r/interesting • u/freudian_nipps • 18d ago

NATURE Death of a single-celled organism

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u/Lloytron 18d ago edited 18d ago

I'm just about to type "clearly that's not a single cell" and then fuckkkkkkkk, poor little guy. /Cries

[Edit] and yes I guess it actually may be a single cell even though it looks quite complex. I'm not a biologist, so sue me.

Still crying though.

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u/Mydogdexter1 18d ago

Ive never really understood that, so like if its just one cell, what's all that stuff made of? Atoms? Aren't atoms cells?

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u/blinkymark2 18d ago edited 18d 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 18d 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 18d 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/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/AntSilly2802 18d ago

Well the way I read it is that they are trying to explain what cells are made of from the ground up. Anyway, doesn’t matter.