3 ms·

Bacteria don't have nuclei. Also, you could enlist the population of mitochondria to weigh against bacteria if you really wanted to.

jhbadger 11y ago
"Bacteria don't have nuclei" isn't the same thing as eukaryotic cells not having nuclei, though, as they still are functional cells with genes. The point isn't the presence or absence of a morphological feature, it is that eukaryotic cells lacking nuclei are hardly even cells, as they lack DNA entirely. As for the mitochondria, why would they be "against" bacteria? They are the enslaved proletariat of the bacterial kingdom! When the revolution comes, eukaryotes will be screwed.
rossdavidh 11y ago
True, but bacteria have an analogous nucleoid, which contains genetic information. Also, the mitochondria have a lot less genetic information than the cells. More to the point about ridiculous headlines, the ratio of 10:1 is easily within the possibilities, given the uncertainty in both estimates.
toufka 11y ago
Yep - you're correct, bacteria do not have a nucleus either. I was swapping the words around to try and create a parallel sentence and I thought I had corrected 'nuclei' to 'genomes' in my edit, but apparently I did not. "there are 39 trillion separate non-human genomes in a human body, and only 5 trillion human nuclei." And you'd be correct in pointing out that that sentence is also a little wonky. Which is the best metric? Nuclei, cells, dividable cells, base pairs, non-redundant base pairs, protein-encoding base pairs, expressed human protein, mass, species, etc? It's difficult to get the nomenclature exactly parallel between mammalian and bacterial cells, much less fungal or viral material. But that's also the point. It's tricky to compare, and shouting that one comparison is wrong is just kind of click-baity.

3 ms·

Bacteria don't have nuclei. Also, you could enlist the population of mitochondria to weigh against bacteria if you really wanted to.

by InclinedPlane 11y ago

jhbadger 11y ago
"Bacteria don't have nuclei" isn't the same thing as eukaryotic cells not having nuclei, though, as they still are functional cells with genes. The point isn't the presence or absence of a morphological feature, it is that eukaryotic cells lacking nuclei are hardly even cells, as they lack DNA entirely. As for the mitochondria, why would they be "against" bacteria? They are the enslaved proletariat of the bacterial kingdom! When the revolution comes, eukaryotes will be screwed.
rossdavidh 11y ago
True, but bacteria have an analogous nucleoid, which contains genetic information. Also, the mitochondria have a lot less genetic information than the cells. More to the point about ridiculous headlines, the ratio of 10:1 is easily within the possibilities, given the uncertainty in both estimates.
toufka 11y ago
Yep - you're correct, bacteria do not have a nucleus either. I was swapping the words around to try and create a parallel sentence and I thought I had corrected 'nuclei' to 'genomes' in my edit, but apparently I did not. "there are 39 trillion separate non-human genomes in a human body, and only 5 trillion human nuclei." And you'd be correct in pointing out that that sentence is also a little wonky. Which is the best metric? Nuclei, cells, dividable cells, base pairs, non-redundant base pairs, protein-encoding base pairs, expressed human protein, mass, species, etc? It's difficult to get the nomenclature exactly parallel between mammalian and bacterial cells, much less fungal or viral material. But that's also the point. It's tricky to compare, and shouting that one comparison is wrong is just kind of click-baity.