this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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Science Memes

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submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 weeks ago

required

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I did not realize that tardigrades were so small. Previously I thought one would be able to see one with the naked eye.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Most species grow to half a millimetre. So they're just barely visible to the naked eye; like a small spec of dust.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

That would be mildly terrifying

[–] Nurse_Robot 20 points 2 weeks ago

Being naked isn't that scary

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I'm not a biologist but there is no way in hell that a virus can be as big as a living organism right? That's probably not a bacteriophage

[–] ByteJunk 12 points 2 weeks ago

Definitely not, a bacteriophage is like 500 nanometres. A tardigrade is 0.5 mm, or 500 000 nanometres, literally 1000x the size.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I am a microbiologist, there's no way in hell that's a virus.

Edit: it's probably a radiolarian skeleton, maybe genus cornutella.

Edit 2: it's indeed a cornutella skeleton: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/12782032

[–] Diplomjodler3 30 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Is that really a virus? That would be huge for a virus.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

It's a radiolarian skeleton, more info here: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/12782032

[–] iAvicenna 21 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

how is that a bacteriophage?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah looks like a diatom skeleton. And the scale is quite wrong

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It looks nothing like either a centric or pennate diatom

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Nonetheless it is in no way a phage. What might it be, do you think?

I know it’s a joke meme, but I did not achieve my grand success in life by being ‘fun’. It’s just not my thing ;)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Probably a radiolarian skeleton. Check out pictures of the cornutella genus. The morphology and relative size to the tardigrades match up.

Edit: score! Looking up tardigrade and cornutella together brought me to the source of the picture. I knew all that school was good for something. Here's a screenshot because fuck Xitter:

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Now that’s what I call fun!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago

That bacteriophage looks awesome tho, I want one to scale