>The nucleus of such a fibroblast, which contains its DNA and transcriptional machinery, would be an oblong disk about the size of a 2x2 square block of hotel rooms. Remember those minivan-length human chromosomes? We need to pack 23 of these into the nucleus, or 46 if it’s about to divide.
Wait a minute. A fibroblast is diploid so in G1 phase it should have 46 chromatids (2n/2c). After replication it will be 2n/4c (92 chromatids).
(Great post overall though! This is helpful for putting things in perspective.)
So important to think like this! I’m surprised by the lipid membranes… if proteins are blueberry-sized, are transmembrane proteins grossly outsized for their environment?
My only grip is that sometimes your scale model is 2D and sometimes 3D… the nucleus, in particular, would not be a flat disk, but another huge sack!
>The nucleus of such a fibroblast, which contains its DNA and transcriptional machinery, would be an oblong disk about the size of a 2x2 square block of hotel rooms. Remember those minivan-length human chromosomes? We need to pack 23 of these into the nucleus, or 46 if it’s about to divide.
Wait a minute. A fibroblast is diploid so in G1 phase it should have 46 chromatids (2n/2c). After replication it will be 2n/4c (92 chromatids).
(Great post overall though! This is helpful for putting things in perspective.)
Good catch! We'll correct that.
I absolutely love this! How fast would bacteria move?
Excelente publicación! Felicitaciones
So important to think like this! I’m surprised by the lipid membranes… if proteins are blueberry-sized, are transmembrane proteins grossly outsized for their environment?
My only grip is that sometimes your scale model is 2D and sometimes 3D… the nucleus, in particular, would not be a flat disk, but another huge sack!
Thank you very much. Much easier to understand than, e.g., 2.7 x 10^-9 meters :-)