Tag: botany

• The discovery of cells was first acknowledged by Robert Hook in 1665 and he named the individual unit as cells. Around similar times Marcello Malpighi, an Italian scientist, and doctor observed cell structure of plant leaves and named each unit as utricles. This makes Malpighi the first scientist to observe living cells.

White was the first one to successfully attempt the technique of tissue culture. He cultured tomato roots in a nutrient media composed of vitamins. He developed the continuously growing callus from the root which had the property of totipotency.

The Leeuwenhoek microscope was a simple single lens device but it had greater clarity and magnification than compound microscopes of its time. Designed by a Dutchman, Antony van Leeuwenhoek, the microscope was completely handmade including the screws and rivets.

The invention of the first compound microscope is generally attributed to Dutch spectacle makers Hans and Zacharias Janssen around 1590.

Cell biology is the study of structure and functions of a cell which also revolves around the concept that cell is the basic and fundamental unit of life. It also explores a detailed understanding of tissues and organisms composed of cells. It involves the study of unicellular as well as multicellular organisms, their generalised properties and highly intricate function specialised to a group of cells. So, the correct answer is option C.

Science had recently emerged as a profession and yet it was an amateur who became a scientific celebrity throughout Europe. It was Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch merchant without university studies, who discovered microscopic life at the end of the 17th century.

Cell structure consists of the whole cell with the cell membrane, nucleus, ribosomes, Golgi bodies which are dispersed in the cytoplasm of a cell. So basically these are cytoplasmic structures which are so tiny that they can only be observed under the microscope. And study of these cells (both animal and plant) structures, functions and their chemistry under the microscope is called as cytology.

The term 'microscope' was coined by Giovanni Faber in 1625, who suggested the name for Galileo Galilei's compound microscope.

Zacharias Janssen and his father Hans Janssen, Dutch spectacle makers, are credited with inventing the first compound microscope in the late 16th century.

Phase-contrast microscopy is specifically designed to visualize transparent specimens, such as unstained living cells, by converting phase shifts in light into brightness changes.