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Essential Biology 2.1: Cell Theory

And the wikipedia page

And C4B page

And the brilliant Amazing Cells resource from Learn.Genetics at Utah.

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Microscopy & Evidence for Cell Theory

Get the awesome free Virtual Electron Microscope, or send off some samples to be scanned for nowt, from here or here.

Evolution of the cell, from Learn.Genetics

The slow death of spontaneous generation, from Access Excellence

A newly developed Mesolens combines the best of both worlds (light and electron microscopes), with the ability to view thousands of living cells and their contents at the same time.

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Size of cells:

Here’s a page of animations about techniques in microscopy

SA:Vol ratio from Wikipedia

And some cool animations to put things in perspective:

From Learn.Genetics at Utah (best one) or this one from Cells Alive.

The fairy wasp is smaller than an amoeba, from Ed Yong

Here’s another teacher explaining how to calculate magnification using questions from one of my Essential Biology sheets:

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Cell Differentiation:

Stem Cell Differentiation (animation) from MCB Harvard

Cell differentiation video from Teachers Domain

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Stem Cells:

Start with this: A Stem Cell Story, from EuroStemCell:

Stem Cells animated tutorial from Discover Biology

StemCells: Seeds of Hope? video from Teachers Domain

Animation: Human embryonic stem cells, from Sumanas

Animation: Creating human embryonic stem cell lines, from HHMI

NewScientist special reports on Stem Cells

Great Stem Cell videos from Eurostemcell.org (look at who they quote as a reviewer! (this site used to be called Science  Video Resources)

Stem Cells cribsheet from SEED Magazine

Get your head around this one: “Breast cells naturally transform into stem cells,” by Ed Yong. Is this a paradigm shift in progress?

Another form Ed Yong – “The genetic sergeants that keep stem cells stemmy” Read it again when you think  about the central dogma of genetics.

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Therapeutic Uses of Stem Cells

Animation: Stem cells & Therapeutic uses, from MCB Harvard

Animation Stem Cells transplants in lymphoma

Stem cells injected into brain of stroke patient – world first, Guardian

Stem cells used in spinal cord trial, from the Guardian

Sir Ian Wilmut, director of the MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine at Edinburgh University, who led the team that created Dolly the sheep, said: “This is very exciting news, however, it is very important to appreciate that the objective of trials at this stage is to confirm first of all that no harm is done to patients, rather than to look for benefits. Once that has been confirmed then the focus moves on to development and assessment of the new treatment.“

How does Wilmut’s comment demonstrate the precautionary principle as applied to biotechnology?

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Now, if you’re feeling advanced, here are the Stanford students with ‘regulatin’ genes’:

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Embryonic Stem Cell Patents Banned in the EU

Click here for a TOK-related discussion on this recent news.