Naked Science Forum

General Science => General Science => Topic started by: Karsten on 08/11/2009 23:48:41

Title: Am I really only 1% human?
Post by: Karsten on 08/11/2009 23:48:41

I heard it on the radio. Well, it was not about me specifically. But they said that if one compares all the numbers of cells of organisms that live in/on the human form with the actual human cells, the number of human cells would be only 1%. True? Close? Bogus?

Title: Am I really only 1% human?
Post by: Madidus_Scientia on 09/11/2009 02:33:47

True. In numbers of cells, but not mass

Title: Am I really only 1% human?
Post by: Bored chemist on 09/11/2009 19:47:01

True, because many of our cells are relatively big.
Also, if you look at our cells there's relatively little of them, genetically speaking, that's uniquely "human".

Title: Am I really only 1% human?
Post by: Nizzle on 10/11/2009 14:45:59

Don't forget that if you have the flu for example, thousands of viruses can be made in a single human cell ;)

Title: Am I really only 1% human?
Post by: Karsten on 14/11/2009 18:38:16

Could you throw some numbers at me please? How many human cells are there on average? Which/how many cells are distinctly human? What makes a cell distinctly human? Which cells are indistinctly human? Why?

Title: Am I really only 1% human?
Post by: Karsten on 14/11/2009 21:20:47

So that is 10 Trillion human cells. Not bad. Lots of other critters though.

But that looks more like a ratio of 1:10 than 1:99