alt Hacker NewsWhy are cells small?
Comments
I feel like keeping the amount of molecules the same within the simulation needs to be justified. How would it look like if the average amount of molecule was the same across a um?
Nitpick maybe, but I don't think oocytes are the largest cells, it pretty much has to be some sort of neuron. A sensory neuron for eg. someplace in the foot will be almost as long as the person is tall, and even if the neuron is extremely thin, it's gotta beat the oocyte for volume.
> A simplistic answer is that evolution has made each cell the size best suited to its function.
Yeah. That's probably it. Really, it probably is the right answer.
I've recently gotten into microscopy as a hobby and comparing the relative size of microbes is really interesting. There are entire animals (tardigrades for one) which can be smaller than some single celled organisms.
There are even single celled organisms which will prey upon and eat multicellular animals.
Reminds me of: "Gravity plays a role in keeping cells small" [0]
[0] https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/10/24/gravity-plays-role...
This reminds me also of this paper: https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1115585109
"The allocation of all metabolic resources to maintenance purposes limits the size of the smallest prokaryotes and largest unicellular eukaryotes, whereas an inability to meet the ever-increasing biosynthesis rates limits the largest prokaryotes and smallest unicellular eukaryotes. Metabolic constraints for larger eukaryotes are relieved by alternative reproductive strategies and multicellularity."
maybe god is small too?
Cells are small? compared to what? An ostrich egg is a single cell
Another answer is: They're not - at least in some plants:
Not all are?
Largest eukaryote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valonia_ventricosa
largest prokaryote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomargarita_namibiensis