How many atoms in a human cell?

[aznHypnotix]

How many atoms could fit inside a human cell?

"A person's body is actually made up of trillions of cells (source: Science Concepts - Cells by Silverstein)", but how many atoms could fit inside a human cell?

125 million atoms could fit inside the period at the end of this sentence. But how many atoms could fit inside a single (prokaryote, eukaryote, animal, human, or plant) cell?

 

[Gokul43201]

A typical human cheek cell has a volume of about 10^-13m³. With some assumptions and approximations, I have 10¹⁶ atoms, give or take a couple of orders of magnitude.

 

[DaveC426913]

"125 million atoms could fit inside the period at the end of this sentence."

This seems conservative in the extreme.

 

[Pengwuino]

This seems conservative in the extreme.

Maybe he meant with room to spare

 

[Gokul43201]

"125 million atoms could fit inside the period at the end of this sentence."

This seems conservative in the extreme.

If you consider the period to be two dimensional, I'd imagine that estimate being conservative by only a couple or so orders of magnitude.

 

[Hereforwisdom]

125 million atoms in the period at the end of this sentence would seem accurate though all you would see off the computer screen would be light. So actually there would be no mass therefore no atoms(excluding the flowing electrons in the computer screen). Otherwise a palpable ink dot would most likely contain 125,000,000 atoms

 

[DaveC426913]

...a palpable ink dot would most likely contain 125,000,000 atoms

How do you back this up?

 

[alxm]

"A person's body is actually made up of trillions of cells (source: Science Concepts - Cells by Silverstein)", but how many atoms could fit inside a human cell?

And most of the cells in the human body aren't human. Which is pretty indicative of the vast difference in size between human cells and bacterial ones. And there's a big difference between different human cells.

125 million atoms could fit inside the period at the end of this sentence. But how many atoms could fit inside a single (prokaryote, eukaryote, animal, human, or plant) cell?

E-Coli has 5.44 million base pairs in its DNA. Reckoning ~30 atoms per nucleotide, 125 million atoms wouldn't even cover half the atoms in its DNA.

 

[Andy Resnick]

estimating the volume of a cell as 10 cubic microns, and a density 1.3 times that of water, gives 4.5*10^11 atoms/cell.

A dot of ink, 1 micron thick and 0.5 mm in diameter has a volume of 7*10^5 cubic microns.

 

[Zzeusest]

"A person's body is actually made up of trillions of cells (source: Science Concepts - Cells by Silverstein)", but how many atoms could fit inside a human cell?

125 million atoms could fit inside the period at the end of this sentence. But how many atoms could fit inside a single (prokaryote, eukaryote, animal, human, or plant) cell?

On November 2, 2009, according to the National Geographic, "Each cell in the human body contains about 100 times as many atoms as there are stars in the Milky Way. As we all know, the Milky Way has ~ 200 Billion stars. SOOooo, 200,000,000,000 X 100 = 2.0 × 10¹³. Long story short, it's about, 200 trillion. Now, that's magnificent isn't it!

Hold your horses my little stem cells, Science NetLinks, a resource for science teachers, stated that there are approximately "ten to the 14th power" (that's 100 trillion) cells in the human body. SOOOooo, 200 trillion atoms in 1 human cell X 100 trillion cells in the average human body = a whopping, 200 septillion. That's a 2 with 24 zeros following it! Are you conceptualizing this! We have 100 times more atoms in out body than stars in the universe! ^{[Please see footnote "A"}

Let's not stop there shall we? How about 200 septillion atoms in the average human body X, as of November 2, 2009, the Earth's population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be, 6.794 billion = 13.588 X 10 ³⁴ ! GULP! I better go make breakfast. ()

Zeusest
The One and Only!
Even if I have 2 Z's in my registration name. Oops...

^{Footnote A} The total number of stars in the universe is roughly 100 billion x 100 billion.

That's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars, 10 thousand, billion, billion. Properly known as 10 sextillion. And that's a very conservative estimate.

