Source: The Gendered Atom: Reflections on the Sexual Psychology of Science (1999), Ch.9 Deep Community
Context: Without apoptosis, life would not be possible.... when cells lose their ability to die, they run rampant, assuming that life-threatening form we call cancer.... The process of apoptosis by which life and development are governed is profoundly communal.... Cells... need to be "encouraged" to live.
“Cells are required to stick precisely to the point. Any ambiguity, any tendency to wander from the matter at hand, will introduce grave hazards for the cells, and even more for the host in which they live. Minor inaccuracies may cause reactions in which neighboring cells are recognized as foreign, and done in. There is a theory that the process of aging may be due to the cumulative effect of imprecision, a gradual degrading of information. It is not a system that allows for deviating.”
"Information"
The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher (1974)
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Lewis Thomas 31
American physician, poet and educator 1913–1993Related quotes
Mazurek, Maria (7 July 2017): Cudowna armia, która broni naszego ciała http://plus.gazetakrakowska.pl/magazyn/a/cudowna-armia-ktora-broni-naszego-ciala,12271571. Gazeta Krakowska (in Polish), pp. 18–19.
p, 125
How Plants are Trained to Work for Man (1921) Vol. 5 Gardening
“Every cell from a cell.”
Omnis cellula e cellula
Source: An Approach to Cybernetics (1961), p. 103-104, partly cited in: Darren Tofts, Annemarie Jonson, Alessio Cavallaro (2004) Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History.
Source: Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1986), p. 250
Principles of Biochemistry, Ch. 1 : The Foundations of Biochemistry
[How and why we age, 1994, Ballantine Books, 177, https://books.google.com/books?id=E2pHAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=loss]
“God's joy moved from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell.”
Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995)