10-Centimeter Single-Celled Organisms Photographed 6 Miles Underwater

New submitter roat35 tips news that researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have used Dropcam — a relatively small, glass-walled device containing an HD camera — to make videos of lifeforms that exist in the Mariana Trench, more than six miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. One of the more interesting organisms at those depths is the Xenophyophore, a creature which, despite being single-celled, can grow to be over 10 centimeters wide. "Scientists say xenophyophores are the largest individual cells in existence. Recent studies indicate that by trapping particles from the water, xenophyophores can concentrate high levels of lead, uranium and mercury and are thus likely highly resistant to large doses of heavy metals. They also are well suited to a life of darkness, low temperature and high pressure in the deep sea."

Comments

Heavy metals?

[Pharmboy]

I can't be the only one thinking that an organism that is simple and can absorb heavy metals sounds almost too good to be true. Sounds like something that *could* be easy (in relative terms) to genetically modify for cleaning up toxic areas.

Yes, I know, what could possibly go wrong...

Re:Heavy metals?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I can't be the only one thinking that an organism that is simple and can absorb heavy metals sounds almost too good to be true. Sounds like something that *could* be easy (in relative terms) to genetically modify for cleaning up toxic areas.

My neighbour's teenager absorbs great quantities of heavy metal every day (to the dismay of the entire neighborhood), doesn't seem to possess an IQ much higher than a single cell organism, lives in a toxic area he calls his "bedroom", and I can guarantee you no amount of genetic engineering is likely to convince him to clean it...

Re:Heavy metals?

[FishTankX]

How would we go about genetically modifying it to not require 6 miles of water ontop of it?

Generally deep sea stuff tends to explode once we bring it up due to pressure differential.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Pharmboy]

Good point, for sure, but the real question is, does it require 6 miles, could it be cloned above water (we are talking single cell, and we have done sheep, dogs, etc.). The main thing that makes my ears perk up is the fact that it is such a simple organism, the odds of us being able to figure it out is much higher.

Maybe not, but an interesting organism nonetheless, and at the least, there is something we can likely learn from it. I would bet some company somewhere is asking the same question. When the potential reward is that high, you have to ask the question.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like a riot. Hopefully the neighbour won't take a shit on your lawn :(

Re:Heavy metals?

[nomel]

Removal and disposal of the now, toxic, organisms is the problem...

They do this with the common water hyacinth. It's great for cleaning up heavy metals and many chemicals, but then you have many thousands of lbs of heavy, wet, plants to remove and do something with before they eventually die, decompose, and release everything back into the water.

Re:Heavy metals?

[robotkid]

I can't be the only one thinking that an organism that is simple and can absorb heavy metals sounds almost too good to be true. Sounds like something that *could* be easy (in relative terms) to genetically modify for cleaning up toxic areas.

Yes, I know, what could possibly go wrong...

There are actually lots of microbes that metabolize and break down toxic wastes. Typically they are found simply by digging into a pile of hazardous waste and seeing what is growing there. The problem is that these organisms don't have to be particularly fast or efficient to defend their niche, they just need to survive where other's can't, so in their natural state they will not make a significant difference on the timescales convenient to us (i.e. a 1,000 year cleanup). So we need to at least understand enough to genetically engineer a yugo into a porche, and that isn't exactly easy.

The second catch here is that deep sea life also typically has extremely slow metabolisms to begin with compared to terrestrial organisms. You can't spend energy faster than you take it in, and that's very slow indeed on the ocean floor. Fish down there are adapted to months inbetween feedings and can live for many decades, I can only imagine how slowly these 10 cm blobs eat and reproduce.

Re:Heavy metals?

[robmv]

Easy, lets dump the contaminated material on the sea and call it food for Xenophyophores

Re:Heavy metals?

[bennomatic]

No, you missed the best part: its waste product is 50% pure gold, 50% unicorn rainbow.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you recall the exact moment you morphed into a caricature from an 80s comedy movie, or did it happen gradually?

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Removal isn't terribly difficult. All we would need to do is release cages of these things. When it's time, pull the cages up, dispose of the bodies, release a new cage. You'll lose some out of the cage but overall the toxins would be removed.

