Q 01/05

Who coined the term "cell" in 1665 after examining thin slices of cork under a microscope?

A) Jan Swammerdam

B) Robert Hooke

C) Marcello Malpighi

D) Robert Boyle

Answer · why

B) Robert Hooke

Robert Hooke never knew what he had named: all his cork showed was the empty walls the cells had left behind, and he had no idea such boxes were the b...

Q 02/05

Which 1665 book first used the word "cell" in biology, for the pores in a sliver of cork?

A) Micrographia

B) De Humani Corporis Fabrica

C) Principia

D) Systema Naturae

Answer · why

A) Micrographia

Micrographia was a best-seller in its day: the diarist Samuel Pepys sat up until two in the morning with it and called it the most ingenious book he h...

Q 03/05

The word "cell" comes from the Latin cella, which means what?

A) Little box

B) Tiny seed

C) Building block

D) Small room

Answer · why

D) Small room

Small room: the man who named the cell was looking at a slice of cork, and its tiny pores are said to have reminded him of the rooms monks lived in.

Q 04/05

Roughly how many cells make up a typical adult human body?

A) 300 billion

B) 3 trillion

C) 30 trillion

D) 300 trillion

Answer · why

C) 30 trillion

30 trillion comes from a 2016 recount that also overturned a textbook claim: the bacteria living in you do not outnumber your own cells ten to one but...

Q 05/05

Your nerve cells and liver cells carry the same DNA, so what makes them differ?

A) How many chromosomes they hold

B) Which genes are switched on

C) Which parent supplied the DNA

D) How old the cells are

Answer · why

B) Which genes are switched on

Which genes are switched on: nearly every cell keeps the full genome and reads only part of it, which is why Dolly the sheep could be cloned in 1996 f...