Now then, how on earth can the complexity of life be crammed into
a tiny bacterium two-hunderd-millionth the size of a simple amoeba ?
Again we are faced with a problem in compactness and we must
pause to consider the units we are using. When we thought of a brain in
terms of pounds, it was a small bit of tissue. When we thought of it in
terms of cells, however, it became a tremendously complex assemblage of
small units. In the same way, in considering cells, lets stop thinking
in terms of cubic microns and start thinking in terms of atoms and molecules.
A cubic micron of protoplasm (meaning all the "stuff" in a cell)
contains about 40,000,000,000 molecules, thats forty billion molecules.
Allowing for this, lets remake table two into table three.
Table 3
Cell
Number of molecules
Amoeba
170,000,000,000,000,000
Human liver cell
70,000,000,000,000
Human red blood cell
3,000,000,000,000
Human spermatozoon
680,000,000,000
Largest bacterium
280,000,000,000
Smallest bacterium
800,000,000
It would be tempting, at this point, to say that the molecule
is the unit of the cell, as the cell is the unit of a multicellular organism.
If we say that, we can go on to maintain that the amoeba is seventeen million
times as complicated, molecularly speaking, as the brain is, cellularly
speaking. In that case, the compactness of the amoeba as a container of
life becomes less surprising.
There is a catch, though. Almost all the molecules in protoplasm
are water, simple little H2O combinations. These are essential to life,
goodness knows, but they serve largely as background. They are not the
characteristic molecules of life. If we can point to any molecules as characteristic
of life, they would be the complex nitrogen-phosphorus macromolecules:
the proteins, the nucleic acids, amino acids, and the phospholipids. These,
together, make up only about one ten-thousandth of the molecules in living
tissue.
Now I'm not saying that these macromolecules make up only 1/10,000
of the weight of living tissue; only of the numbers of molecules. The macromolecules
are individually much heavier than the water molecules. An average protein
molecule, for instance, is some two thousand times as heavy as a water
molecule. If a system consisted of two thousand (2,000) water molecules
and one (1) average protein molecule, the number of protein molecules would
be 1/2001 of the total molecules , but the weight of the protein molecule
would be 1/2 of the total weight.
So lets change table three into macromolecules that are
characteristic of life.
Table 4
Cell
Nitrogen-phosphorus macromolecules
Amoeba
17,000,000,000,000
Human liver cell
7,000,000,000
Human red blood cell
360,000,000
Human spermatozoon
68,000,000
Largest bacterium
28,000,000
Smallest bacterium
80,000
We can say then, that the average human body cell is indeed as
complex, molecularly speaking, as the human brain, cellularly speaking.
Bacteria are markedly simpler than the brain, while the amoeba is markedly
more complex.
Still, even the simplest bacterium grows and divides with great
alacrity and there is nothing simple, from the chemical standpoint, about
growing and dividing. That simplest bacterium, just visible under
a good optical microscope, is a busy, self-contained and complex chemical
laboratory.
But then, most of the 80,000 macromolecules in the smallest bacterium
(lets say 50,000) are enzymes, each of which can catalyze a particular
chemical reaction. If there are 2,000 different chemical reactions constantly
proceeding within a cell, each of which is necessary to growth and multiplication,
then there are, on average , 25 enzymes for each reaction.
A human factory in which 2,000 different machine operations are
being conducted, with 25 men on each machine, would rightly be considered
a most complex structure. This is more complex than an automobile assembly
plant. Even the smallest bacterium is that complex.
We can approach this from another angle, also. About the turn
of the century, biochemists began to realize that in addition to the obvious
atomic components of living tissue (such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,
sulfur, phosphorus and so on) certain metals were required by the body
in very small quantities. They became know as trace elements.
As an example, consider two recent additions to the list of trace
metals in the body, molybdenum and cobalt (remember the sheep story). Now
I'm positive that each and every naturally existing element in nature can
be found in the body, some are essentially necessary to life, some are
just there (pollution) and not harmful, and some are there and are harmful.
The entire human body contains perhaps 18 milligrams of molybdenum
and 12 milligrams of cobalt (roughly one two-thousandth of an ounce each).
Nevertheless, this quantity, while small is absolutely essential to the
body. The body can not exist without it.
--to be continued--
Bless you Bob Lee
--
oozing on the muggy shore of the gulf coast
[email protected]
--
The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver.
To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to:
[email protected] -or- [email protected]
with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line.
To post, address your message to: [email protected]
Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html
List maintainer: Mike Devour