I'm more worried about the environmental impact on fish. Plankton and bacteria will start eating these things full of heavy metals. Then they will be eaten by fish and then bigger fish and you'll have fish that are eating concentrations of heavy metals instead of swimming in some parts per million of heavy metal. Instead of losing 50% of a clutch you'd lose generations worth of fish.

Re:Heavy metals?

[LifesABeach]

Monsanto has genetically engineered several of its seeds to be resistant to Roundup. Maybe Monsanto could ask some its folks to adapt hyacinth to make some kind of container like a gourd or coconut? Object would be to have the plant store its gathered heavy metals in there, then harvest the stuff maybe wearing a Bio-Suit? Because that stuff will be nastier than nasty.

Re:Heavy metals?

[SuricouRaven]

The explodyness is just to simple issues of partial pressures of gas. Just an extreme case of the bends. All you need to do is drag the thing up very slowly - trap it in a cage, put cage on rope, wheel it up over the course of weeks. Still might not survive - it's biochemistry may have evolved to function properly only at very high pressures - but at least it won't explode.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, please, please, don't bring them to the surface where there's plenty of energy.

Re:Heavy metals?

[funkboy]

Maybe Monsanto could ask some its folks to adapt hyacinth to make some kind of container like a gourd or coconut? Object would be to have the plant store its gathered heavy metals in there, then harvest the stuff maybe wearing a Bio-Suit?

Maybe we could just have Monsanto executives eat the heavy metals directly & save the rest of the world a lot of trouble...

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> How would we go about genetically modifying it to not require 6 miles of water ontop of it?

We could mate it with a Giraffe. Those don't have to be underwater to live.

Re:Heavy metals?

[PPH]

Don't worry. The scientists will attack the ones that escape with lasers and an atomic bomb. I saw it in a movie. It must be true.

Re:Heavy metals?

[MrKaos]

I can't be the only one thinking that an organism that is simple and can absorb heavy metals sounds almost too good to be true. Sounds like something that *could* be easy (in relative terms) to genetically modify for cleaning up toxic areas.

My neighbour's teenager absorbs great quantities of heavy metal every day (to the dismay of the entire neighborhood), doesn't seem to possess an IQ much higher than a single cell organism, lives in a toxic area he calls his "bedroom", and I can guarantee you no amount of genetic engineering is likely to convince him to clean it...

What you don't seem to understand is that heavy metal music was written by people with very high IQ's as a way to hack young minds into annoying the shit out of people like yourself.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Lehk228]

starting with lead and copper

Re:Heavy metals?

[eugene ts wong]

Maybe it would be cool to have the gourds or coconuts break off after absorbing the toxins, and then float to the surface. They could be harvested more easily...maybe.

Re:Heavy metals?

[drinkypoo]

This is relatively easy to solve, though. You put them in a bio-bag and get methane out. The heavy metals accumulate at the bottom. Or you can grind them up and use AIWPS to turn them into methane and algae.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and no. It isn't so simple to just add something as complex as a fruit structure using genetic engineering. For now and likely for a long time to come that remains the domain of movies. However, there are GE plants that are designed with bioremediation in mind (sunflowers and maybe brassicas IIRC) so it isn't that implausible, you'd just collect the whole plant, not something that it produced. And the case of the Round-Up resistance happened because they identified the mode of action of Roundup's active ingredient and were able to add a bacterial version of the protein that the roundup gunked up to the plant, so that non-GE plant's version of the protein was inhibited, but the GE ones had the bacterial version as a backup, so they could survive while other plants died. I don't think it would be so 'easy' to do the same for heavy metals, although I'm sure there's some way. My point is that those are pretty different scenarios. For anything major though you'd be best off not using genetic engineering. Not because there's anything wrong with it mind you, but if you go that route you have to go through years of idiotic protests and luddites getting in your way and unscientific regulations and put up with the constant risk that some moron trashes your now toxic plants (and then when said moron gets sick it makes the farmers who grow GE crops look bad because these idiots can't distinguish one GMO from another)....messy stuff that if you need something cleaned up you are better off avoiding.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I know, what could possibly go wrong...

Tribbles ???

Re:Heavy metals?

[black soap]

Well, for vertebrates it is more complex than that. Those lipids that line your cells? The ones that have just the right viscosity at the pressure you live at? How do they behave at depth?

