Why is it likely that you will never meet a two-ton amoeba on a sidewalk?

Answer 1

Amoebas are unicellular organisms. The way that life is set up it is far more efficient to have cells be small because of the inefficiencies of a cell being so large. Small is conducive to a large surface to volume ratio, the larger surface you have the more you can exchange (fluids, nutrients,etc.). All life needs water, amoebas would not be able to retain this much water to become two tons in the first place and the energy the cell membrane would have to expend preventing this water from escaping would be tremendous (probably more than an average human's metabolism) and we have BILLIONS of cells, with an amoeba we are talking about only ONE cell.

Answer 2

A physical relationship called the surface-to-volume ratio constrains increases in the size of metabolically active cells. If a cell expands in diameter during growth, then its volume will increase faster than its surface area does.

Suppose you induce a round cell to grow four times wider. Its volume increases 64 times(43). However, its surface area increases only 16 times (42). This means each unit of plasma membrane must service four times as much cytoplasm as before. A lot more substances have to get in and out!

If a cell's diameter is too great, the inward flow of nutrients and outward flow of wastes just won't be fast enough to keep up with metabolic activity, and you'll end up with a dead cell.

So this surface area-to-volume ratio will never let a amoeba to become a two-ton cell.

Answer 3

cuz.

A two-ton living cell cannot survive. Simple as that. The ratio of volume to cell surface is the biggest factor that hinders cell growth. As a cell's surface area grows, it's volume increases exponentially. If the cell gets too big, it will take far too much effort to transport necessary molecules for life from the cell membrane or nucleus out to the environment or vice versa. If the cell cannot receive the proper nutrients, it will die. Two ton cells cannot receive the proper nutrients.

Answer 4

Because that's just ridiculous.