Yes, A Cell can Dream
God’s Plan
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Once upon a time, He, ‘Who-must-not-be-Named, but with Good deeds’ (let us say Him, ‘The Guy’) was chilling around in a far-far away Galaxy. He looks quite aged with his white beard, and hairs, and I am definitely not going to tell you His skin color otherwise you will judge Him too. He has a halo around his head giving him an enlightened look and He is an expert storyteller.
About me, I am a ‘single, but ready to mingle’ human sperm cell, hanging out with The Guy. I am waiting for my call to come back on the Earth. Oh yeah, you got me, I believe in this.
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“Although I am listening to explosions from the last 13.8 billion years since the origin of this universe (big bang), one time (4.6 billion years ago) it was extraordinary. Due to the terrific bang, the solar Nebula had started spinning. Due to high gravity, a major star called Sun was created and the dust started clustering into shapes known as planets. Consequently, just like in every galaxy, a typical planet, Earth, was formed, which was extremely hot. However, in the next 750 million years, it turned out to be an exceptional planet because of the creation of life, the first Cell or we should say a prokaryotic organism. It was such a joy to watch these creatures growing, proliferating and living happily ever after as in a telenovela”, the Guy was narrating me the story how Earth was formed.
“Oh, No! The story does not end here.” I shouted to show my vast knowledge from my last time on Earth.
“What are you saying? Prokaryotes are living happily there. I just have a look on the Earth with my Gubble Earth Telescope 13.0”, the Guy added.
“No, sir, there is a lot more. Eukaryotic cells originated, plants arose, animals came into existence, few of them went extinct, then Humans evolved and even now, they are evolving. Most of them believe in Science and they are doing so many innovative things using it. Although due to some innovations, they are also destroying the lovely nature and disturbing the climate. Moreover, you know what; there are few dunces, who do not believe in climate change and nature imbalance, I think they will understand it soon.” I finished my sentence and took a long breath.
“Really, what I could see is only Prokaryotes.” The Guy said as He was continuously looking at the pictures stored in his Gummit supercomputer 99.0. He added, “Although, for a long time, these prokaryotes have been building up these huge architectures in different sizes, shapes, and colors. I love those fellas. They are such a good team.”
“What? These so-called architectures are Eukaryotes. They are different from Prokaryotes. These complex creatures breathe, eat, sleep, see, feel and do several other physiologic and metabolic activities. They have organ systems, organs, and tissues, which are built from basic Eukaryotic cells.” I roared astoundingly, being a remnant of humans, how can I listen to someone doubting our hard-earned knowledge.
Being calm as usual, he proudly said “Yeah that is what I am saying. My lovely boys, aka Prokaryotes, do all these things. Moreover, what are you saying about these Eukaryotic cells? Explain to me, what the Devil, who are they?”
It was my chance to convince him about what I knew; I gave Him the text definition, “Eukaryotic cells are evolved Archaeon cells altered by the DNA compartmentalization via the nucleus and endosymbiotic events of Mitochondria and Plastids and several other modifications over time.”
There was a sarcastic curiosity on his face and he asked, “Oh, I see. Can you please define endosymbiosis to me?”
“Yes, why not”, I said, “It is the process when any organism lives with another organism for mutual benefits.”
He looks persuaded, and further enquired “ok, one more thing, what do you know about Mitochondria and Plastids.”
“Mitochondria and plastids are respectively the powerhouses and the kitchen cum storehouse of any Eukaryotic cell. They are basically prokaryotic cells, who during evolution, were engulfed by evolved Archaeon cells and further started living all together with them, shredded their >90% genome into the major nuclear DNA and became an integrated part of them.” I confidently replied.
“Ok, so you are saying that mitochondria and plastids both are evolved prokaryote spinoffs who live inside an evolved Archaeon cell”, He smiled cunningly and cast the screen of His Gummit 99.0 in front of me and said, “See, this is you”. I was stumbled after having a glimpse of this. It was a real-time zoomed-in ultramicroscopic video of myself (sperm cell) where the mitochondria were going in and out through my cell membrane and behaving like a group of cells. I have seen microbes in biofilms and during other social behaviors and they look identical. This was the weirdest thing that I have ever seen, and it was more freaking to realize how He is watching me live on His computer. “What will you say now? You or your ignorant counterpart human beings may call them Eukaryotes, but I am going to stick with Prokaryotes. If I follow your human terminology, I may even call them microbiome. You know what I am saying. You people are funny.” He was still laughing.
Right now, I was filled with both satisfaction and discontent. I whispered in frustration, “Ok. I think we might have done it to differentiate basic and advanced cells.”
My disgruntled whispering made Him angry. His face was turning red. He shouted, “Oh, you people are so rude. I mean, on one side, all these Prokaryotic cells are doing such a hard work making all living beings in such a beautiful size and shape, and on another side, you humans are so ignorant that you even do not want to call them by their names. Moreover, you people invented one more term, microbiome, whereas your building block, i.e. the Eukaryotic cell is nothing but an assemblage of a few of my creative microbes (microbiome).” He was panting due to his old age. However, he added, “you know what; most of you are just a bunch of my unscrupulous creatures. You are just fiddling around with my Nature, my Climate, and my Universe for the sake of knowing more and more. Why cannot you just enjoy your life like other creatures? You were my best creation and see, what are you doing with my world? Go back to your senses.”
Then, He furiously uses His lone Cypress wand to curse me disappear and spookily I found myself sweating in my bed. “Oh, thank God, I was sleeping. I should get going. I must go to lab ASAP so that I could start assembling the Illumina 25th generation sequencing data of the Charon (moon of Pluto) ice sheet, the sample collected by NASA’s manned mission ‘Pluto Horizons 27’. But, first, I must fill fossil fuel in my Harley-Davidson Jetplane”, I was just talking to my Artificial Intelligence daughter, RaAvI, from my 106th-floor sea-facing air-conditioning room in one of the grand hotels in New York in a regular summerish day during January 2075.
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