How do lipids that are fluid enough to function within a single-celled organism at depth (>15,000 psi) behave when they are brought up to our measly ~14psi?

Re:Heavy metals?

[black soap]

Cadmium and Mercury. Then thallium. We don't want those floating around in the environment.

Re:Heavy metals?

[rgbatduke]

Well, sort of. Suppose we spill a bunch of mercury all over the ground because we were using it to make bleach for paper and then went out of business and walked away from our factory leaving a few tens of metric tons of raw mercury in vats that corroded through. We bring in a bunch of little critters -- they don't have to be ten centimeters long or single celled, acutually -- that gobble up all of that ugly toxic mercury.

So, now what? You have just as much mercury as before. Only now it is in lots of little bugs, or worms, or bacteria, or whatever. Some of them biologically convert the liquid metal mercury into biologically active and dangerous forms where liquid mercury itself is actually relatively safe. But nothing they do gets rid of the mercury itself, or even binds it up in a truly safe form.

The problem with Uranium, or Plutonium is the same, only more so. You can't make it go away, and putting it inside of a life form only makes it potentially portable or biologically more active and hence dangerous.

Fantasy exceptions might be bacteria that eat certain toxic compounds and break them down into other non-toxic compounds -- perhaps transforming PCBs into salt and sugar or something else nifty and harmless -- but nothing's going to make lead, or mercury, or uranium into a nutrient, and very few things will be able to metabolize them into a (relatively) biologically inactive form.

rgb

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody wants to hear your fucking music.

Re:Heavy metals?

[mvdwege]

I think you missed the point. GP was referring to giving 'em the 9mm cure, a course i heartily agree with.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Tomato42]

Same could be said of Hip-hop or rap. But we don't go around screaming that all listeners are drug-using, car-stealing idiots.

I at least have yet to meet a heavy-metal listener using his phone's speaker to "listen" to music.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Phrogman]

9mm? Come on, at least a .45! If its worth doing, its worth doing well...

Re:Heavy metals?

[AmonTheMetalhead]

Funny that: "College students whose musical preferences are alternative, rock or heavy metal actually obtain higher IQ test scores on average, particularly on questions where abstraction is required (Walker & Kreiner, 2006)."

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

but... only minds with very low IQ can be hacked to propagate this annoying stuff

Re:Heavy metals?

[Joce640k]

Generally deep sea stuff tends to explode once we bring it up due to pressure differential.

Only if you bring it up quickly. There's no problem if you give the dissolved gases time to escape.

Re:Heavy metals?

[ancienthart]

Interesting to contemplate how you're going to get the two of them together. :D

Re:Heavy metals?

[pugugly]

Yes, but as the pressure gets lower, it necessarily get larger until you have

The BLOB!!!

Beware of The Blob, it creeps
And leaps and glides and slides
Across the floor
Right through the door
And all around the wall
A splotch, a blotch
Be careful of The Blob

{G} - Pug

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Metalheads getting so worked up over a generic joke about teenagers make me wonder if it was a close hit.

Re:Heavy metals?

[SuricouRaven]

Unknown. Try it, find out. But it still won't explode. It'll just melt.

Re:Heavy metals?

[tehcyder]

Can you recall the exact moment you morphed into a caricature from an 80s comedy movie, or did it happen gradually?

Can you remember the exact moment you forgot what a "joke" was?

Re:Heavy metals?

[ByOhTek]

The pressure difference isn't such an issue, the pressure differential for a single celled organism should equalize fairly well - it likely won't explode/rupture.

The temperatures will be an issue. Many chemical reactions may fail.

Also, certain reactions may actually require the high pressure.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

What you don't seem to understand is that

what you're responding to is a joke.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Coren22]

Doesn't the MP5 take 9mm? Isn't that like a common weapon in the military?

Re:Heavy metals?

[bckrispi]

Yes, it's a funny joke. But even 20 years after high school, I can see how these stereotypes can hit a nerve. Imagine being labeled a "Devil Worshiper" by classmates just because you like Metallica - only to hear the same classmates singing Enter Sandman a year later when the Black album became mainstream. Or try not being able to walk into a department store wearing leather and a Slayer shirt without getting a "Company escort" following five feet behind you the whole time you browsed.

Re:Heavy metals?

