Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Why who what where of Cells

Cells are the basic unit of the organization of organisms and are made from other cells. Organisms are made up of one or more cells. So Eukaryotic cells (like us) are cells that have membrane-bound structures called Organelles inside of them. The electron microscope was invented in the 1940’s by George E. Palade, Cristian de Duve, and Albert Claude, and it works by using a beam that magnifies structures 500,000 times their actual size. There are two main kinds of electron microscopes called scanning microscopes which scan’s the cells surface to create their three dimensional shape, and transmission microscopes which lets scientists to study structures that are contained within a cell (eukaryotic cells). Cells that don’t contain membrane-bound structures are called prokaryotes (like bacteria).

How many other kinds of cells are there?

mitochondrion & Chloroplast


Mitochondrion and Chloroplast are designed a certain way because they both have a specific purpose. Mitochondria, for example, are known for being the "power house" of the cell. They use their inner membrane (called Cristae) to gather the energy that is in the sugar (glucose) make ATP (Adenosine Tri-Phosphate) in a reaction called cellular respiration.


And it's Chloroplast that creates the glucose by changing the sun's energy into carbon dioxide in a reaction called photosynthesis. Yes, chloroplast are only found In plants and photosynthetic things. They have a granum which has thylakoid membranes (that's where photosynthesis happens).

So although both mitochondria and chloroplast are very efficent in. Their own ways, they do different things. Chloroplast makes the energy,Mitochondria is given it by the Chloroplast and them uses it (powers the cell). Above there is a picture of a chloroplast and the parts of the chloroplast to show how it works the way it does. for example, it shows the granum and the thylakoids as I mentioned before, and other parts.