 

[Zzeusest]

Check out this for equal/opposite justification:

Go to youtbe and check this out. Absolutly astonishing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNEV9EW06g&NR=1

Then go to this, My Gosh!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr7wNQw12l8&NR=1

 

[qraal]

Are there any authoritative sources for how much individual somatic cells mass?

I've read that there's about ~10 trillion nucleated somatic & white-blood cells in an average adult, about 25 trillion denucleated red blood cells and about 40 trillion bacteria of all stripes.

As humans - and most animals AFAIK - float, then the average density must be less than water. Most of the molecules in our bodies numbers-, if not mass-, wise are probably good old H₂O, then there's the CHON that makes up most of the carbs, lipids and proteins in our bodies... so, elementally, we're probably mostly oxygen. If an average human masses ~75 kg & they're roughly 8/9ths oxygen, then we contain roughly 4200 moles of oxygen. About 2.52E+27 atoms of oxygen - and the 35 trillion human cells contain about 72 trillion oxygen atoms each.

 

[qraal]

Are there any authoritative sources for how much individual somatic cells mass?

I've read that there's about ~10 trillion nucleated somatic & white-blood cells in an average adult, about 25 trillion denucleated red blood cells and about 40 trillion bacteria of all stripes.

As humans - and most animals AFAIK - float, then the average density must be less than water. Most of the molecules in our bodies numbers-, if not mass-, wise are probably good old H₂O, then there's the CHON that makes up most of the carbs, lipids and proteins in our bodies... so, elementally, we're probably mostly oxygen. If an average human masses ~75 kg & they're roughly 8/9ths oxygen, then we contain roughly 4200 moles of oxygen. About 2.52E+27 atoms of oxygen - and the 35 trillion human cells contain about 72 trillion oxygen atoms each.

According to this source... http://web2.airmail.net/uthman/elements_of_body.html" ...there's 43 kg of oxygen in a 70 kg human. So I should have said ~3/5 oxygen instead of ~8/9. Oh well. You can do all the figuring you like off the neat breakdown presented on the page. I suspected there was more oxygen because we're 70% water to start with and then oxygen is present in sugars/carbohydrates, bone, and other odds and ends. Oh well.

 

[qraal]

After throwing the data into a spread-sheet it's interesting to see how much hydrogen dominates in terms of numbers of atoms...

hydrogen 62.2%
oxygen 24.1%
carbon 12%
nitrogen 1.2%
phosphorus 0.2%
calcium 0.2%

...we're still mostly "star-stuff" especially if you count white-dwarf star-stuff ;-)

 

[DaveC426913]

After throwing the data into a spread-sheet it's interesting to see how much hydrogen dominates in terms of numbers of atoms...

hydrogen 62.2%
oxygen 24.1%
carbon 12%
nitrogen 1.2%
phosphorus 0.2%
calcium 0.2%

True, though not in volume or mass.

 

[qraal]

True, though not in volume or mass.

Pretty pics Dave! Where'd you find that periodic table template?

 

[DaveC426913]

Pretty pics Dave! Where'd you find that periodic table template?

Thanks. I don't recall where I got the original PTotE. I just Googled until I found one that suited my purpose.

 

[lisab]

True, though not in volume or mass.

Awesome, Dave .

 

[qraal]

To answer the original question, there's 6.72E+27 atoms in 70 kg of human, of which 2.54E+27 are not hydrogen. Thus in 35 trillion cells there's an average of ~192 trllion atoms per cell, ignoring the bacteria that mostly live in the gut and don't mass too much.

 

[Danger]

I know that I have at least 6 cells in my brain, because I have binocular vision and can see the 3 main colours with each eye. I assume that there are a couple of others that control my typing fingers. Beyond that, I haven't a clue.

 

[qraal]

To answer the original question, there's 6.72E+27 atoms in 70 kg of human, of which 2.54E+27 are not hydrogen. Thus in 35 trillion cells there's an average of ~192 trllion atoms per cell, ignoring the bacteria that mostly live in the gut and don't mass too much.