[bckrispi]

I will send you a bill for a new keyboard. My current one is covered in coffee. :D

Re:Heavy metals?

[bckrispi]

The solution to this is simple. In fact, people have been doing it for thousands of years: selective breeding. Take your landfill bacteria sample. Break it up into groups, and give each group some toxins to nosh on. The group that performs best gets cultured and split up again. All others get culled. Repeat. This technique was already proven in a 16 year old's science project.

Re:Heavy metals?

[MrKaos]

What you don't seem to understand is that

what you're responding to is a joke.

I guess my humor can be dry sometimes, it's not as if I was being serious

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes!!!

Re:Heavy metals?

[robotkid]

The solution to this is simple. In fact, people have been doing it for thousands of years: selective breeding. Take your landfill bacteria sample. Break it up into groups, and give each group some toxins to nosh on. The group that performs best gets cultured and split up again. All others get culled. Repeat. This technique was already proven in a 16 year old's science project.

Yes, that would be the standard operating procedure for an organism with a rapid generation time (20 minutes for e. coli) and culturable in a lab (so you can control the nutrient conditions and do your selective breeding). I can't find any information on the generation time of Xenophyophores, in fact it may not be known, but I would be shocked if it was quicker than months to years per generation. And something that only lives on the sea floor is probably the hardest conditions I can think of (until aliens are discovered) to try and replicate in a lab. So double icksnay on the selective breeding.

It would be easier to sequence its genome and try to reverse engineer the biochemical pathway that is responsible for sequestering the radioactive substances. If it were a small, standalone pathway with just a handful of genes that are not hopelessly interwoven with weird deep-sea biological processes we have no clue about, you might have a shot transplanting it into something that is easier to manipulate like algae or tobacco plants.

Now, when I say easier, I mean "free trip to Stockholm" easier, not "high school science project" easier. Remember the early 90's when photoshop came out and everyone thought it was sooo clever to cut out someone's head and put it on a supermodel's body? That's about how sophisticated genetic engineering is right now.

Re:Heavy metals?

[RockDoctor]

Who said it's a "simple" organism?

It's a single-celled organism, allegedly, but I don't necessarily see that as being the same as "simple". The biochemical complexity of some of the smallest of bacteria is still very high, while some of the largest of viruses (mimivirus et al), which one would expect to be "simple", have genomes considerably larger than some "complex" bacteria.

Re:Heavy metals?

[RockDoctor]

Generally deep sea stuff tends to explode once we bring it up due to pressure differential.

Equally, shallow-sea stuff (humans adapted to 0m +/-1.5m water depth) tends to collapse once taken to more than 10m depth if compressed rapidly enough and to leak bodily fluids if taken rapidly to high altitudes.

Almost everything doesn't like rapid pressure changes. Many organisms however can withstand considerable changes of pressure over a fair duration.

Actually, I can extend that to inorganic materials too : standard procedure for handling rock cores in the drilling industry is to pull from coring depth to 20 stands (typically 30m/stand, but it varies) at [as fast as possible, within the well's swab/surge limits and the power available] ; then from 20 to 10 stands at 5 minutes/stand ; 10 minutes/stand for the next 5 stands ; 20 minutes per stand for the last 5 stands (by which time you're often catching core anyway). These time consuming operations (think : USD 500/ minute base cost, plus specialists) are all about getting samples to surface with less de-pressurisation damage.

When deep-sea organisms come up to the surface under their own timetable, they're all capable of coming up without damage. Which is why we get regular examples of, for example, giant squid stranded on beaches, but anatomically more-or-less intact (this doesn't address the question of what caused the squid, for example, to beach).

If you take your time, it is perfectly possible to bring deep-sea specimens "up to surface", or "down to surface pressure" as my saturation diver friends would put it (while spending a week coming "to surface" out of a pressure chamber which is physically on the surface). But time costs money, so there is always a conflict between achieving sampling aims and getting the cruise completed.

And before you raise the question, yes, whales and seals are remarkably adapted to handle the pressure changes in their lives. Remarkably adapted, from their blood outwards.

Re:Heavy metals?

[RockDoctor]

... leading directly to toxic waste dumps full of dead Monsanto [insert transnational organism of choice] executives. Net gain - near zero.

Re:Heavy metals?

