Cells

What are cells? They are what you and I are made up of. They are the simplest form of life. The name 'cells' was first introduced by an English Scientist, Robert Hooke in 1667. He first observed the walls of the dead plant cells and thought they appeared like the cell in honeycomb. Thus the name of the simplest form of life is 'cells'.

There are different types of cells, they can be classified into two different types. They are plant and animal cells. The plant and animal cells have similarities and differences. Both of the animal and plant cells have protoplasm, a jelly-like substance which is approximately 70% of a cell. The cytoplasm is part of the protoplasm. Both of them have nucleus, mitochondrion, vesicles, cytoplasm, Golgi apparatus, vacuole, ribosome, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, cell surface membrane, rough endoplasmic reticulum and free ribosome.

However, parts like centriole are only present in animal cells and parts like cell wall, tonoplast and chloroplasts are only present in plant cells.

You may think that chloroplasts just contains chlorophyll. Actually, a chloroplast is like a bean inside filled with layers of discs containing chlorophyll. Not only so, the chloroplasts contain thylakoid, granum and stroma. The chloroplasts are parts of a plant cell which helps it make food. Thus, not all part of a plant will have chloroplasts. Only parts which appear green would have chloroplasts, the leaves. However, some plants with red leaves or other colour leaves does not mean that they do not have chloroplasts. In fact, they have hidden chloroplasts.

Cells on the whole, whether is it a plant cell or an animal cell, the cells would have similarity as they are part of the same organism.

Thank you!