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Cell Structure & Function
Take a minute and look at yourself closely in a mirror. Stare deeply into your eyes. Examine the curvature of your nose, the wrinkles in your lips. Look at your neck, your knees, and the tips of your toes. Even the freckles on your skin.
Can you fathom that you've also just gazed at millions of tiny living structures that make your body the unique organism that it is? Such structures - called cells - are the basic building blocks of all living things. Your cells hold you together, give you shape and size, perform vital processes to keep you functioning, and contain the genetic material that makes you a human being instead of a parakeet or a palm tree!
Cells play similar roles in everything that lives - animals, plants, even in single - cell organisms like bacteria. But, if you've seen one cell, you haven't seen them all.
Light micrograph of a vertical section through the human retina.