[RockDoctor]

Mod parent down. He's talking boring reality, not exciting fantasy.

Re:Heavy metals?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Many chemical reactions may fail. ... Also, certain reactions may actually require the high pressure.

Yes, they may. Let's drag some of the critters up hereand find out. And prepare for whinging from PETSCA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Single-Celled Animals).

If only Bill Watterson was still writing.

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason Calvin and Hobbes came to mind.

Largest single cells

[DanTheStone]

What about ostrich eggs?

Re:Largest single cells

[pecosdave]

Came here to say this, not sure if an egg properly qualifies as an organism.

Re:Largest single cells

[rish87]

An egg is not one giant cell. The actual cell, the ovum, is as tiny as your own (roughly speaking). What you see of the egg is the yolk and albumin which are there to feed the embryo as it goes.

Re:Largest single cells

[sexconker]

Came here to say this, not sure if an egg properly qualifies as an organism.

Ostrich egg+sperm immediately after fertilization.
(Still doesn't count, because the organisms typical life cycle does not have it staying as a single cell.)

Re:Largest single cells

[ideonexus]

An ostrich egg is 13-15 centimeters and is considered a cell; however, I think the scientists here are referring to this species being the largest single-celled organism. The ostrich egg isn't an organism and, IMO, doesn't qualify as life since it doesn't consume energy, reproduce, etc, but simply provides and environment for the multicelluar life to grow within it. It is definitely a single-cell, however, and so the article is technically inaccurate in its verbiage.

Re:Largest single cells

[dissy]

What about ostrich eggs?

The single-cell "egg" (zygote? that doesn't sound like the right term...) inside that egg is still microscopic and can't be seen with the unaided eye. No where near 1 mm, let alone 1 or 10 cm.

The rest of the stuff making up the egg (shell, yolk-food, and other fluids), is more than one cell.

Re:Largest single cells

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, and un-born babies are parasites... XD

Re:Largest single cells

[stjobe]

An ostrich egg isn't an organism. The title goes to the Caulerpa, a kind of seaweed whose single cell can grow up to a meter in length.

Re:Largest single cells

[Anonymous Coward]

you are incorrect. The egg itself is not a cell. ( as it has not DNA of it's own) but when examined contains a cell ( bounded by a cell membrane and containing a nucleolus) ... the rest of the the egg is protein that is used to provide nutrition for the growth of the cell.

Re:Largest single cells

[schizz69]

They are not diploid organisms, they are an haploid egg.

Re:Largest single cells

[khallow]

Wikipedia says that these xenophyophore can get up to 20 cm in size, You're not going to let Wikipedia get away with that right?

Re:Largest single cells

[tbird81]

An ostrich egg is 13-15 centimeters and is considered a cell

No it isn't! Have you not done any biology or science at school whatsoever? It's an egg, it's an organism, but it's millions and millions of cells!

Re:Largest single cells

[assantisz]

Technically, the yolk is part of the "egg cell". The white and everything else within (besides the yolk) and including the shell is not. The only thing that is special about the yolk is that it does not partake in cell division if the egg is fertilized. There are no other cells within an egg. The white and the shell are not made from cells. All that said, I doubt, though, that the yolk of an ostrich egg is bigger than 20cm.

Re:Largest single cells

[cashman73]

An ostrich egg does classify as a cell, be it in the haploid (unfertilized) or diploid (fertilized) state. If fertilized, it is also a developing organism. So yes, it qualifies. Not sure if an ostrich egg is 10 cm or not, but I suspect it's pretty close,...

Re:Largest single cells

[aliquis]

At what time? I think the question is.

Re:Largest single cells

[Eskarel]

It also doesn't count because the ostrich egg, like any other bird egg, contains, but is not, the egg which turns into an embryo. The vast majority of that egg is a food dump for the chick.

Re:Largest single cells

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfft, I have cells a meter long.

Re:Largest single cells

[black soap]

Of course, many fungi are multi-nucleic, and form connections between the cells, essentially turning the entire thing into a single cell. And fungi can be huge.

Re:Largest single cells

[Sique]

Slime Mold is more interesting as during their development there are moments when the whole slime mold is a single cell, but with thousands of nuclei, which stretches the concept of a cell to its boundaries.

