• Question: is everything made of cells??

    Asked by tashaaaa13 to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Alastair Sloan

      Alastair Sloan answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Hi Tashaaaaa

      Most tissue in the human body are made of cells, yes

    • Photo: Keith Brain

      Keith Brain answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      A nice question. First, I’ll assume that your thinking about living things.

      The answer: no!

      Our bodies are mostly made up of cells, but the gaps in between are filled by network of fibres, such as collagen, that are not part of cells. Also, about 1/3 of the (salty) water in our bodies is outside cells, while the hard material that makes up bone is also not in cells. This is similar for other animals.

      Viruses aren’t cells (and don’t contain cells) but they’re also not alive. So, having cells seems to be a characteristic feature of living things on this planet, but most living things also contain parts that are outside of cells.

    • Photo: Vicki Stevenson

      Vicki Stevenson answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      biological things (us, amoeba, plants, etc) contain cells. minerals are made of crystals though

    • Photo: Hywel Vaughan

      Hywel Vaughan answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hi Tasha,

      The answer is no – not everything is made of cells. Even in living entities, cells only make up a part of our system. The cells themselves are even made up of a whole range of things, drilling right down to the fundamentals of physics itself – cells are actually quite big in comparison to something like tachyons.

Comments

  • Photo: Ben

    Ben commented on :

    Tachyons are are theorists dream; things that travel faster than the speed of light which most probably don’t exist.

    If you drill down to the fundamentals, break up anything into its smallest components, you will get the fundamental particles. There are just 12 of them and EVERYTHING in the Universe we see around us is made up from these particles. These are the true building blocks of nature.

    • Photo: Hywel

      Hywel commented on :

      I shall bow my head in acknowledgement here to Ben – a lecturer with a PhD in Experimental Particle Physics is by far the expert in this matter!
      There you go Tasha, not everything is made up of cells, but EVERYTHING is made up of 12 fundamental particles.
      Thanks Ben 🙂

    • Photo: Keith

      Keith commented on :

      Thanks for encouraging me to read further! I agree that 12 gets us to all the matter around us, as opposed to the antimatter, but it does leave out the bosons … like photons. As our eyes can see nothing without light, it would be nice to count the bosons in too!

      Now, back to my stamp collecting … 😉