[meteorite-list] Strangest link between life on earth and mars yet!

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 22:47:57 -0600
Message-ID: <011501c733a9$562b8210$b421e146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Gerry,

> How "big" is nano again, one billionth of a ---?

    One billionth of a meter, or one millionth of a millimeter,
so if you had "nanobacteria" that were 100 nm long, it would
take 10,000 of them, head to tail (assuming they had heads or
tails), to span one millimeter. A wavelength of visible light
would be 400 nm to 770 nm (depending on its color), so a
100 nm nanobacteria would be about 1/6 the width of one
wavelength of yellow light. (Do you suppose they surf?)
    There is a smaller unit, the angstrom, which is one
ten-billionth of a meter, or ten times smaller. We're talking
SMALL here -- individual atoms range from five angstroms
(hydrogen) up to about 15 angstroms in size (lead). Figure
atoms at one nm +/- half an nm. So a 100 nm "critter" is
at most only 200 atoms wide and could only contain about
8 million small atoms if it were a sphere.
    A simple organic molecule, like cooking oil, is about
20 angstroms across; that's 2 nm. We can measure that
molecular size in our backyards, by the way, by placing
a tiny drop of oil of known volume on the surface of a big
calm pool of water and waiting for it to spread out as far
as it can go, then divide the known volume by the area
of the oil-slick, which is only one molecule thick.
    Neat trick, eh? Who thought of that?
    Benjamin Franklin...
    Most viruses are 10 nm to 100 nm, but the record-holder
is 400 nm, or bigger than some bacteria.
    Most bacteria range from 200 nm (the very tiniest) up
to big nasty ones at 2000 nm.
    Helpful little animals like yeast cells (there are 600+
species of yeast) are 2000 nm, no bigger than a bacterium,
up to 15,000 nm.
    Cells of protozoa like amoeba are 20,000 to 30,000 nm
across, but every once in a while an ameoba may grow
to 4,000,000 nm across --- that's 4 mm and almost big
enough to have a sit-down talk with! (If they had anything
to say...)
    Protozoa like paramecium are very complicated creatures.
Even though they are only one cell, they have specialized
cellular structures that function as gullets, stomachs, excretory
"organs," and "legs." They have an interesting sex life and
probably have more to say than that amoeba... The many
paramecium species range from less than 100,000 nm up
to as much as 500,000 nm, or big enough to see with the
naked eye (well, your eyes, maybe; mine are not quite
that good).
    One of your own 100,000 billion human body cells is
on average, about 10,000 nm across and weighs, on average,
about one nanogram, less if you're skinny.
    And, me, I'm about 1,775,000,000 nm tall.

    Does that put things in perspective?


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gerald Flaherty" <grf2 at verizon.net>
To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 7:24 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Strangest link between life on earth and mars
yet!


> The relatively recent acceptence of "germs" required a revolution in the
> medical community ushering in the modern norm where cleanliness became the
> imperative. So it seems plausible that self-replicating nano things might
> make modern "science" balk.
>
> How "big" is nano again, one billionth of a---?
>
> Jerry Flaherty
Received on Mon 08 Jan 2007 11:47:57 PM PST