Cell Biology Trivia

Zoom in far enough on any living thing and you'll eventually hit the same basic unit: the cell. Some organisms are made of exactly one, while others, like you, are built from tens of trillions working in coordination. This quiz covers the organelles inside those cells and what each one is actually doing all day.

A Tiny City With Specialized Departments

If a cell were a city, the nucleus would be city hall, holding the master plans in the form of DNA. Ribosomes would be the factories building proteins from those instructions, and the Golgi apparatus would run the shipping department, packaging finished products and sending them where they need to go. Mitochondria, meanwhile, keep the lights on, converting nutrients into usable energy.

• Robert Hooke coined the term "cell" in the 1600s after examining cork tissue.
• Mitochondria generate the energy currency cells rely on to function.
• Lysosomes act as the cell's cleanup crew, breaking down waste and debris.

Plant Cells vs. Animal Cells

Plant and animal cells share most of the same core machinery, but plants come with a couple of extra tools. Chloroplasts let plant cells capture sunlight and turn it into food through photosynthesis, while a rigid cell wall outside the membrane gives plant cells their structural support, something animal cells simply don't have.