Cells Cells are some of the smallest organisms around. All living things consist of cells, and yet they are invisible to the naked eye. How and why are they so small? Well, cells are the basic structural and functional units of life. As life on earth has evolved into organisms of different species and living things, two basic laws of nature have dictated why cells have remained so small. One is simply, shorter is faster. This is true as far as diffusion is concerned and also in terms of chemical and electrical movement. By minimizing the distance between a cell’s nucleus and the numerous proteins and organelles that is always regulated by the cell, a cell recives t