The Hidden Mathematical Dance Inside Plant Cells
To seek out or hide from sunlight, chloroplasts can move.
为了寻找或隐藏阳光，叶绿体可以移动。
Biophysicists are studying whether they optimize their packing.
生物物理学家正在研究他们是否优化其包装。
This timelapse video (playing at 60 times normal speed) shows the movement of chloroplasts in the cells of the waterweed Elodea .
这段延时视频（以正常速度的 60 倍播放）显示了水草伊乐藻细胞中叶绿体的运动。
Benedikt Pleyer, Nomadic Nostoc/Science Photo Library
Benedikt Pleyer，游牧发菜/科学图片库
Living on light is a dangerous game.
靠光生活是一场危险的游戏。
Not only do the sun’s rays carry ultraviolet waves that can snap DNA strands and degrade molecules, but they also vary wildly in intensity.
太阳光线不仅携带可以折断 DNA 链并降解分子的紫外线，而且其强度也有很大差异。
Plants must endure and thrive through soft morning light and blazing summer afternoons, through shade one moment and full sun the next.
植物必须在柔和的晨光和炎热的夏日午后忍受并茁壮成长，前一秒还处于阴凉处，后一秒仍处于阳光充足的环境中。
Their solar calories come in a trickle — or a deluge.
他们的太阳能热量以细流或洪水的形式到来。
“Think of a cloud obscuring the sun, and suddenly the cloud passes and the sun ray hits a leaf,” said Nico Schramma , a biophysicist at Amsterdam University Medical Center.
阿姆斯特丹大学医学中心的生物物理学家尼科·施拉玛（Nico Schramma）说：“想象一下云遮住了太阳，突然云过去了，阳光照射到了树叶上。”
“Something has to change because the intensity might change a hundredfold.”
“有些事情必须改变，因为强度可能会改变一百倍。”
Plants aren’t passive.
Plants aren’t passive.
They respond accordingly.
他们做出相应的反应。
They can reorient themselves by rotating their leaves and stems to seek sunbeams or shade , but this mechanism works on a scale of minutes or hours.
它们可以通过旋转叶子和茎来寻找阳光或阴影来重新定位自己，但这种机制的工作时间是几分钟或几小时。
For finer responses, their cells must mobilize as well.
为了获得更好的反应，它们的细胞也必须动员起来。
Within every plant cell are chloroplasts, disc-shaped organelles that turn sunlight into sugars.
每个植物细胞内都有叶绿体，这是一种将阳光转化为糖的盘状细胞器。
And while plants have to remain mostly stationary, chloroplasts do not.
虽然植物必须保持大部分静止，但叶绿体却不然。
“Chloroplasts move,” Schramma said.
“叶绿体会移动，”施拉玛说。
He likened their behavior to that of a flock of sheep seeking shade on a bright day: Intense light similarly shepherds chloroplasts into shaded patches along the cell wall.
他将它们的行为比作一群羊在晴天寻找阴凉处的行为：类似地，强光会将叶绿体引导到细胞壁上的阴影斑块中。
“Light is the best friend and worst enemy of chloroplasts,” said Mazi Jalaal , a biophysicist at the University of Amsterdam who supervised Schramma’s doctoral work.
“光是叶绿体最好的朋友，也是最大的敌人，”阿姆斯特丹大学生物物理学家马兹·贾拉尔 (Mazi Jalaal) 说，他指导了施拉玛的博士论文。
“They need it for photosynthesis.
“它们需要它来进行光合作用。
But the moment the light intensity goes too high, they have to run away from it.”
但当光线强度太高时，它们就不得不逃跑。”
Recently, Schramma and Jalaal have obsessed over a mystery of chloroplast physics.
最近，施拉玛和贾拉尔痴迷于叶绿体物理学的一个谜团。
How does each organelle balance the plant’s appetite for light with its distaste for too much?
每个细胞器如何平衡植物对光的需求和对太多光的厌恶？
And how, in turn, is this expressed as patterns within a cell?
反过来，这又是如何表达为细胞内的模式的？
In fall 2025 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , they reported that the chloroplasts in Elodea , a common aquarium waterweed that they use as a model plant, self-organize into a sort of mathematical optimum.
2025 年秋季，他们在《美国国家科学院院刊》上报道称，伊乐藻（一种常见的水族馆水藻，他们将其用作模型植物）的叶绿体会自组织成一种数学最优状态。
They pack their cell’s surface densely enough to absorb ample light while populating the cell sparsely enough to meander and hide efficiently when they need to.
它们将细胞表面紧密地包裹起来，以吸收充足的光线，同时将细胞内的细胞填充得足够稀疏，以便在需要时有效地蜿蜒和隐藏。
The biophysicist Nico Schramma recently solved a math problem tucked into a plant cell: Do sunlight-harvesting organelles pack optimally?
