Originally published at: Scientists discovered the world's largest bacterium and you can see it with your naked eye | Boing Boing
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I came in expecting disappointment or nausea, but that was overall pretty neat.
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Hi cousin!
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Do they conduct a current? Can they be made to follow a designed pathway? (qwik! grab the "bacterotronics.com" domain-name!)
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As TFA says, it is interesting that the ginormity would coincide with DNA being organised within compartments (as it is in eukaryote cells). It makes you wonder if having loose DNA imposes some kind of engineering limit on how big cells can be, like maybe for thermodynamic reasons, or because you need cell functions to be organised spatially to build large structures (AIUI it’s quite common for eukaryotes to have ginormous cells, like neurons).
It is fun to imagine that research like this could lead to understanding cells in something more like the way we understand software, and even being able to design natural cells from scratch.
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Of course, if you allow your naked eye to get too close, it may make a leap for it.
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i feel secure in my nearsightedness* because there’s no temptation. no matter how close, these naked eyes could never see it.
heck, ive got to have glasses just to see a picture of it!
( * eta: oh wait. the other one. but it’s okay. sigh. i have both )
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Bacteria don’t have active transport mechanisms, so there has to be local protein synthesis. Macromolecules passively diffuse very slowly (depends on the molecule but ballpark 1 µm/hour). Although these bacteria are huge, the cytoplasm was still only 3 microns thick on average and synthesis occurs throughout the cell
Long neurons are possible because of active transport. Currently I have a pinched sciatic nerve. The axons running from my spine to the parts of my foot which I haven’t felt for weeks are slowly repairing themselves. It takes about 12 hours to actively transport proteins down a meter long axon. In bacteria, that repair would be impossible because without active transport, the proteins would never diffuse that far so the cells just can’t be that big
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That bacteria Trumps all other bacteria. A possible runner on the GOP ticket?
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According to the Ars Technica article on this, the discoverer is a gent by the name of O. Gros. If that isn’t nominative determinism, it doesn’t exist. 
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A frenchmen discovering the biggest ever should be named gros.
Bilingual nominative determinism
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I was going to say, science discovered my college roommate, but your list works as well.
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I met a really tall guy at a party once. I looked up toward his chin and said, “Oh, you must be Tall Andy?”
“No” he replied, “I’m Rich, that’s Tall Andy over there”, as he gestured towards an even taller gentleman crouching under the ceiling on the other side of the room…
True story.
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I for one welcome our new bacterium overlords. They can’t fuck things up any worse than we have.
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Same here, I need glasses to make it to the bathroom at night, I ain’t seeing nothin’ with my naked eyes.
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