One centimeter long bacterium discovered (opens in new tab)

Dime for scale: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/science/giant-bacterium.h...

Here's a preprint from biorxiv, not sure if it's the same study, but there are plenty of pictures: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.16.480423v1....

Build the software to make this possible:

The trouble is that when writers are discussing scientific research, they could be sued if they use the images in the article without permission.

There needs to be an easy way to revenue share with publishers when these copyrighted images are used. It would definitely be a win-win scenario.

Still annoying... have to download them and such.

Hmm. I could swear that, when I first clicked on it, there was a picture of several of them, next to a dime. (Also, left-right reversed - you could tell by the writing on the dime.)

Did they leave in MS Word tracked changes at the end of that supplemental materials pdf? Lots of weird highlighting.

I am curious, but really not sure whether I wanna actually click on any of the links in this thread.

But rope together 200 cars on a track and people will readily accept that it’s a mile long train.

Are you saying that this is a multicellular bacterium? That might be even more spectacular. Although it also sounds a bit like this might be some new type of eukaryote.

Either way, it's not exactly blech.

Yeah, that Candidatus Thiomargarita magnifica is a real piece of shit.

It's a multiprocessor. The multiple available genes allow more expressiveness. Three genomes reacting to environmental changes exposes its resources 3 times as fast.

Or maybe the chromosomes are spatially optimal in a centimeter long rod.

Or maybe it's evolved to suppress the genes/proteins that would be excessive if it had 3 working copies being transcripted repeatedly.

> boat comparison

This made my day, thanks.

Check out this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valonia_ventricosa

More even if the think that the structure is inside a fluid and subject to strong forces of pressure, currents and tides and bombed with sand each day. And we have a thin 1cm long cell that still somehow navigates it and don't break. It just does not feel right physically.

not to mention the cell that is a chicken egg

>The entire cell contains several cytoplasmic domains with each domain having a nucleus and a few chloroplasts.

This somehow feels like a multicellular organism that didn't quite make the jump that other eukaryotes did.

These are even bigger (20cm/8in): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophyophorea

What do they taste like?

[edit]

An answer's here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2315138

No taste aside from slightly salty. The texture was a turn off as well. I would compare it to eating Ulva straight from the culture tank. I suggest Red Ogo with a crisp texture and a slightly salty cucumber flavor. I also use it as the last ingredient in chevichee, before the lemon juice begins to break down the texture

Every saltwater tank owner knows the frustration of bubble algae.

The imprisonment and terrorization of thousands of innocent civilians just because of their skin color and race... please dont go along with the attempt at calling these things just "internment camps"

I happened to write a paper on just this issue (shameless plug)! You're right: With a sphere, the metabolic consumption grows like R^3 but nutrient capture goes like the surface area, which scales like R^2. The result is a max radius R where nutrient in can support the consumption. However, for long thin object, both the volume and area grow like L, the length. The result is that -- rather than plateauing to a finite limit -- a long thin bacterium can actually maintain exponential growth indefinitely! and that is what is actually seen in the lab.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.0674.pdf

Some larger bacteria use a water sac inside to push all the living components close to the surface. So osmosis can feed them oxygen. I wonder if this one does that?

This study says that the organelles are bound to the cell membrane: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.16.480423v1....

An egg is a single cell.

That's a eukaryote though, whole different kettle of fish. This is bacteria, far simpler and smaller.

Aside: Searching for "Valonia ventricosa" in YouTube gives me absolutely atrocious results. A bunch of clickbait medical things and random gross-out stuff. Bleh. Anyone else?

also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetabularia_acetabulum

"That turned out not to be the case. When the researchers peered inside the bacterial noodles with electron microscopes, they realized each one was its own gigantic cell. The average cell measured about 9,000 microns long, and the biggest was 20,000 microns — long enough to span the diameter of a penny."

(from NYT, https://archive.ph/ET2tc )

Those have got glial cells to help support the parts far from the nucleus. Plus they're in a cooperative multicellar environment, not off by their lonesome.

A perfect hangover lizard story, 10/10