• Question: what is your favorite cell?

    Asked by anon-188321 to Warren, Shanti, Pizza Ka Yee, Paul, Nadine, Alex on 7 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Alex Reid

      Alex Reid answered on 7 Nov 2018:

      This is probably a bit of a shocker but, as a psychologist, I am going to go with brain cell (also known as a neuron). Although there are three main types of neuron (sensory, motor and interneuron) I’ve also read there may be more than 10,000 distinct subtypes in the human brain. As such I don’t really think I can bring myself to choose a specific one (mainly because I don’t know them all). I feel like a Labrador dog that has just had a dumpster truck of new tennis balls dropped in front of him and is being forced to pick one!

    • Photo: Nadine Mirza

      Nadine Mirza answered on 8 Nov 2018: last edited 8 Nov 2018 2:19 am

      Like Alex said, it’s pretty tough to pick your favourite cell and I’m fascinated by brain cells too. That being said, I think a big favourite of mine would be stem cells! If cells were Pokemon, stem cells would be Ditto. They have the potential to become any type of cell needed- almost like a cell super power! Its why so many scientists are doing research with stem cells to see if they can find fixes for diseases that damage others cells of our body.

    • Photo: Warren Mansell

      Warren Mansell answered on 8 Nov 2018:

      Well, there are two examples of brain cells here. I will go for E.Coli then, a single-celled bacterium. Why? Because it shows beautifully how a very simple organism can ‘steer’ its way to food, just by tumbling randomly every time it senses the concentration in the water around it reducing. This leads it to quite effectively get to where the food is coming from. It might also tell us about how we solve problems. When we don’t get enough of what we want, we ‘tumble’ – a thought pops into our head while we think about the problem – and we try it out. Eventually we work out how to get what we want….

    • Photo: Paul Matusz

      Paul Matusz answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      Pyramid neurons! As I typically use electroencephalography EEG in my work – and it records activity from these cells. Have a look for more info here – https://imotions.com/blog/eeg/

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