Cilia later
January 1, 2019 9:12 AM   Subscribe

 
🔎.
posted by bouvin at 9:15 AM on January 1, 2019 [14 favorites]


.

is that dust in my eyes?

or am i dissolving?
posted by brambleboy at 9:16 AM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


You've entered the chrono-synclastic infundibulum.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 9:20 AM on January 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


remember, kids, always wear a membrane
posted by rikschell at 9:34 AM on January 1, 2019 [11 favorites]


Seems to me Stephen Jay Gould has an essay in which he describes death as being like "a million tiny bubbles bursting all at once..." but I can't find it. So it's very apt, unless I imagined the whole thing.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:44 AM on January 1, 2019 [4 favorites]


Somebody PLEASE mash this up with the classic ballet The Dying Swan
posted by twoplussix at 9:44 AM on January 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


This is how I feel on my commute, most mornings.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:44 AM on January 1, 2019 [3 favorites]


We run and run and run, yet we cannot escape it.
posted by pashdown at 10:06 AM on January 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


I engage in some minor amateur microscopy and every now and then I'll come across the remnants of a dead cell. Just organelles everywhere, general carnage. I've never seen it actually happen though.
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:20 AM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


remember, kids, always wear a membrane

That way, you can learn by osmosis.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:26 AM on January 1, 2019 [8 favorites]


Interesting how even once the process of cytokinesis is well underway, the organism's healing mechanisms are still fighting it out. For a while there they even appear to gain the upper hand, the membrane re-sealing and the remains of the organism continuing to churn through the water in some semblance of its normal behavior for a few more moments before things finally just dissolve for good.

Even in unicellular organisms death is not a bright-line boundary, not a simple switch from one binary state to another. Rather, it is a process that happens piecemeal and in stages—just like in humans, where the organs and tissues of the body continue their functions as best they can even after consciousness has irrevocably fled. And of course, in a dying human, the process of cellular demise shown in this little recording plays out billions upon billions of times in each individual cell of the body.

Food for thought, to be sure.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:51 AM on January 1, 2019 [16 favorites]


How did they get their hands on a Varon-T disruptor?
posted by zengargoyle at 10:54 AM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


That's actually damned horrifying.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:58 AM on January 1, 2019 [17 favorites]


I never thought I'd feel so sad for a single celled creature. It's so weird to put our own notions of life and death on it, because I mean, it's not like it's conscious of itself (panpsychists, sorry to offend).

And I don't mean "not human consciousness" a la Simian or Cetacean (or other "higher" consciousnesses), nor even "lesser" consciousnesses like a plant, which may or may not, but literally just one cell, no nervous system at all, just doin its thang and then... entropy comes along and renders it doomed, as we all must.

Godspeed lil fella. Godspeed.
posted by symbioid at 11:08 AM on January 1, 2019 [10 favorites]


Well, life is life. I would argue that the conscious will to live in a human is just an abstracted, complicated version of the same drive that keeps this Blepharisma's cilia going and going until they just can't go any more. It all springs from the same source, whatever that is.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 11:43 AM on January 1, 2019 [13 favorites]


That was so upsetting I couldn't watch it. Humans sure do pack bond with anything.
posted by jeather at 11:45 AM on January 1, 2019 [14 favorites]


Appears to have died from amoebic dysentery...
posted by jim in austin at 1:14 PM on January 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


"Mr. Stark—I don't feel so good…"
posted by ArmandoAkimbo at 3:57 PM on January 1, 2019 [6 favorites]


That made me very sad.

.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:09 PM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


I don’t feel anything watching that... does that make me a psychopath ?
posted by Pendragon at 5:32 PM on January 1, 2019


.

I'm kind of feeling this, as the beloved household ancistrus (aka The Murk Beast) was in bob-and-turn mode when I got back in last night. Seems that the auto-feeder had crapped out a couple of days into our holiday, and he may have starved to death. The platys were trying to look all innocent, but I know those little fuckers had been snacking on his corpse.
posted by scruss at 5:39 PM on January 1, 2019


Little guy was like the unicellular Black Knight right up to the end.

"You've lost 20% of your organelles."
"A membrane wound! Have at you!"
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:26 PM on January 1, 2019 [3 favorites]


What kind of sicko secretly record a snuff film and post it on the internet? What is this? LiveLeak for protozoa?
posted by Pantalaimon at 8:25 PM on January 1, 2019 [1 favorite]


yeah somedays I feel like all my insides are starting to come bubbling out and people are staring at me and I manage to pull myself together and run away as fast as I still can, but I can only go so far, thinking maybe everything is OK after all, before I just suddenly can't anymore and it all spills out everywhere and I dissolve into a messy pile.
posted by The otter lady at 8:26 AM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
posted by Splunge at 11:13 AM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


I couldn’t watch it to the end 😥
posted by amil at 1:03 PM on January 2, 2019 [1 favorite]


ALL THINGS STRIVE.
posted by The otter lady at 5:53 PM on January 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


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