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Cells & Cell Theory
Read the descriptions below of the important cell-related work scientists performed during the
seventeenth century.
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Anton van Leeuwenhoek was first to observe live cells through a microscope. He called the
moving organisms “animalcules” or “little animals.”
Franz Bauer provided the first early description of a nucleus and its function.
Robert Hooke examined cork under a microscope and came up with the word cell for the
compartments he saw.
Matthias Schleiden proposed that all plants and plant parts are made of cells.
Theodor Schwann concluded that animals are also composed of cells.
Rudolf Virchow is credited with theorizing that all cells come from pre-existing cells.
Robert Brown discovered the nucleus in plant cells.
1. Which of these contributions to the cell theory do you think is most important to our current
understanding of cells? Justify your answer.
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2. Why would Hooke’s discovery have been impossible without a microscope?
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3. Use Virchow’s ideas to explain why plastic plants are not alive.
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