Cellular Awareness

In order to understand your body, you have to get an idea of how it functions. The following short videos are meant to give you a glimpse into your own cells and physiology. The purpose is not to understand all details, but the larger picture having to do with how amazingly complex our bodies are. Star Wars inside of us. Or should we call it “Cell Wars”?

What you are seeing here is only one small part of one small cell. Cellular machines that are smaller than a wave of light. Together they build, maintain and run our cells. They keep us “alive”. Each one as complex as a small city, 10 trillion of them. All working in real-time, at once and almost flawless – unless something goes wrong.

The Secret Life of the Cell, Harvard University 2015.

Your immune system is extremely complex and takes care of not only killing pathogens and cancer cells but also cleaning up toxins and debris for you. How would you describe this white blood cell? Intelligent? Determined? Amazing?

Immune cell chasing bacteria around some lazy red blood cells.

Our cells are the basis for our physical existence. They function, maintain and replicate themselves using information stored in our DNA and read by a molecular machinery smaller than a ray of light. For the first time we are now able to make this process visible, even if only through computer visualization. Scientists are working on microscopes so small they can enable us to watch this amazing world inside us live and in realtime.

Nano-size molecular machines maintain life in our cells.

When we eat and breathe our cells produce energy. The digestive process breaks down food to the molecular level and cellular respiration breaks it down to the atomic level. Each step releases energy stored in the chemical bonds. The following clip shows how each cell in your body produces energy (ATP) with the help of the smallest known electric motor in the universe.

The smallest known electromagnetic motor in the universe.

Do you believe this is all coincidence? Would you agree that each of us commanders the most amazing machine ever invented? If we have been given this machine / this body for free and intend to use it as long as possible, should we not at least take care of it in the best possible way?