How Cells Become Specialized

Cells are the basic units of life, and they can become specialized for different jobs in the body. The idea of the cell began in 1665, when Robert Hooke looked at dead cork tissue under a microscope and named the small boxlike spaces "cells" because they reminded him of monks' rooms. About ten years later, Antonie ...

Cells come in various sizes and shapes, depending on their function. This diversity can be seen across all forms of life. 

In unicellular organisms, such as bacteria or yeast, a single cell performs all the required functions. Conversely, in multicellular organisms, such as humans, that consist of over a hundred trillion cells, individual...