Follow Your Cells: A Short Story

There are many different types of cells in the human body. These cells would not be able to function on their own, they are all part of a large organism that is called - you.

Encyclopaedia Britannica also states that it is “proved to be a versatile technique of dating fossils and archaeological specimens from 500 to 50,000 years old” (1998). This method of age determination is dependent upon the decay of nitrogen and radiocarbon (Carbon-14) (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011). Carbon-14 is continually formed in nature by the interaction of neutrons with nitrogen-14 in the Earth’s atmosphere (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011) and all living things exchange the gas carbon-14 with the atmosphere surrounding them. The amount of carbon-14 exchanged into the living organism is perfectly balanced with its surroundings, but when an organism dies, they stop taking in the gas and that equilibrium is damaged. Because Carbon-14 slowly decays at a known rate called its “half-life” in a dead organism, scientists can figure out how long ago it had stopped exchanging carbon with its atmosphere. Thus, its age can be determined by measuring the amount of Carbon-14 in a sample (Hirst, 2017; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2017; Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit Research Laboratory for Archaeology, n.d.; Earthsky, 2017; Cram, 1993). With the utilisation of Radiocarbon Dating, scientists have been able to discover that Lindow

Carbon-14 is incorporated in the tissues of plants and animals through their environment. When they die the incorporation of carbon-14 ends, and what remains in the specimen decays at a constant rate, with a half-life of

This is the story of a cell, a young cell. This cell’s goal was to have the most powerful mitochondria of any other cell she knew. The mitochondria gave energy. She knew if she had a strong mitochondria, her being would be powerful and strong.

Human cells are known to regenerate every seven years, but what if they regenerated every second? In the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks written by Rebecca Skloot, talks about a woman named Henrietta Lacks, she suffered with cervical cancer for years, but what she didn’t know is she had a rare case of a cell line called The Hela Cell Line. These cells are the first human cells that are continuously grown in culture. These studies are similar to the ones in the book Survival of the Sickest written by Sharon Moalem, explaining how your body reacts in severe weather and ruthless circumstances. In this book, it also touches on the topic about how diabetes helped people survive in the Younger Dryas ice age. The

He found, that unlike other cells that typically divide 40 or so times before dying, Lack’s cells kept dividing over and over at a rapid rate, producing an entirely new generation every 24 hours.

"Embryonic stem cells are special because they are the only cells that can make all parts of the body,” said Douglas Melton, in an interactive videoconference available at athome.harvard.edu. The conference was hosted in New York and broadcasted to Cambridge, Washington D.C., and Naples, Florida on March 2, 2004. "Embryonic stem cells can do everything. So if you want to work on replenishing tissues, that’s where you go."

It is interesting to note that Carbon-14 is radioactive while Carbon-12 and Carbon-13 are stable.

The carbon cycle deals with the interaction of carbon between living organisms and the nonliving environment. This cycle is a process through which all carbon rotates. The main result of the carbon cycle is to serve as a great natural "recycler" of carbon atoms.

Stanford’s Irv Weissman put it. There are also several claims that adult cells proliferate much more slowly than embryonic ones, and that they may not provide a renewing source

(1) The theory that best support my current views on aging is the Wear-and-Tear Theory. The theory is “the idea that changes associated with aging are the result of chance damage to the body that accumulate over time”. (2) As many of us know, the body is constantly renewing itself. The cells in you is constantly creating new ones to replace the old, just like a boat. You are constantly restoring all the parts, where the boat will basically be almost all new parts. I think our body is like a built boat, car, or even a house, you must keep repairing it. Some people would literally get a new body part. A blood transfusion, heart replacement and a leg replacement are some examples of the theory. But just like a used car, boat or house, we stop

The atmosphere provides many important functions to our earth and life here. It keeps humans safe from harmful UV rays and without our atmosphere we would not be able to breathe. The atmosphere is composed of many gases, but majority of it is Nitrogen and Oxygen. But the other smaller gases play large roles and are important for life on earth. Carbon Dioxide is one of them. Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is made by dying plants and the burning of fossil fuels. It is removed by our ocean and photosynthesis, a process used by plants to convert light energy into chemical energy.

Can we live forever? In the video I watched narrated by Neil Tyson, an astrophysicist, he explained the many possible ways that we could. In this interesting video a man has been able to put two point seven million miles on his car. When I heard that I didn’t believe it and I was confused at how that had anything to do with living a longer life or just living forever. The man who drove the car explained that if something is wrong fix it. It is just that simple. When I thought about this further the realization of car parts being replaced is almost the same as human organs being replaced. Many scientists believed that labs will be able to grow organs in the soon future. That would be helpful for people who are in need of new organs. There is a list with one hundred thousand people on it and an average of twenty people die every day because they do not get the organs they need. Scientists have been able to reproduce skin, muscles, blood vessels, and even a bladder before.

Carbon-14 atoms have two extra neutrons, giving them a total of 8 neutrons. Carbon-14 has an atomic mass of 14 (= 6 protons + 8 neutrons). The extra neutrons make the nucleus of carbon-14 unstable. Carbon-14 is radioactive! Radioactive carbon-14 (also written as 14C) has a half-life of 5,730 years.

Across the planet, four times every second, a new human is conceived. In just nine months, a single cell no bigger than a speck of dust transforms into the most complex organism on earth. There are many events that shape and define us long before we’re born. Right from the start, it’s a journey full of surprises. There are many things that make you who you are today.