Part 1: The Sensational Cell Circus
By the help of a microscopes, there is nothing so small as to escape our inquiry; hence there is a new visible world discovered to the understanding.
-Robert Hooke – discoverer of plant cells
Step right up ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls to the Sensational Cell Circus! You might have met all the creatures in the Kingdoms of Creation, but you have never seen them like this. Unless you’ve been walking around with a microscope, you haven’t been seeing the cells – they’re just too small! ‘Why would I want to see something so small, so miniscule, so insignificant,’ I hear you scoff. Why, cells are the very building blocks of life. So step right up, folks, and you can see some of the best cells in all of creation.
First up, we have our tiny town tenants – some of the finest specimens known to man from the Kingdoms of Archaea and Bacteria. We’ve got long, skinny pills and short strings of pearls. We’ve got ones that look like lumpy pillows and ones that look like they’re covered with hair. But the greatest of them all is Tetanus – don’t get too close now. It looks like a worm with one giant eye, and that’s not just for show; this microscopic creature is extremely dangerous!
Next, we have our three Protist sisters – Plant-like, Animal-like, and Fungus-like. These lovely cells are all from the same “family,” but they look nothing alike. Well, of course they are all different: the Kingdom of Protists is home to all the misfit creatures, perfect for our circus! Plant-like is almond shaped and can’t move at all. Animal-like has “pseudo-arms” that reach out and then get sucked back in as she creeps forward. Fungus-like, on the other hand, is enormous with creeping fingers that help her go about the work of decomposition.
Next on our stage we have our Plants and Fungi. You’ve seen them on the hills, you’ve seen them in the valleys, and now you can see them up close and personal. Really up close – we’re talking about cells after all. Like conjoined twins, these creatures cells are stuck together, making bigger, more complex creatures. Plant’s cells are like a quilt filled with rectangles or hexagons but with rigid walls. Fungus, though, is a much more laid back creature, more round and blobby but still with stiff walls.
And now, for the main event – the parade of Animal cells. Animals are so complex that they have a whole menagerie of different types of cells. There’s the wall of rectangular skin cells; the red blood cells that look like a thumb-print cookie; the long, skinny muscle cells; and the squishy, pillowy fat cells.
Last but not least, we have one final cell for you to see on this very stage. We have scoured the Earth, looking for the longest cell, and we are pleased to have brought it here for you to see for yourself: the giraffe’s neck nerve cell. This magnificent creation is 12 m (40 ft) long, a true giant among nerve cells that might be only nanometers long (that’s 12 billion times smaller). Whether large or small, nerve cells have arms that reach out to connect them together into a great web that covers a creature’s entire body, letting it go out and explore all of creation.
