Wednesday, September 16, 2009

We are made of cells

Hi all,

At this point, everyone should be able to outline the three major tenets of the cell theory and discuss some of the evidence that supports the theory, as well as some arguments against it.  Some top-notch questions have been raised in the past few days, including:

  1. If all cells come from pre-existing cells, where did the first one come from?
  2. Is a virus isn't made of cells, can it still be considered living?
  3. If we found another planet in the universe and it had some form of life that wasn't cellular, would we have to change the cell theory?  Can we know for sure that non-cellular life is out there?  How would we recognize it if we saw it?
  4. How do we define life? Is there any validity to the categories of "life" and "non-life"?  Does it matter?
All good thoughts to chew on as we move forward in our discussion of cells.

Also, this is a cool picture of a nerve cell tissue that we discussed in class. 

Homework
Complete the four magnification problems on the worksheet handed in class.  This is your first shot at IB-style questions, so work methodically and carefully.  This assignment is not available electronically.

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