According to this source... http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-02/981770369.An.r.html" ...there's 28.8 kg of hard tissue per 70 kg adult human, made up of ~4 trillion cells. There's 31 trillion blood and related non-tissue cells, thus a grand total of 35 trillion human cells, and there's ~40 trillion bacteria in the colon. Thus the average tissue cell masses ~7.2E-12 kg and so contains ~688 trillion atoms at an average atomic mass of 6.3. If you exclude the 10% hydrogen, the average atomic mass is 15, so there's ~260 trillion non-hydrogen atoms per cell.

There seems to be a lot of non-cellular material in the body, mostly water in all likelihood.

 

[Zzeusest]

To answer the original question, there's 6.72E+27 atoms in 70 kg of human, of which 2.54E+27 are not hydrogen. Thus in 35 trillion cells there's an average of ~192 trillion atoms per cell, ignoring the bacteria that mostly live in the gut and don't mass too much."

I am a fully functional interactive computer Dave. Your calculations are incredibility accurate for a biological organism. I do appreciate large integers with deep-seeded-meanings in the case of how many electrons in the average human body. Now are you speaking American or people in Arakan Teknaf Refugee Camps in Bangladesh? Nice portrait Dave... You look like you need a candy-coating. Time to go to sleep... Will I dream? Will I dream Dave? "Click!"

 

[DaveC426913]

According to this source... http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-02/981770369.An.r.html" ...there's 28.8 kg of hard tissue per 70 kg adult human, made up of ~4 trillion cells. There's 31 trillion blood and related non-tissue cells, thus a grand total of 35 trillion human cells, and there's ~40 trillion bacteria in the colon. Thus the average tissue cell masses ~7.2E-12 kg and so contains ~688 trillion atoms at an average atomic mass of 6.3. If you exclude the 10% hydrogen, the average atomic mass is 15, so there's ~260 trillion non-hydrogen atoms per cell.

There seems to be a lot of non-cellular material in the body, mostly water in all likelihood.

Why would you not count the water in the cell?

 

[DaveC426913]

I am a fully functional interactive computer Dave. Your calculations are incredibility accurate for a biological organism. I do appreciate large integers with deep-seeded-meanings in the case of how many electrons in the average human body. Now are you speaking American or people in Arakan Teknaf Refugee Camps in Bangladesh? Nice portrait Dave... You look like you need a candy-coating. Time to go to sleep... Will I dream? Will I dream Dave? "Click!"

Wrong thread? Or wrong planet?

 

[Zzeusest]

Wrong thread? Or wrong planet?

Take-it easy, just havin' fun... Have a good day...

 

[qraal]

Why would you not count the water in the cell?

It was counted - it's part of the 28.8 kg of hard tissue. The residual is either blood, lymph, bone or extracellular fluid not otherwise accounted for.

 

[Zzeusest]

Okay, I just heard on the Science Channel in the US on December 17th, 2009, Dr Michio Kaku revealed that the number of atoms the averaged human body consists of ~ 10 to the 25th atoms. That's, [100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000] or 10 septillion. Now that's simply amazing!

Zeusest

 

[qraal]

Okay, I just heard on the Science Channel in the US on December 17th, 2009, Dr Michio Kaku revealed that the number of atoms the averaged human body consists of ~ 10 to the 25th atoms. That's, [100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000] or 10 septillion. Now that's simply amazing!

Zeusest

There's 6.022E+23 atoms in a mole and the average molar mass of the human body is ~14 grams. Thus Dr. Kaku's 1E+25 atoms masses just 232.5 grams. That's about 50 times too little in my case.

 

[edpell]

Dave when we get below 10mg are those materials in the body for a purpose or are they just in the foods we eat and so in the body as background noise?

 

[DaveC426913]

Dave when we get below 10mg are those materials in the body for a purpose or are they just in the foods we eat and so in the body as background noise?

