Surface area to volume ratio?
Why are cells small?
11–20 of 86 posts
Re: Why are cells small?
#12Surface area to volume ratio?
That's literally the first thing in the article.
Re: Why are cells small?
#13Cells are small? compared to what? An ostrich egg is a single cell
skeletal muscle cells can be many cm in length
Re: Why are cells small?
#14Not all are? Largest eukaryote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valonia_ventricosa largest prokaryote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomargarita_namibiensis
Those still seem kind of small? Why not the size of an mature olive tree for example? I'm guessing the article may answer this, haven't gotten that far yet.
Re: Why are cells small?
#15Cells are small? compared to what? An ostrich egg is a single cell
I don't know for sure here, but isn't the ostrich IN the egg a multicellular animal? I would assume the first point where the egg contains anything that will become the ostrich, mitosis is happening to make more ostrich cells. I'm assuming there's always cell walls and nucleuses every step of the way here, and the egg and ostrich are never just one big cell. I could be off base here though, I'm really channeling grad…
Unfertilized bird eggs are single cells, fertilized eggs should be multicellular by the time they are laid.
Re: Why are cells small?
#16Cells are small? compared to what? An ostrich egg is a single cell
I never bought into the egg thing. There’s clearly a distinct cell in the center that’s going to divide and grow inside the egg. The egg itself isn’t undergoing mitosis.
Re: Why are cells small?
#17Re: Why are cells small?
#18Nitpick 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.
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.
Re: Why are cells small?
#19Cells are small? compared to what? An ostrich egg is a single cell
I never bought into the egg thing. There’s clearly a distinct cell in the center that’s going to divide and grow inside the egg. The egg itself isn’t undergoing mitosis.
The yolk is an energy/vitamin source, not a 'cell'. The division happens outside the yolk.
From Wikipedia:
> The yolk is not living cell material like protoplasm, but largely passive material
Re: Why are cells small?
#20Not all are? Largest eukaryote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valonia_ventricosa largest prokaryote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomargarita_namibiensis
[dead]