Re:Largest single cells

[sexconker]

It also doesn't count because the ostrich egg, like any other bird egg, contains, but is not, the egg which turns into an embryo. The vast majority of that egg is a food dump for the chick.

The vast majority of any cell is a fluid that isn't a cellular structure.

Re:Largest single cells

[dsinc]

Ostrich eggs are not organisms.

Re:Largest single cells

[Anonymous Coward]

Some neurons are up to a meter long. (Giraffe for instance, in the legs) You probably have neurons in parts of your body that are in excess of three cm length. Bigger animals have longer neurons. Eggs have large single cells, though the entire egg is not one single cell. There is a very large single cell in it.. So, an ostrich egg is probably the heaviest. There are also single celled seaweed that are up to a meter long. Since there are several species, this critter barely makes the top ten, but it is still cool.

Re:Largest single cells

[amRadioHed]

If there are no other cells in the egg, and the yolk doesn't partake in cell division, what does? Obviously some cells in there are dividing in order for a chick to develop.

Can we call them Dwarf Bandersnatchi?

[newcastlejon]

Please?

Re:Can we call them Dwarf Bandersnatchi?

[cowtamer]

That's the FIRST thing that came to my mind! Perhaps it is best that they live 10,000 meters below the surface...

Re:Can we call them Dwarf Bandersnatchi?

[MichaelSmith]

The Tnuctipun must have been here at some point,

R.I.P. Vulcan Comrades

[HatofPig]

We must find a way to neutralise the xenophyophores resistance to heavy metal before it can do to us what it did to the Intrepid. Quickly, slingshot George Carlin around the sun so he can find us William S. Preston and Theodore Logan!

It's the Leviathan!

[mcvos]

You guys have read the Illuminatus! trilogy, right?

But can they handle silver?

[E.I.A]

If they can pass through a plume of silver ions unscathed, I'll be impressed - not that I'm not already.

Summary is a misquote

[Anonymous Coward]

The article says

Scientists say xenophyophores are among the largest individual cells in existence.

I don't know if that was an addition made after the story was submitted here, or if it was intentionally removed, but there you go.

Mixing metric and imperial

[jeorgen]

It's good to see Slashdot use the metric system, in this case centimeters, to describe the size of the animal, but it gets a bit confusing when it is combined with giving the depth it is found at in miles.

Re:Mixing metric and imperial

[newcastlejon]

Fair point, but I'm just pleased they didn't use fathoms. What are they, four and seven eights hogsheads?

Re:Mixing metric and imperial

[Anonymous Coward]

The unit of measure for these is attoParsecs. It's right around 3.4.

Re:Mixing metric and imperial

[qwak23]

Quite frankly I prefer crafting my own custom units to fit the situation. They are typically 1 xenophophum wide, and typically found at a depth of 1 xenophyohom.

I can provide definitions, dimensions, and conversion factors if anyone needs them.

Oh yes?

[bickerdyke]

"They also are well suited to a life of darkness, low temperature and high pressure in the deep sea."

Oh yes? Well... they better should be suited for that if they live in the Mariana Trench!!

D'oh!

Re:Oh yes?

[epine]

Oh yes? Well... they better should be suited for that if they live in the Mariana Trench!!

Sheesh. And I thought they'd be well suited to sun bathing and the vacuum of space. Nature is one huge surprise after another.

Trying to come up with a rigorous definition of well adapted blows my mind. Although I can recall some classmates who were better adapted to junior high school that I was or aspired to be; perhaps "well adapted" hints at sad and pathetic when encountered later in life.

Re:Oh yes?

[lennier]

"They also are well suited to a life of darkness, low temperature and high pressure in the deep sea."

Oh yes? Well... they better should be suited for that if they live in the Mariana Trench!!

D'oh!

No no, you misunderstand. They're literally suited for it... by wearing tiny little pressure suits.

So, get to the point, how does it taste?

[syntheticmemory]

Could just be the next new item for celebrity chefs and sushi restaurants.

Re:So, get to the point, how does it taste?

[Anonymous Coward]

Taste like chicken favored jello?

Re:So, get to the point, how does it taste?

[jnaujok]

Given that they use a polysaccharide secretion to bind various debris and their own fecal matter into their skin/shells/whatever --- I'm guessing they really can accurately be said to taste like sh*t....

