What is a Cell?

Every living thing is made up of cells. Cells are extremely small, so large organisms (animals or plants) can contain billions of cells. Some organisms are Unicellular, these are the Bacteria, Protozoa and some types of Algae. Unicellular means that the oraginsm has no Nucleus, Mitochondria, Chloroplasts or Endoplasmic Reticulum, but they have a cell wall.

As you should know by now, Cells are very small, so to see them clearly you need a special tool called a light microscope. It is named this because it shines light through the substance that you are looking at. Then it uses glass lenses to magnify and focus the image. To see even smaller things in the substance, you will need an Electron Microscope. This uses a beam of Electrons instead of light. The light microscope can only magnify about 400-1500 times, but the Electron Microscope can magnify from 40000-500000 times. This obviously mean that more detail will be shown inside the substance that you are exmining.