Bright Sword starts with the grenade flat.

Chapter 438 Differences between Plant Cells and Animal Cells
Liu Xiu also found their idea very crazy. Are they planning to defeat magic with magic and defeat biology with biology?
At the same time, he began to recall the horror of the Blackwater Virus. You know, Liu Xiu brought Wandering Blue Star to the LV-223 planet, which is the biochemical experimental planet of the Engineer Civilization, for nearly ten years. During this time, in addition to studying the spacecraft of the Engineer Civilization, another thing was to study the Blackwater Virus.

Liu Xiu and his team discovered many spaceships full of blackwater virus on the biochemical test planet of the Engineer Civilization, so naturally they studied this virus repeatedly and also used a large number of animals other than humans for experiments.

But in the end, it was discovered that this blackwater virus was basically uncontrollable.

You should know that viruses are different from the most basic unit cells that make up humans or animals. Viruses are non-cellular life forms and are the smallest and simplest organisms discovered so far.

Cells are the basic structural and functional units of organisms, but all viruses, even blackwater viruses, must exist within cells to reproduce and perform their basic life activities.

Therefore, when the virus leaves the host cell, it becomes a chemical substance without any life activities and cannot reproduce independently.

In fact, in nature, cells and viruses coexist with each other, competing and cooperating. In the long history of evolution, cells and viruses are like two people who want to kill each other, but neither can do anything to the other, and eventually a balance is formed.

As non-cellular life forms, viruses differ from cells in four main aspects.

The first aspect is that viruses are very small and have a very simple structure. Most viruses are only 20 to 200 microns in size and can pass through bacterial filters, so they can only be clearly seen under an electron microscope.

The second point is the diversity of its genetic carriers. All cells contain DNA and RNA, and use double-stranded DNA molecules as carriers of genetic material. However, different types of viruses show the diversity of their genetic carriers: not only DNA viruses, but also RNA viruses. Generally, RNA viruses are prone to mutation and unstable, while DNA viruses are not prone to mutation and are relatively stable. Both viruses are divided into double-stranded and single-stranded. But each virus particle contains only DNA or RNA, not both.

The third point is complete parasitism. Although viruses have the most basic characteristics of life activities, proliferation and inheritance, they are only a kind of incomplete life form. Viruses do not have independent metabolism and energy conversion systems, and must use the host cell structure, "raw materials", energy and enzyme systems to reproduce. Therefore, some people call this parasitism at the molecular level.

The fourth point is that viruses reproduce by replication and assembly. The process of virus proliferation is like the production of cars. In the cell, the factory that produces viruses, a large amount of viral nucleic acid and various viral proteins are first synthesized, and then these "parts" are assembled into new progeny viruses. Therefore, the proliferation of viruses is generally called replication, while cells can only proliferate by division.

Since the discovery of the first virus, humans wandering on the blue planet have discovered more than 4,000 viruses. The vast majority of viruses are nucleic acid-protein complexes composed of nucleic acid and protein, called true viruses. There is also a very small number of simpler life forms, called subviruses, of which only dozens have been discovered so far. For example, viroids. They are composed of only an infectious circular RNA molecule, which is only a few hundred nucleotides in size, and only infect plants, such as the potato spindle tuber disease viroid that was first discovered.

However, the blackwater virus is just the opposite. It can infect almost all animals, whether they are insects or animals. But there is a very strange phenomenon that is, the blackwater virus seems to have no interest in plants and cannot infect plant cells.

For example, on Paradise, the planet suspected to be the mother planet of the Engineer civilization where the simulated robot David released the Blackwater virus, many years later, after the crew of the Covenant spacecraft landed on Paradise, they found that there was no life on Paradise anymore, but there were lush plants everywhere.

After research, it was found that the reason why blackwater virus does not infect plants is mainly due to the differences between animal and plant cells.

Plant cells are the basic structural and functional units of plant life activities. They are composed of two parts: protoplasm and cell wall. They are generally very small. The diameter of plant cells in higher plants is usually ten to one hundred microns. Plant cells have various forms such as round, oval, polyhedral, cylindrical and spindle-shaped. The main division methods are mitosis and meiosis. The growth and reproduction of individual plants are the result of the increase in the number of cells, the increase in the volume of each cell and the differentiation of functions. The increase in the number of cells is achieved through cell division, which is one of the characteristics of life. There are three main ways of cell division: mitosis, amitosis and meiosis.

The three-dimensional structure diagram of animal cells. The cells that make up the animal body are called animal cells. Plant cells and animal cells are basically the same, both have nuclei, cytoplasm and cell membranes.

However, there are also differences. Plant cells have a thick and hard cell wall outside the cell membrane, while animal cells do not have a cell wall. The cells that make up the animal body are called animal cells. Although the various cells in the human body or animal body have different shapes, their basic structure is the same. They all have cell membranes, cytoplasm and nuclei.

And because animal cells do not have cell walls, they are less adaptable to the environment than plant cells.

The volume of animal cells is thousands of times larger than that of microbial cells and slightly smaller than that of plant cells.

Most animal cells adhere to each other in the body and exist in the form of clusters. In cell culture, most cells have group effects, anchorage dependence, contact inhibition and functional omnipotence.

Of course, it is precisely because the biggest difference between animal and plant cells is that plant cells have thick cell walls that the black water virus cannot infect plants. When the Wandering Blue Star was on Paradise Star, it also conducted experiments on using the black water virus to infect plants.

Unless the cell wall of the plant cell is artificially destroyed, the blackwater virus can enter the plant cell to obtain nutrients, otherwise there is no way for the blackwater virus to infect the plant cell.

In fact, if the Blackwater virus did not infect spore-like fungi, then after the engineer civilization on Paradise was destroyed by the Blackwater virus, it would actually be more suitable for humans wandering on the Blue Star to use it as a colony planet.

But it is a pity that the blackwater virus can infect the spore cells of fungi. Therefore, even though the vegetation on Paradise is lush and green, Liu Xiu dare not send humans to Paradise to immigrate and survive.

Unless Liu Xiu has a way to eliminate all the fungal creatures on Paradise Star.

Liu Xiu looked at the invitation message that Jack sent him shortly afterwards, and naturally understood that he had to go to Pandora.

You should know that although there are no humans from the wandering blue planet on Pandora, there are still some human researchers left over from Blue Planet No. 2, as well as some industrial facilities.

(End of this chapter)