Althouse: Closeup on death.

May 14, 2023

Closeup on death.

death of a single cell pic.twitter.com/lwCJink5d9
— microscopic images. (@microscopicture) May 13, 2023

30 comments:

Wince said...: "Insane in the membrane."; 5/14/23, 10:42 AM
Original Mike said...: What's the time scale?; 5/14/23, 10:44 AM
Dave Begley said...: How about T-cells killing cancer cells? That’s where it is at! $TCRT

https://youtu.be/xzdSdPNffDE; 5/14/23, 10:57 AM
Owen said...: It looks like Chicago or San Francisco seen from a drone as the last citizens flee the mostly-peaceful protests.; 5/14/23, 10:58 AM
Temujin said...: I hate when that happens.; 5/14/23, 11:06 AM
wild chicken said...: Huh. Its borders actually dissolve.

Who knew.; 5/14/23, 11:12 AM
n.n said...: Was it Her Choice or her Choice? She could have been a beautiful baby...; 5/14/23, 11:22 AM
chickelit said...: That’s what will happen to the US borders…; 5/14/23, 11:23 AM
Drago said...: You mean to tell me a single cell can be alive or dead?

That's not what we heard recently in the Roe discussion.; 5/14/23, 11:33 AM
Old and slow said...: It gradually loses coherence and ceases functioning. Very much the same as larger organisms. Sad to watch for me. I am currently watching my father go through the same sequence.; 5/14/23, 11:35 AM
n.n said...: That's not what we heard recently in the Roe discussion.

With a consensus of sexes, she might have been a beautiful baby, one day a lady.; 5/14/23, 11:53 AM
Michael K said...: Blogger wild chicken said...

Huh. Its borders actually dissolve.

Who knew.

Yes, without borders there is no life.; 5/14/23, 12:03 PM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: Happy Mother’s Day.; 5/14/23, 12:14 PM
Jay Vogt said...: Pfizer will come up with a drug for that in about 20 minutes. We'll see TV ads in an hour.

Are these cool days or what?; 5/14/23, 12:43 PM
Ice Nine said...: Lokks like a "$500,000" Hunter Biden painting.; 5/14/23, 1:47 PM
n.n said...: Are these cool days or what?

Bionic cell. We have the technology. We can make them more viable, more durable, more mechanical, more viral. We can do it, today.; 5/14/23, 2:03 PM
Inga said...: Don’t be sad, it could be apoptosis.; 5/14/23, 2:11 PM
William said...: I didn't politicize the untimely passing of this cell. I went all philosophical. This tiny cell dissolved and was absorbed into a larger organism. Perhaps it will be thus with our cosmos. They say our cosmo keeps expanding towards nothingness but perhaps our cosmos is just a single cell in a larger cosmos but we don't have sufficient perspective to appreciate this. Maybe it's turtles--bigger and bigger turtles--all the way up. Maybe our cosmos is just a single cell in some cosmic being who questions the existence of God.; 5/14/23, 2:16 PM
n.n said...: Progressive viability.; 5/14/23, 2:27 PM
mikee said...: Run that video backwards and you would delight the hearts of Creationist congregations.
I suggest charging them for the show.; 5/14/23, 2:30 PM
mikee said...: Run that video backwards and you would delight the hearts of Creationist congregations.
I suggest charging them for the show.; 5/14/23, 2:30 PM
wildswan said...: When the sperm is in the egg cell, it has already shed its front which was a hormone package to dissolve a very small hole in the egg cell membrane (you see why its good that the sperm cell is so small in relation to the egg cell) and its tail whose motion had powered it to the egg cell. It's mostly a nucleus and as such it travels across the egg cell to the egg nucleus. When the two are next to each other both dissolve their nuclear membranes and the two sets of chromosomes "meet" for the first time. They line up on a pole-to-pole line, pair by pair, inside the egg cell and then spin out lines sideways on the equatorial line and then shrink those lines which draws the chromosome pairs apart. Meanwhile a double membrane wall forms along the pole to pole line and when its complete you have two separate cells with identical chromosome sets. That same process is repeated till as adults we have 30 to 37 trillion cells in our body all descended from the original "moment" of conception when the two sets of chromosomes which formed a spindle, separated and formed a two cell walls for the first time. Each cell made by each individual's body since that first division contains the same type of defining sex chromosome combination as appeared in those first two cells so each body has either 37 trillion male cells or 37 trillion female cells. Their natural action must be suppressed for the entire rest of an individual's life when an individual attempts to escape the male or female mammalian body plan he or she formed in the womb. This doesn't seem safe to me - it seems like a recipe for cancer or some type of organ malfunction.; 5/14/23, 3:11 PM
Dave Begley said...: When TCRT releases its data on May 25, watch it fly!; 5/14/23, 4:34 PM
Narr said...: Yeah, timescale would be nice.

Entropy at work.; 5/14/23, 5:32 PM
Old and slow said...: Everyone is so funny and glib online. That dying cell was so similar in form to the way my father passed just this morning. Slowly bursting and losing form in one area, slowing down as the process of degeneration moves on more swiftly, then nothing. Nothing but an open mouth. No words to properly convey. 99 11/12ths years old. Who could ask for more? Still crushing.; 5/14/23, 6:55 PM
MadisonMan said...: In other words, cytolysis. Everything has a name.; 5/14/23, 7:49 PM
JML said...: Old and slow-Thoughts and prayers for your Father, you and your family.; 5/14/23, 8:31 PM
Narr said...: Condolences, O and s.

I've only had to deal with old and dying women, and I notice that before the end they look more like a collection of human parts than like a human. That's crudely put, but some will know what I mean.; 5/14/23, 9:36 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Cell death is a regular process in multicellular organisms. Each of us just today had tens of billions of our cells kill themselves under this regular process. You replace them regularly when young, but eventually you can't replace them as rapidly as they die.

When the cell is signaled to die, it releases a bunch of proteases that destroy all the proteins inside the cell, including those that form its structure.; 5/14/23, 10:47 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Old and Slow- my condolences- it isn't easy losing a parent.; 5/14/23, 10:49 PM