alt Hacker NewsNitpick 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.
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hatthew • yesterday at 8:24 PM
Some back of the envelope math says this is true. A conservative estimate for the size of an alpha motor neuron axon is 10μm diameter and 1m long, which already puts it over an order of magnitude larger than the 4,000,000µm³ oocyte quoted in the article.
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CrazyStat • yesterday at 10:30 PM
Giraffes neurons can be up to 15 feet long. Blue whales are speculated to have neurons up to 100 feet long, though they've never been directly observed (dissected).
But neurons are electrical no? I suppose maybe that's why they're not in the comparison.
Or does that work with diffusion too?