's host.
Nerve cells are chemical-electrical. Various kinds of external stimuli, such as stretching, charges or chemicals cause the nerve cells to open it's membranes and absorb ions. This inflow charges the cells and a pulse is generated, traveling their long tails.
Nerve cells can be extremely long. Their signal conveying tails, axons, can reach from your toe to the spinal cord.
Cell membranes are self organizing. The molecules of the cell membrane, lipids, are naturally drawn into spherical shields - due to their hate of water and deep love of their own kinds. Given the right temperature, and some cholestrole, the resulting membranes are even liquid - a perfect home for cells.
Gene regulation allows genetic meta programming. By producing gene blocking proteins, the cells can block certain features of it's own DNA. When these blocking mechanism blocks other blockers - or responds to external signalling - we have a highly flexible, and highly complex, mechanism.
Visual and auditory inputs are passed through fast and slow neural pathways for time shift comparison. The brain receive both real-time and delayed visual input, which when compared can be used to detect motion in the visual scene. This simple mechanism allows seeing organisms to draw attention to important matters, such as a an attacker or prey, or annoyances such as a blinking commercial. The right and left ears' frequency signals are similarly shifted - to detect phase shifts revealing the source's angle to the head.
Some cells, mostly bacteria, exchanges genes to speed up evolution.Called horizontal gene transfer it must be highly useful when someone hatches a trick for synthesizing a useful molecule or for avoiding threats - such as antibiotics. Multiple mechanisms exists, one is a simple tube from one bacteria to another, one uses viruses for delivery.
Recommended reads:
- Wagner - The arrival of the fittest
- Groh - Making space, how the brain knows where we are
- Lots of people - Essential Cell Biology
