Concept explainers
To compare:
The size of a virus to that of a bacterial cell, an animal cell, and a plant cell.
Introduction:
Cells are the basic functional and structural building blocks of life. Cells are found in every living organism, but these cells are not identical to each other. Cells have varied shapes, sizes, and structures. The cells of different life forms are different from one another maintaining diversity in cell size and structure.
Explanation of Solution
Viruses are very small acellular entities that have size range between 10 nm (nanometer) to 100 nm. The size of a virus is much smaller than bacteria, a plant cell, and an animal cell. Viruses can only be visualized through electron microscope. The size of a bacterial cell is larger than a virus, but smaller than an animal cell. Bacterial cell, plant cell, and animal cell can be visualized under light microscope as their size is greater than 1 µm (micrometer).
The size of a virus is much smaller than all the above mentioned cells. Therefore, it is only visible under electron microscope.
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Chapter 17 Solutions
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