{"id":729,"date":"2026-08-20T09:45:44","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T13:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/?p=729"},"modified":"2026-08-20T09:45:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T13:45:44","slug":"eukaryotes-are-complicated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/2026\/08\/eukaryotes-are-complicated\/","title":{"rendered":"Eukaryotes are complicated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-731 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/complicated.jpg\" alt=\"Wiring of complex system\" width=\"215\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/complicated.jpg 215w, https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/complicated-92x150.jpg 92w, https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/complicated-184x300.jpg 184w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 215px) 100vw, 215px\" \/>In IntroBio, we talk a lot about prokaryotes and eukaryotes&#8230; but what is it that is important for us to\u00a0<em>say<\/em> ? Having a nucleus is <em>diagnostic<\/em>, but it&#8217;s a symptom, not a description what&#8217;s special about being a eukaryote&#8211;it&#8217;s a\u00a0<em>lifestyle.<\/em>\u00a0I think there are several Big Ideas that allow students to categorize these huge groups successfully and to approach questions and thinking about them fruitfully. Eukaryotes have mastery of <em>compartments<\/em>&#8211;they &#8216;figured out&#8217; how to separate watery chambers using non-watery components (membranes). Prokaryotes, on the other hand, have &#8220;specialization and mastery&#8221; at the environment or biochemical level (not covered yet). The topic of this post is a third: eukaryotes are damned complicated. It seems like\u00a0<em>everything<\/em> has more parts and pieces. One view is that they&#8217;re simply designed to make undergraduate life a jungle of memorization. Is there another?\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In IntroBio, we talk a lot about prokaryotes and eukaryotes&#8230; but what is it that is important for us to\u00a0say ? Having a nucleus is diagnostic, but it&#8217;s a symptom, not a description what&#8217;s special about being a eukaryote&#8211;it&#8217;s a\u00a0lifestyle.\u00a0I think there are several Big Ideas that allow students to categorize these huge groups successfully [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sense-of-things","category-themes","category-whats-important-about"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkbio.guru\/tBioWordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}