Your Textbooks Are Wrong, This Is What Cells Actually Look Like

With new advances in microscopy, biologists are able to see the secret life of cells unfolding like never before.

You probably remember being taught about the cell in your high school biology class—learning the cell structure, labeling the membrane, the nucleus, and the cytoplasm.

But it turns out, what we’ve learned from our biology textbooks is likely an oversimplification, and biologists at research organizations like the Allen Institute for Cell Science are working to take a more integrated and holistic view to better understand the cell and all its complexities.

We are in a new era of cell biology. For centuries, microscopes have illuminated previously invisible worlds, and the recent advancements in microscopy are no different.

Breakthrough laser microscopes are not only allowing biologists to image a cell in three dimensions, but also providing the opportunity to reveal hidden patterns inside of living cells.

Find out more about this new microscopy technology capturing cells like never before and what this could mean for the next decade of cell biology on this episode of Focal Point.

00:00 Crawling immune cells
01:09 History of cellular biology
02:21 New microscopy
03:46 Adaptive optics
04:40 Unlike any other microscope
06:40 The next decade of cell biology

#Biology #Microscopy #Tech #Lasers #Cells #Science #Seeker #FocalPoint

Additional Credit:
Betzig Lab, HHMI/Janelia Research Campus; 10/24/14 issue of the journal Science.
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[liamsheridan]

Cells are working together to find a way for themselves to see themselves.

[Avinash-xzyn]

Gotto feel sorry the high school students of tomorrow, they're gonna have a hard time drawing these in tests

[rdxyz]

Man, these guys are so freakin passionate when they speak

[metaspherz]

Well, these new biologists are certainly excited to see these new images, but just imagine how Van Leeuwenhoek felt after he perfected the simple microscope and was the first human being to be able to see the world of bacteria and protozoa.

[TheRealGuywithoutaMustache]

These images of cells are absolutely phenomenal. It’s quite literally a microscopic universe.

[deepvybes]

This is one of those "breakthrough" things that deserves the attention of the media

[taufiqulhuque]

If the Nobel Prize committees weren't so blinkered, they would be awarding their prizes to scientists and engineers like this team. As a biologist myself I always tell my students how indebted they are to the quiet but brilliant people who build the tools which we can then use to study life.

[aleksseb]

Imagine being a living cell going about your daily life, not realizing that you are inside another living human being. Now imagine how much we don’t know. We might be just a dust in the universe within a greater mechanism/organism.

[devandevan]

There’s a quote. “No model is accurate. But some are useful.”

[harshvirtomar]

RIP to all scientists who died thinking cell is a circle with a dot.

[PuudingMusic]

This team of engineers and biologists might end up in textbooks in the future

[hii]

I actually cried watching this video. It feels just so overwhelming and amazing seeing these micro universes from a different and more vivid view! Can't imagine how scientists must've felt first time seeing this!

[experiment]

Not so much wrong as oversimplified. Like solar system models

[ThePakman]

Cell: Minding its own business...eating and pooping..
Human: I can seeee

[TheBurnttea]

As an 8th grade dropout I find this absolutely fascinating. I can't even imagine the joy and astonishment that scientists are experiencing with this.

[osalas]

It wasn't until medical school that I realized the importance and significance of the cytoskeleton and how it is intimately connected with the extracellular matrix. There is a whole network of highways WITHIN the cell. I feel it's not as emphasized in intro bio classes in college (or at least I didn't pick up on the significance)

[puffypuppy]

How cells multiply:
1. o
2. 0
3. 8
4. o o
5. Repeat

Correct me if I made a mistake

[koolerpure]

This doesn’t mean the text books are wrong, all this is is a high definition look that we couldn’t do before

[souljahroch]

I've been a Lab Tech for 30 years, & "it was like looking at the cell for the first time." Amazing...✌

[louf]

It's unnecessary to call textbooks "wrong" when their intent is about elementary understanding. The trendy "i'Ve beEn LiEd tOo" rhetoric causes unnecessary alarm.