AP bio: Article 1 - The Lives of a Cell

An image of Earth from space.  The author of "The Lives of a Cell" concludes his first article with the proposition that Earth is just one giant organism.  (This picture is from: http://www.solstation.com/life/ear-life.htm.)

In this article, the author begins with the image of "Modern Man." He is looking down at the world, as if he is superior to it, but the author goes on to explain that "it is illusion to think that there is anything fragile about the life of the earth..." and that "we are the delicate part..." of it.  Humans depend on nature and the two are more related than we would think.  An example that the author gives are the mitochondria inside our cells.  They used to be free-living beings, but through endosymbiosis, were taken into cells.  The cell gives the mitochondria an environment to live in and the mitochondria play a large role in providing our cells, and therefore, us with energy.  The author ends the article with proposing the idea that the world "is most like a single cell."