EBOOK Cell: A Very Short Introduction

All living things on Earth are composed of cells. A cell is the simplest unit of a        self-contained living organism, and the vast majority of life on Earth consists of        single-celled microbes, mostly bacteria. These consist of a simple 'prokaryotic'        cell, with no nucleus. The bodies of more complex plants and animals consist of        billions of 'eukaryotic' cells, of varying kinds, adapted to fill different roles -        red blood cells, muscle cells, branched neurons. Each cell is anastonishingly        complex chemical factory, the activities of which we have only begun to unravel in        the past fifty years or so through modern techniques of microscopy, biochemistry,        and molecular biology.In this Very Short Introduction, Terence Allen and Graham        Cowling describe the nature of cells - their basic structure, their varying forms,        their division, their differentiation from initially highly flexible stem cells,        their signalling, and programmed death. Cells are the basic constituent of life, and        understanding cells and how they work is central to all biology and medicine.