Re:So, get to the point, how does it taste?

[syntheticmemory]

Dipping them in egg and seasoned panko, and deep frying them should hide that possible problem....

For some reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't surprise me all that much that the fattest single-celled organism on the planet lives in the deepest, darkest place on Earth and is a fan of heavy metal.

Re:For some reason...

[cashman73]

OMG! We finally found CowboyNeal's mom! :-)

How are they not preyed upon?

[Securityemo]

Did they develop this as a defense mechanism against predators, who presumably aren't immune to their toxic cell plasma? Also, the cell membrane must be pretty thick? (or my intuitive understanding of the effect of pressure on things at that depth pretty lousy.)

Re:How are they not preyed upon?

[sFurbo]

I don't think the pressure really affects the thickness of cell membrane needed, the pressure within the cell is the same as the pressure outside the cell, so the cell membrane doesn't have to withstand any pressure. It does affect which lipids to use in the cell membrane, they need to be liquid (for a quite weird definition of liquid), and the melting points will be higher ion the high-pressure environment.

Re:Largest single cell is NOT this

[stjobe]

The ostrich egg isn't an organism; the Caulerpa, on the other hand, is. Up to a meter in length.

have they found George W Bush

[Barsteward]

down there???

Re:have they found George W Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

No, just his brain...

Re:have they found George W Bush

[ScentCone]

Really? You're so obsessed with him that despite everything else going on the world, and billions of poeple about whom you could make some joke, you see a story like this, and the first thing you do is go digging through your one-track, Bush-hatred mind and give this a go? Really?

You can relax. He's not running for president. The guy who thinks there are such things as transcontinental railroads, 57 US states, and similar things (which, if W had said them, would have sent you into a shuddering orgasm of Bush Derangement Syndrome poison-spouting), is running for re-election, though. Why not update your lame repertoire? 2012 is almost here. Maybe you could try on some racist Cain jokes, or fixate on Romney's hair in order to show how cool you are.

Grow up.

10 cm are nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

Even humans contain cells more than a meter long.

And if you look for single cell organisms, several meters are no problem either. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caulerpa).

Perhaps if you only count single-cell mature organisms with at most one nucleus...

Re:10 cm are nothing

[DeusExInfernus]

Even humans contain cells more than a meter long.

Emm, say what?!

Re:10 cm are nothing

[Thiez]

I assume he's referring to neurons. Those can become quite long: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron#Anatomy_and_histology

those scientists had better be careful...

[wierd_w]

These are giant amoebas! I think HP Lovecraft warned about giant bags of protoplasm from deep beneath the sea like these.

Yes, by all means, bring those infant shoggoth up here for study... preferably in heavily populated areas!

Genetically engineer them? Sure! What could possibly go wrong?!

(Note, this is meant to be funny.)

Re:those scientists had better be careful...

[LifesABeach]

Wrong? I don't know, but some cultures believe that Sea Urchin tastes great; and the difference is minimal. Burger King,("have it your way"), you've got to love the irony.

Re:those scientists had better be careful...

[idbeholda]

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” H.P. Lovecraft

We'll see who's laughing when those experiments go horribly awry.

Re:those scientists had better be careful...

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll see who's laughing when those experiments go horribly awry.

Me, I'll be laughing. And stroking my white cat. In my volcano lair.

Re:those scientists had better be careful...

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, giant bags of protoplasm. sounds like we've found the undersea talent pool from which Fox News and conservative talk radio get their commentators.

This is clearly a fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

Space Nutters have told me this planet is just "a rock" and that to continue the grand human experience of exploration, we must go into space, since everything about the Earth, sorry, mud ball, is already known.

This is news?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen many organisms at the surface that absorb heavy metal and operate on a single brain cell. My cousin is one.

Now now...

[skids]

Let's not get into that whole "who's xenophyophore is longer" thing, guys.

Re:Now now...

[Anonymous Coward]

That has _got_ to be picked up by some fortune.

No.

[publiclurker]

We're talking about large microorganisms, not microscopic ones.

DropCam is SO COOL!

