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

From: JKGwilliam <h3chondrite_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:31:39 -0700
Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20070109083031.01d33948_at_pop.west.cox.net>

Quoting the famous words of Mork, I reply...."nano nano."

Best,
John

At 09:47 PM 1/8/2007, Sterling K. Webb wrote:
>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
>
>
>______________________________________________
>Meteorite-list mailing list
>Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Received on Tue 09 Jan 2007 10:31:39 AM PST