• Question: how many cells are there in your hand

    Asked by kianmidwinter to Sam on 4 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Sam Chilka

      Sam Chilka answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      Hi kianmidwinter.
      An interesting question. We can only estimate the number of cells in the human body, and I’ve seen estimates that vary between 5 trillion and 100 trillion cells in the whole human body. A single hand is at most one percent of the mass of of a human body. But as you can see, one percent of 5 trillion is very different from one percent of 100 trillion!

Comments

  • Photo: Jonathan

    Jonathan commented on :

    Sam’s estimates look good to me. And he beat me to it again.

    But did you know that we all have about 10 times as many bacteria and other microorganisms in our gut as we have cells in our body? There are lots in many places but not as many as there are in the gut. The bacteria are usually helpful to us but sometimes cause diseases. We don’t know much about many of these bacteria.

  • Photo: kianmidwinter

    kianmidwinter commented on :

    thanks for the answers