Cells are awesome

In doing my reading for tomorrow's classes, I stumbled upon this delicious fact and I just had to post. Generally speaking, the more complex an organism tends to be, the larger its genome (the total amount of DNA in its cells). Yet, while the human genome is 200 times larger than a certain species of yeast, it is 200 times smaller than a certain species of amoeba. Yes, amoeba. Those amorphous jello like creatures with water for brains.
How amazing is that??
One more thing....each human cell contains an extraordinary amount of DNA. If stretched end to end, this DNA would be 2m long. But, deadrocketcow, you say. The cell is so small, how does all that DNA fit in there? The nucleus of the cell with a diameter of about 6x1o^(-6) - 6 millionths of a meter - achieves this remarkable feat by creating a series of supercoils and loops of DNA, all bunched up tight. This, according to 'Molecular Biology of The Cell' by Alberts, is 'geometrically equivalent to packing 40km (24 miles) of extremely fine thread into a tennis ball!'
If that doesn't make you almost vomit with excitement....I dunno, you're missing out on the fun.
And since I am posting even though I should be dilligently reading....we had our first Histology lab on Wednesday. It was cool to see sections of duodenum and liver and trachea and actually get a visual of all the stuff I read about in text books. When I realised that those pink stained dots in the cytoplasm of the liver cell were actually pink because of a stain for carbohydrates and connected that with learning 'the liver stores glycogen' in the text book, I had this huge burst of excitement. Glycogen! I almost yelled. It has to be glycogen!
And then....we looked at electron microscopy pictures of the very same liver slides, and we could actually see the rough endoplasmic reticulum with the *gasp* ribosomes sitting right on it. It felt like I had been given private access to a secret world, one that I could only have imagined. Awesome-ness, I tell ya.
Back to reading late into the night, with possible over-sleeping rammifications for tomorrow.