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Becoming Human's avatar

That was an exceedingly pleasing read. I recall the surface area to volume discussion from high school and found the depiction of the outlier cell types fascinating!

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Raghu Parthasarathy's avatar

Excellent post! There's are other ways for a bacterium to be gigantic; you may like to look into *Epulopiscium*, or my blog post "Giant germs, making a mockery of physics": https://eighteenthelephant.com/2014/11/14/giant-germs-making-a-mockery-of-physics/

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Akanksha Sachan's avatar

Great take, I would also include the liquid-liquid phase separation that facilitates most of molecular interactions (in case of transcription atleast) into this and not leave them to chance!

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Ryan Ellison's avatar

A really interesting essay explained in really simple terms! A great read

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Biotech Bagholder's avatar

Interesting read

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Johnathan Reid's avatar

Would be good to contrast these restrictions and timings with faster biological processes that involve protein channels, active uptake and receptor binding. For example, nerve conduction, synaptic signalling and muscle contraction. Also, how the internal architecture of a cell (microtubules, endplasmic reticulum etc) might overcome diffusion rate limitations for protein activity and other metabolic processes.

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Malcolm Storey's avatar

Don't forget the jigsaw puzzle-shaped epidermal cells.

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