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Valonia ventricosa
- fuball63 7y agoReminds me of slime molds. They are large single cell organisms that have multiple nuclei. A "supercell". I always wanted to keep one as a pet, but I can never find one despite them being fairly common. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slime_mold
- wyc 7y agoWhat would this taste like?
- ehfeng 7y agoAssuming you pulled it straight from the sea, it'd probably be salty and slimy. The internals of cells are mostly water, protein, and DNA, which don't really taste like anything to our tongues. Most sugars are stored as glycogen, so you wouldn't get much sweetness. There also wouldn't be much texture, as it's lacking any sort of bone or shell.
- amfsn 7y agoIf we leave glycogen in our mouth for seconds/minutes, would the acids in our mouth decompose it into glucose which would taste sweet? Yes, I have no knowledge about chemistry.
- tryptophan 7y agoNope. There is no acid in the mouth, and acid doesn't break down carbohydrates anyways, its all enzymes in the intestine. Amylase, the thing in the mouth, breaks down starches, like in rice or bread. Glycogen is different from these though, as it has different linkages, and can't be broken down by amylase.
- amfsn 7y agoThank you!
- learnstats2 7y agoYou are describing an extremely nutrient-rich food with no immediately apparent defence against predation. To the extent that it is difficult to understand how this could exist in the wild. I suspect that this alga has some interesting and perhaps surprising defences, in line with its relatives. (And, that these may well impact on its taste) For example, spirulina is said to be spiral because this allows it to spontaneously flee from approaching water fleas, with no active energy use: primarily depending on the laws of physics.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pvaldes 7y agoLike a mouthful of saltwater in a sour envelope packed with razor blade-like microcrystals of silica and calcium carbonate. Probably edible in a strict sense (if growing in clean waters), as Codium and other similar algae are, but the experience wouldn't be pleasant.
- tdeck 7y agoVery cool! As a kid I found these on the beach on vacation in St. Croix. Never knew what species they were - they turned clear after a night in a glass of seawater so I couldn't keep them.
- amfsn 7y agoWhat does this look in the inside?
- grenoire 7y agoApparently it consists of a very large vacuole, surrounded by a thin layer of cytoplasm. Has multiple nuclei and chloroplasts spread around.
- kdmccormick 7y agoAre any of the organelles visible to the naked eye?
- Sniffnoy 7y agoNote that this is just one of the largest, not the actual largest. The actual known largest appears to be this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringammina_fragilissima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringammina_fragilissima
- kartan 7y ago"It is not known how the organism feeds or reproduces" This is amazing for me. Sometimes it seems that everything is already discovered and if not we just need to put some tech into it to analyze the mystery and get an answer. The reality is that we are still far away from that. And that any discovery involves dedication, investment and serendipity.
- rolltiide 7y agoSmart extraterrestrials know not to interact on land and with humans Just like most of us dont interact with sharks and tigers
- asudosandwich 7y agoDolphins can be quite friendly.
- nabakin 7y agoNeeds to be fixed in the title
- dang 7y agoOk, we took largestness out of the title. Or should we just change the URL to the larger one?
- mirimir 7y agoRight now, 20% of HN's first-page articles are greyed out. Before today, I don't recall ever seeing more than one or two. Does this reflect a code change?
- jacobush 7y agoWhat about dinosaur eggs?
- daveslash 7y agoOr ostrich eggs, for that matter....
- mattigames 7y ago> An organism refers to any individual living thing that can react to stimuli, reproduce, grow, and maintain homeostasis. It can be a virus, bacterium, protist, fungus, plant or an animal.
- pvaldes 7y agoThis creatures defy definition boundaries. Some act as animals with structures to run and travel fast, but can photosinthesize also so can fit at the same time in the old definition of plants. Currently they are neither animals nor plants. Some fungus walk and climb and some bacterias can act "like a beehive" with a collective purpose in some phases of its cycle. Bacterias reproduce when divide, but often its cells remain losely attached in tetrads or chains. Bird eggs increase its cells by division and sometimes a single egg can produce two twin animals. Are they reproducting?. Well, in some sense, yes.
- DoreenMichele 7y agowith a diameter that ranges typically from 1 to 4 centimetres (0.4 to 1.6 in) although it may achieve a diameter of up to 5.1 centimetres (2.0 in) in rarer cases. Mind: Blown
- twic 7y agoI think it's a bit of a cheat to call these things single-celled. They're really lots of cells where the cells are connected by cytoplasmic bridges. https://biology.stackexchange.com/a/28480/3871 https://biology.stackexchange.com/a/28480/3871 Sure, topologically that's the same, but biology isn't topology. There are lots of organisms like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coenocyte https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coenocyte I don't know this species specifically, but functionally, organisms like this work much the same as multicellular organisms, with the domain round a nucleus equipped with protein synthesis machinery and other organelles running mostly independently, and coordinating with the other ones via chemical signals. It's just that the signals can move around without having to cross a cell membrane. EDIT: And if you count this as a single cell, then presumably you'll count a muscle fibre, which is also many nuclei inside a single cell membrane, in which case there are larger single cells inside your own body: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/25/37/8528 https://www.jneurosci.org/content/25/37/8528 Well, longer at least.
- EForEndeavour 7y agoThere's a biological and topological difference between a multinucleate cell (coenocyte) and an organism made up of distinct cells. > if you count this as a single cell, then presumably you'll count a muscle fibre, which is also many nuclei inside a single cell membrane, in which case there are larger single cells inside your own body: Certainly. Human muscle fibres and nerve axons are single-celled, but they aren't organisms.
- pvaldes 7y agoValonia ventricosa bubbles are relatively small, around 4cm. Smaller than many chicken eggs. Largest viable single cell organism is still the ostrich in its egg phase. Unicellular organisms have zero or one nucleus. If they have two or more nucleus is multicellular
- carterehsmith 7y ago>> Unicellular organisms have zero or one nucleus. If they have two or more nucleus is multicellular Hmm, is that true? Looks like there are unicellular organisms with multiple nuclei: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinucleate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinucleate
- pvaldes 7y agomultiple nuclei means division by mitosis, if a single cell suffer mitosis and split the nucleus is not a single cell anymore. Are two cells sharing the same citoplasm and membrane for a while. Cells remaining citoplasmatically connected with is brothers by a bridge by its entire life aren't uncommon in some multicellular organisms (is typical of all the kingdom fungi so is pretty common among life beings in fact). Valonia vesicles are able to hold several smaller bubbles attached. They differenciate from the larger bubble by a process similar to gemation and quickly replace it when is too old or damaged and it bursts. If a bubble equals a cell in function and looks, an organism able to have rhizoids and other smaller cells glued to its main cell, is clearly pluricellular.
- benj111 7y agoFor those interested in organisms without a nucleus they're called prokaryotes [1], and apparently red blood cells don't have nuclei either. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prokaryote https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prokaryote
- odomojuli 7y agoI love seeing submissions like this on the front page. I come for the post-mortems of severe outages and I stay for the discussion of algae.
- ttyprintk 7y agoI'm amazed to see it. Valonia is a pest in reef aquariums. I can't think of anything less popular, and now it's front-page news.