Summary
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the cell, the fundamental building block of life. First observed by Robert Hooke in 1665, cells occur in nature in a bewildering variety of forms. Every organism alive today consists of one or more cells: a single human body contains up to a hundred trillion of them.
The first life on Earth was a single-celled organism which is thought to have appeared around three and a half billion years ago. That simple cell resembled today's bacteria. But eventually these microscopic entities evolved into something far more complex, and single-celled life gave rise to much larger, complex multicellular organisms. But how did the first cell appear, and how did that prototype evolve into the sophisticated, highly specialised cells of the human body?
With:
Steve Jones Professor of Genetics at University College London
Nick Lane Senior Lecturer in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London
Cathie Martin Group Leader at the John Innes Centre and Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia
Producer: Thomas Morris.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
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| 0:46.4 | enjoy the program. Hello all life on earth has one thing in common the cell |
| 0:51.7 | around three and a half, four billion years ago, the first |
| 0:55.5 | single-celled organism appeared in the oceans, a microscopic bag of chemicals capable of reproduction. |
| 1:02.4 | Every living thing alive today is its descendant, |
| 1:05.0 | and everyone from bacteria, from bacteria, to the blue whale consists of one or more cells. |
| 1:11.0 | The human body contains so many of them that after 70 billion die and |
| 1:15.1 | replaced every day. So where did the cell come from? What goes inside, what goes on inside |
| 1:20.0 | it? And how did the earliest single cell creature evolve into a complex |
| 1:23.9 | organisms containing billions or trillions of cells with me to discuss the cell are |
| 1:28.6 | Steve Jones professor of genetics at University College London |
| 1:32.1 | Nick Lane senior lecturer in the department Professor of Genetics at University College London. |
| 1:32.8 | Nick Lane, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Genetics, |
| 1:35.8 | Evolution and Environment, also at University College London. |
| 1:38.9 | And Kathy Martin, group leader at the John Innes Center |
... |
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