SMALL SIZE

To be alive, according to the traditional definition, a cell walled bacterium must be at least 0.30 microns in diameter – it takes this much space to allow for a nucleus, structural proteins, and the enzymes necessary for bacterial metabolism.  Kajander and Ciftcioglu’s organism contains a cell wall, but its size may vary from .02 to .50 microns, or 20 to 500 nanometers (fig. 1).  Budding forms of N. sanguineum may be as small as 20 nanometers.  Kajander and Ciftcioglu formally described N. sanguineum in 1990, but they couldn’t get published until ’98; the journal editors just couldn’t get over the “too small to be alive” hurdle.

The experts are correct – a minimum diameter of 30 nanometers is necessary for cell-walled bacteria to carry out “standard” metabolic functions, that is, bacteria as we know them.  N. sanguineum is, of course, unique.  It gets away with being “too small” by utilizing “primordial growth strategies” and by being parasitic in its nature.  It can function with fewer enzymes and structural proteins, because it can use environmental minerals to catalyze its metabolic processes and provide it with structural support.  It uses nutrients in its environment to live. It only “flourishes and lives” where it finds a hospitable environment, otherwise it remains dormant in a “spore-like” calcified form. It flourishes and lives well in the nutrient-rich soup that we call blood and urine.

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