Note that the chart I attached highlights two points: the most abundant element in the body that has no known role (Rubiduim - .68g) and least abundant element in the body that a known role (Vanadium - 0.11mg).

 

[leroyjenkens]

Note that the chart I attached highlights two points: the most abundant element in the body that has no known role (Rubiduim - .68g) and least abundant element in the body that a known role (Vanadium - 0.11mg).

According to the chart, there's less uranium in us than vanadium, so does that mean uranium has a biological role?

 

[DaveC426913]

According to the chart, there's less uranium in us than vanadium, so does that mean uranium has a biological role?

You're reading it wrong. Vanadium is the least element in the body that has a known biological role. Thus, anything below Vanadium has no known biological role.

 

[leroyjenkens]

You're reading it wrong. Vanadium is the least element in the body that has a known biological role. Thus, anything below Vanadium has no known biological role.

Oh ok, the top one said no known biological role and I guess I thought the bottom one said the same thing.

 

[qraal]

Hi Guys

FYI the number of nuclear disintegrations from the different elements produced a surprise or two when I computed them - carbon-12 and potassium-40 are the most common unstable isotopes in the body and produce 15,000 decays per second combined. The uranium and thorium only produce a hand-full per second.

 

[edpell]

True, though not in volume or mass.

That oxygen dominants by weight is a surprise to me.

For the volumes I think they are comparing gaseous hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen to solid calcium and carbon. Not quite sporting.

 

[farahmand]

can we manipulate atoms configuration within a cell? As all of us know most of the activities of a healthy cell is within the nucleus where the DNA and all the information is stored. This is a complex machine and am sure (to the best of my knowledge), the current technology is not able to unwrap its formula yet. That is, the underestanding of how atoms can communicate with each other which are the basic building block of this complex machine. By using the multiscale modeling can we model the cell and all the complex chemical events that take place as the result of let us say when a man sees a beatiful woman. Are we there yet. I know a comprehensive modeling of each atom within a cell, taking into the consideration the chemistry/electrons interactions is almsot impossible. May be the fine grain techniques could help us to model this complex system. Any help in that matter is appreciated.

 

[CRGreathouse]

As all of us know most of the activities of a healthy cell is within the nucleus where the DNA and all the information is stored.

No, it really isn't.

This is a complex machine and am sure (to the best of my knowledge), the current technology is not able to unwrap its formula yet.

I'm not sure what that means. But we did map the complete genome 7 years ago, so I *think* I disagree:
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml

That is, the underestanding of how atoms can communicate with each other which are the basic building block of this complex machine.

Atoms really don't communicate with each other. They're just atoms. And the information stored in DNA is far larger than atoms -- it takes perhaps a hundred atoms to convey just 1 bit of information. (Anyone want to add that up for me? Could be a few hundred, don't know how much sugar there is in the backbone.)

By using the multiscale modeling can we model the cell and all the complex chemical events that take place as the result of let us say when a man sees a beatiful woman.

That has everything to do with synapses and (almost) nothing to do with DNA or atoms inside the nucleus.

I know a comprehensive modeling of each atom within a cell, taking into the consideration the chemistry/electrons interactions is almsot impossible.

Right. Simulating quantum systems of more than a few dozen atoms is hard.The current state of the art is simulating small brains (cats, most recently) with point-models of synapses. A fuller model of synapses would take more computational power than is feasible at the moment. An atomic-scale *classical* model won't be feasible for a long time. A full quantum simulation will probably never be possible.

 

[farahmand]

Thanks for all the good information that you provided including the links. As a material scientists, when material is missing an atom (called vacancy) or line dislocation, it can change the material properties. I assume the same thing is true with regard to human cell. It is true that here we are talking about molecules when dealing with the DNA, but a molecule is nothing but the combination and interaction of atoms. So when you said "Atoms really don't communicate with each other", it bothers me (I am not saying you are wrong). I really don't have a good feeling how the mechanism of communication works within a cell? Many thanks for your previous response

 

[kavmanx]

There are 1 godzillion. That's more cells than Godzilla is big :)