Homework 4 Submit answers online in assessments

The size of things you can’t see

Points: This assignment is worth a total of 30 points
Just one try and there is a time limit ==> Using the website, confirm answers before you begin!

Instructions:
Last week we spent time in lecture looking at the levels of organization in biology.
Developing a sense of scale provides significant intuition about how things fit together and work.

You’ve been doing this all your life with things you can see: leaves are smaller than trees; the ingredients
in a cake are smaller than the cake; brakes, tires, carburetors, windshields are all smaller than a car; etc.
You might have little or no, intuition about things that are too small to see with the unaided eye.
This assignment should address this deficit in your experience.

Go to this website: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

Read the notes below the picture. I’ve included these notes on the next page in case you find it easier to
read paper than to read a computer screen.
Note your answers to these questions and then go to assignments to submit your answers.

1. What limits the size of what can be seen under a light microscope?

2. What is needed to see things smaller than 500 nm?

3. Rank the following item from smallest to largest:

coffee bean, grain of rice, grain of salt, human cell, sesame seed.

4. Which item is about 500 µm (1000 times larger than 500nm)?

5. Which is larger, a human cell or an amoeba?

6. Rank the following human cells from smallest to largest: human egg, skin, red blood cell.

7. Which is larger, a human red blood cell or a yeast cell?

8. Which is larger, a human chromosome or a mitochondrion?

9. Which organelle is larger, a human cell nucleus or a mitochondrion?

(HINT: the nucleus must be large enough to contain 46 chromosomes.)

10. Can a chromosome be seen with a light microscope?

11. Rank the following organelles from smallest to largest: lysosome, mitochondrion, ribosome

12. Can a lysosome or a ribosome be seen with a light microscope?

13. Which is larger, a human skin cell or an organelle? (This can be answered without using the website.)

14. Which is larger, a bacterial cell or a virus?

15. Rank the following molecules from smallest to largest:

glucose, hemoglobin, phospholipid, tRNA and water.

16. What was the most surprising thing you just learned?
Notes from website:
Some cells are visible to the unaided eye

The smallest objects that the unaided human eye can see are about 0.1 mm long. That means that under the
right conditions, you might be able to see an amoeba proteus, a human egg, and a paramecium without using
magnification. A magnifying glass can help you to see them more clearly, but they will still look tiny.

Smaller cells are easily visible under a light microscope. It's even possible to make out structures within the cell,
such as the nucleus, mitochondria and chloroplasts. Light microscopes use a system of lenses to magnify an
image. The power of a light microscope is limited by the wavelength of visible light, which is about 500 nm. The
most powerful light microscopes can resolve bacteria but not viruses.

To see anything smaller than 500 nm, you will need an electron microscope. Electron microscopes shoot a
high-voltage beam of electrons onto or through an object, which deflects and absorbs some of the electrons.
Resolution is still limited by the wavelength of the electron beam, but this wavelength is much smaller than that of
visible light. The most powerful electron microscopes can resolve molecules and even individual atoms.

How can an X chromosome be nearly as big as the head of the sperm cell?
No, this isn't a mistake. First, there's less DNA in a sperm cell than there is in a non-reproductive cell such as a
skin cell. Second, the DNA in a sperm cell is super-condensed and compacted into a highly dense form. Third,
the head of a sperm cell is almost all nucleus. Most of the cytoplasm has been squeezed out in order to make
the sperm an efficient torpedo-like swimming machine.

The X chromosome is shown here in a condensed state, as it would appear in a cell that's going through mitosis.
It has also been duplicated, so there are actually two identical copies stuck together at their middles. A human
sperm cell contains just one copy each of 23 chromosomes.

A chromosome is made up of genetic material (one long piece of DNA) wrapped around structural support
proteins (histones). Histones organize the DNA and keep it from getting tangled, much like thread wrapped
around a spool. But they also add a lot of bulk. In a sperm cell, a specialized set of tiny support proteins
(protamines) pack the DNA down to about one-sixth the volume of a mitotic chromosome.

Adenine - The label on the nucleotide is not quite accurate. Adenine refers to a portion of the molecule, the
nitrogenous base. It would be more accurate to label the nucleotide deoxyadenosine monophosphate, as it
includes the sugar deoxyribose and a phosphate group in addition to the nitrogenous base. However, the more
familiar "adenine" label makes it easier for people to recognize it as one of the building blocks of DNA.

Carbon - The size of the carbon atom is based on its van der Waals radius.

References

Goodsell, David S. (1998). The Machinery of Life. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Goodsell, David S (2002, February). Molecular Machinery: A Tour of the Protein Data Bank. Retrieved
September 10, 2008, from Protein Data Bank Web site:
http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/static.do?p=general_information/news_publications/newsletters/2004q1/poster_available
.html

Ward, W. S. and Coffey, D. S. (1991). DNA packaging and organization in mammalian spermatozoa:
comparison with somatic cells. Biology of Reproduction 44, 569-574.