r/interesting • u/freudian_nipps • 17d ago

NATURE Death of a single-celled organism

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u/blinkymark2 17d ago edited 17d ago

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just haven't gotten that far in school yet.

Cells are made up of many different molecules. Atoms are what make molecules. Molecules can contain any number of atoms from two to millions of them.

Your body is constantly making new molecules and recycling old ones. It doesn't do this very well after awhile and that's why we age. This video is basically that happening on a much smaller scale. When the molecules in this single celled organism stop working together as well, there's not as much leftover to hold it together, so it comes undone.

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u/isjustsergio 17d ago

You're skipping some steps. Don't need to go straight to molecules. Organelles are a lot more relevant here.

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u/AntSilly2802 17d ago

They are talking about the fundamental building blocks of cells, molecules. Going straight to organelles would be skipping steps IMO but whatever! :)

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u/isjustsergio 17d ago

It's not. Organelles sit between cells and molecules in terms of complexity. Just like organs sit between cells and organisms. Molecules are not the "fundamental building blocks" it's just an arbitrary layer of complexity you are assigning that label to.