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Headscratchers / Cells at Work!

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  • Are Somatic/Body cells born (cloned) with the memories of their original "creator" cell? Or are they blank slates, allowed to become/be their own individual(s) - as much as that's possible in a setting with such a ridged caste system.
    • May turn into fridge horror; in a very "Who am I?" kind of situation, potentially made worse by the potential for Cancer Cell to have been born with the memories of the cell that mistakenly made him in the first place.
    • Since a cell mentions having to teach the clone until he can go off on his own, it seems like they are a blank slate.
  • Ok the series explains illnesses caused by bacteria, viruses, cancer, and even immune reactions and autoimmune diseases are widely accepted to be "the immune cells get commands they shouldn't and they follow them" in this work. But what about genetic diseases caused by a prominent bug in the chromosomes (more, less, garbled information)?
    • I imagine the cells view those conditions as the way things are: i.e. someone with Haemoplilia lacks those adorable platelet children running around, and every minor cut is handled as a potential crisis
    • Hemophilia is not a platelet disorder. The platelets are perfectly fine and can create a clot. But they'll find out that the clot will refuse to stabilize because they lack the necessary coagulation factors. It's an interesting angle since in real life, the 'cure' is to give the missing factor through injection. One can imagine that heaven-sent coagulation factors miraculously helps the clot stabilize.
  • Are cells who turn cancerous without replicating (such as liver or kidney cancers) going insane from overwork?
    • Code Black would argue yes, considering the rather extreme reaction of a lung cell to being turned away from his job.
  • The liver is depicted as a nightclub with strippers and hot waitresses. Since cells only reproduce by cloning, why are they excited by pretty girls?
    • It's possible for humans to be indifferent/repulsed by sex, or not interested in reproduction, but still be attracted to people they find physically appealing.
    • Probably because they are anime characters and it's funny.
  • More of a curiosity than of confusion, but what kind of person does this body belong to? Within a relatively short amount of time they nearly catch several diseases and suffer many minor wounds, but also suffer from dehydration, catch a parasite and even apparently blood loss from a stab wound? Are they a dock worker in a rough neighborhood or something?
    • The thing of it is, the human body is constantly under attack by multiple bacteria, diseases, and other small things every second of every day. In most episodes the white blood cells are able to wipe out the threat before it actually causes noticeable harm to the body, which is what the immune system is supposed to do. The body the cells inhabit rarely gets sick enough that the human would actually notice. The few times it may have actually affected them to the point of noticing were when they got the flu (wherein the body was fighting it off for a while until it ran its course), when they experienced a pollen allergy (taken care of with a single dose of steroidal medication), the parasite which could easily be contracted by something as simple as eating a lunch that included raw fish (possibly a small amount of discomfort but there was only one and Eosinophil took care of it quickly after appearing), heat stroke (common enough to happen to anyone in hot weather if they don't keep cool and hydrated) and the aforementioned hemorrhagic shock arc (caused by a head injury and not a stabbing, an accident which could happen to anyone if they just slipped the wrong way). Even with the cancer cell event, there's no mention of undergoing anything like treatment or any kind of radiation therapy, so it's likely the body was able to quell the threat before it became evident enough the human body saw fit to go to a doctor and receive treatment.

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