Cell culture molecular biology primarily involves cultures of cells on flat plastic dishes. This technique is known as two-dimensional (2D) cell culture, and was first developed by Wilhelm Roux who, in 1885, removed a portion of the medullary plate of an embryonic chicken and maintained it in warm saline for several days on a flat glass plate. From the advance of polymer technology arose today's standard plastic dish for 2D cell culture, commonly known as the Petri dish. Julius Richard Petri, a German bacteriologist, is generally credited with this invention while working as an assistant to Robert Koch. Various researchers today also
The Culture (also usable as capable combat drones when without living occupants) are used in "Matter". The inner workings of The Culture are not especially described in detail though it is shown that the society is populated by an empowered, educated and augmented citizery in a direct democracy or highly democratic and transparent system of self-governance. In comparisons to the real world, intended or not, the Culture could resemble various posited egalitarian societies including in the writings of Karl Marx: the end condition of communism after a withering away of the state, the anarchism of Bakunin and Fourier et al, libertarian socialism,