Geek Out: Cells, More Than Just Mitochondria?

Debt:

Actually, the US national debt might be a scary number but it’s nowhere near this big, you can check out what it is today by clicking here.

Bezos:

According to at least this article, Jeff Bezos will be the first trillionaire but is still quite away off that first trillion!

Bacterial:

The other half are bacterial cells, mostly living quietly in our gut or on our skin. Over the last decade it’s become obvious that our interaction with these bacteria is much more complex than ever imagined and these bacteria we share our body with may well be influencing our health in incredibly diverse ways, from whether we put on weight easily to our likelihood of developing autism, a future blog perhaps?

Peek:

With the same width as a human hair, our giant egg cells (ova) are really the only cell there’s any chance of seeing with the naked eye.

Cell membrane:

You’ll also hear the cell membrane called the plasma membrane or even the phospholipid bilayer – the latter term tells you about more about this structure, it’s made of fats (lipids) with phosphorous attached (phospho) and there are 2 layers (bi-layer)

Outside of our cells:

Cell membranes are referred to as “semi-permeable” which means the same as “allow only some things to move across”

City:

If you’re a Brit reading this, my use of the word “city may have resulted in you thinking of a large metropolis, with a cathedral. American’s use the word “city” is much more general, referring really to any town with a population of more than 2500

Whole humans:

Coming soon – a post called the genetic cook book, where we’ll talk a lot more about genes, proteins and other fun things!

Power plants:

Power station if you’re speaking British English!

UPS offices:

Within a cell, rather intimidatingly-named stuff called endoplasmic reticulum is responsible for producing hormones and other useful molecules both for use inside the cell and for export.

The golgi apparatus then packages these molecules that are going to leave the cell into vesicles, as only when they’re in these vesicles can they cross the cell membrane and journey off into the rest of the body

Epithelial

often if you look up a science word + etymology, you’ll be able to understand the word better. For example, there’s a big hole at the base of our skull which is called the “foramen magnum” because that’s the Latin for um “large hole”, sounds more impressive in Latin though doesn’t it?!

However, sadly, epithelial is not one of those words where the translation helps as it comes from the Latin for “above the nipple”, presumably that’s where people first found these cells?

Red blood cells:

strictly speaking a red blood cell is not actually a cell as it doesn’t have a nucleus, nor, if you’ve heard of them, should platelets actually be called cells, for the same reason, no nucleus! That said, no one is going to make you do 10 push ups for calling red blood cells a cell because, well, everyone does!

Nerve cells:

nerve cells is a slightly less scientific term so if you want to sound a little more nerdy? Call them neurons or neuronal cells

Cell membranes are referred to as “semi-permeable” which means the same as “allow only some things to move across”