What is the biggest single-celled organism? - Murry Gans
787,199 Views
13,763 Questions Answered
TEDEd Animation
Let’s Begin…
The elephant is a creature of epic proportions — and yet, it owes its enormity to more than 1,000 trillion microscopic cells. And on the epically small end of things, there are likely millions of unicellular species, yet there are very few we can see with the naked eye. Why is that? Why don’t we get unicellular elephants? Or blue whales? Or brown bears? Murry Gans explains.
One way that cells can increase their amount of surface area relative to their volume is by folding their membrane. Lay a rubber band flat on a table. The band itself represents the cell membrane and the empty space inside represents the volume - the guts of the cell. Taking care to not stretch the rubber band, which would change its surface area, use your fingers and make several folds in the band. How does this affect the volume of the empty space even though the surface area didn’t change?
Sign in to answer questionAbout TED-Ed Animations
TED-Ed Animations feature the words and ideas of educators brought to life by professional animators. Are you an educator or animator interested in creating a TED-Ed Animation? Nominate yourself here »
Meet The Creators
- Educator Murry Gans
- Script Editor Emma Bryce
- Producer Zedem Media
- Director Michael Kalopaidis
- Animator Andria Pourouti
- Illustrator Amanda Kafandari
- Sound Designer Andreas Trachonitis
- Narrator Addison Anderson
