Re:Tantalizing but preliminary evidence of a “brain microbiome”
by jessriedel on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @09:56AM
(#18441360)
Prokaryotes are thousands of times smaller in mass/volume, so most cells (and maybe even most DNA) can be bacteria while these are nonetheless minor players.
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Re:Tantalizing but preliminary evidence of a “brain microbiome”
by Bartweiss on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @12:27PM
(#18442762)
This is definitely part of it, the estimates claiming 90% bacteria by cell count end up suggesting perhaps a half gallon of actual bacterial volume. As far as DNA, I think the parent stat can't hold for base pairs. Not as a volume issue, but because mammalian genomes are ~3 orders of magnitude larger than bacterial ones. Even at a 10:1 cell count, our base pairs would be 99% human.
Most importantly, though, the 10:1 stat is just outdated. Newer estimates put the number around 1.3:1 instead.
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
Re:Tantalizing but preliminary evidence of a “brain microbiome”
by jessriedel on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @01:19PM
(#18443296)
This comment was super interesting, thank you.
Re:Tantalizing but preliminary evidence of a “brain microbiome”
by etatoby on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @11:52AM
(#18442442)
A side note to passing readers: thousands of times smaller in mass or volume means of course only tens of times smaller in diameter, which agrees with the pictures shown in the article and elsewhere.
Re:Tantalizing but preliminary evidence of a “brain microbiome”
by jessriedel on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @01:09PM
(#18443188)
Yea. The comparison of humans to cockroaches is a useful intuition. Or blue whales to cats.