[wisebabo]

I mean it's like a reverse space probe (goes down instead of up) but it makes a "soft" landing and then "liftoff" to return to orbit (I mean the recovery ship). Because (I think) it's not tethered it's completely autonomous which makes it like a Mars probe in the sense that all landing decisions must be done without human intervention (because in the case of the Mars probe, the 10 min. delay makes real time control impossible).

It's really too bad that there are no (?) feasible ways of communicating with it short of a fiber-optic cable. At a minimum 6 miles run length, I suppose this would greatly add to the complexity and cost of the mission. But maybe I'm wrong about this, what "high" bandwidth wireless solutions are there for transmitting underwater? I've seen SCUBA divers communicating with full face masks, do they use some sort of hydro-sonic transceiver? Would this work over a distance of miles? Unlike military applications, there's no need for stealth so maybe there are some overlooked solutions.

Re:DropCam is SO COOL!

[ridgecritter]

I wonder if you might use sound, but from a phased-array emitter, as is done in modern radar. IIRC, low sound frequencies propagate well in seawater and the higher the frequency, the greater the attenuation. From bandwidth perspective, you'd like to use a higher frequency. The phased-array emitter would let you concentrate the sound into a narrow beam to help overcome attenuation. Maybe some kind of cooperative emitter/DropCam interaction could help keep the beam on target as the camera descends and rises. I agree, DropCam is very cool!

if a single cell organism is 10 centimeters

[Cito]

That's a 10 centimeter long cell, imagine a multicellular creature hiding in the depths of the trench with cells this size :)

we could have the Leviathan mentioned in the bible be a real creature hiding in the depths of the trench or some other giant beast :)

would be cool...

release the kracken!

Beware of large one-celled organisms.

[koelpien]

These can be really dangerous if brought up to the surface. Because their deep habitat has such oppressive pressure, at sea level, they will have excess energy burn, since they are out of their native high-pressure environment. They could even become airborne, seek out humans for our body heat, and take control of their cortical systems. We will slowly go mad, unless Spock saves us.

Xenophyophore

[Anonymous Coward]

Confirmed for metal as F**K.
No other lifeform can compare.

Well... maybe that one guy living off Arsenic. That crazy guy, going to warp his mind one day, I swear.

pre-Cambrian sizes

[Tablizer]

Ediacaran-era (pre-Cambrian) life-forms may be single-celled, but many scientists call them "multi-cellular" without question due their size. Since there are no known living relatives of Ediacarans, it's hard to say. Fossils don't preserve enough details. The possibility of them being single-celled is still fairly strong.

Mod parent up?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up for the answer to why eggs count as single-celled organisms?

So, centimetres or miles?

[daem0n1x]

The creatures are 10 centimetres long, but live 6 miles underwater? So, what's it gonna be? Metric or American units? At the very least, be consistent!

Re:So, centimetres or miles?

[hesaigo999ca]

The one holding the ruler was canadian, but the one working the wench and line was american, go figure...these international explorations need to have some sort of standard!!!

Re:So, centimetres or miles?

[virgnarus]

You're right. It should be measured in leagues, as in, "20,000 leagues under the sea."

Re:So, centimetres or miles?

[daem0n1x]

Well, they have. The scientific community uses the universal standard, which is the metric system. Even in those exotic locations like Liberia, Burma and the USA.

Re:So, centimetres or miles?

[daem0n1x]

Are those football leagues? Should be hard to kick the ball under the sea...

Re:So, centimetres or miles?

[hesaigo999ca]

Except, the guy who decided to measure the distance to the bottom of the ocean floor using a different way (miles!)

Neat, but blob?

[hesaigo999ca]

Isnt that where we placed the blob when it got too huge, we threw it into the ocean, and now someone went and dug it up.....oh noss.

10 centimeters?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nothing - I've got cells in my body over four feet!

Eggs

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists say xenophyophores are the largest individual cells in existence

An egg of any kind is an individual cell and can be much larger then 10cm in diameter, no?

Cell Biology

[jweller13]

I seem to remember from biology class that cells had a size limit due to the need to transport nutrients and throughout the cell quick or the cell would quickly die. We did a test with, I can't remember the name, Alger, by placing it in dye to see how long it takes to penetrate.

Re:Cell Biology

[amRadioHed]

I would imagine the size limit is not fixed, but related to the organisms metabolic rate. If these cells have unusually slow metabolisms then an unusual size would be possible.