生物物理学家 Nico Schramma 最近解决了植物细胞中的一个数学问题：收集阳光的细胞器是否处于最佳状态？
“The beautiful thing we see here is what a great designer evolution is,” said Dakota McCoy , an evolutionary biologist studying photosynthesis at the University of Chicago.
“我们在这里看到的美丽的事情是伟大的设计师进化是什么，”芝加哥大学研究光合作用的进化生物学家达科塔·麦考伊说。
“When you see something fit your simulation really, really well, like this paper does …
“当你看到某些东西非常非常适合你的模拟时，就像这篇论文所做的那样......
is it a coincidence, or is it that it evolved to be that way?”
这是巧合，还是进化成这样？”
Jalaal’s path to this field sounds like a punch line.
贾拉尔进入这一领域的道路听起来像是一句妙语。
His mother taught high school biology.
他的母亲教高中生物。
His father, high school physics.
他的父亲，高中物理。
The family debated which direction the teenager would go in his career.
家人争论这个少年的职业生涯将走向哪个方向。
Voilà, biophysics.
Voilà, biophysics.
“[Our lab’s] questions always are biology questions,” Jalaal said.
“[我们实验室的]问题始终是生物学问题，”贾拉尔说。
“Often you immediately find out that you must solve a physics problem to solve those biological questions.”
“通常你会立即发现你必须解决物理问题才能解决那些生物学问题。”
Plants provoke many such questions.
植物引发了许多这样的问题。
In 2021, as he and Schramma ping-ponged ideas for a new project, they learned about Elodea densa .
2021 年，当他和 Schramma 就一个新项目商讨想法时，他们了解了 Elodea densa。
Elodea is rather unextraordinary: a staple in home aquariums and middle school science classes.
伊乐藻相当普通：是家庭水族馆和中学科学课的主食。
In its favor, the waterweed has simple leaves, which are easier to inspect under a microscope than those of land plants.
对它有利的是，水藻有简单的叶子，比陆地植物更容易在显微镜下检查。
For the researchers, this offered a shortcut to new questions.
对于研究人员来说，这提供了解决新问题的捷径。
“There are so many physics problems that these organisms have to solve during the course of evolution,” Jalaal said.
“这些生物体在进化过程中必须解决很多物理问题，”贾拉尔说。
In his lab at the University of Amsterdam, Mazi Jalaal uncovers fluid dynamics in living organisms, including plants and algae.
在阿姆斯特丹大学的实验室中，Mazi Jalaal 揭示了生物体（包括植物和藻类）的流体动力学。
“There are so many physics problems that these organisms have to solve during the course of evolution,” he said.
“这些生物体在进化过程中必须解决很多物理问题，”他说。
After watching some YouTube videos, they ordered the plant online.
观看了一些 YouTube 视频后，他们在网上订购了该植物。
Schramma pinched off some centimeter-long leaves.
施拉玛剪掉了一些厘米长的叶子。
Under the microscope they resembled a brick wall of rectangular cells.
在显微镜下，它们就像矩形细胞的砖墙。
Chloroplasts visibly freckled each cell from end to end.
每个细胞从头到尾都有明显的叶绿体斑点。
He soon made the observation — familiar to plant biologists — that chloroplasts grow in a medley of sizes and fan out to collect light or huddle against cellular side walls to shield themselves from it.
他很快就观察到——植物生物学家很熟悉——叶绿体以不同大小的混合体生长，并呈扇形散开以收集光线，或挤在细胞侧壁上以保护自己免受光线影响。
“It is striking when you look at them on the microscope,” Jalaal said.
“当你在显微镜下观察它们时，你会发现这是惊人的，”贾拉尔说。
He wondered how the uneven blobs manage to organize so neatly under different light conditions.
他想知道这些不均匀的斑点是如何在不同的光照条件下组织得如此整齐的。
They learned that few plant biologists had studied chloroplast motion in great detail.
他们了解到很少有植物生物学家详细研究了叶绿体运动。
Two trailblazers — Roger Hangarter from Indiana University and Masamitsu Wada from Tokyo Metropolitan University — were retired.
两位开拓者——印第安纳大学的罗杰·汉加特和东京都立大学的和田正光——已经退休。
Wada had begun experimenting with chloroplast motion back in the 1990s by looking into how the organelles move or anchor themselves by sprouting cytoskeletal fibers, including actin and microtubules.
早在 20 世纪 90 年代，世界反兴奋剂机构就开始对叶绿体运动进行实验，研究细胞器如何通过萌发细胞骨架纤维（包括肌动蛋白和微管）来移动或固定自身。
Hangarter had studied these mechanics, as well as the geometry of chloroplasts, in dozens of different plant species.
汉加特研究了数十种不同植物物种的这些力学以及叶绿体的几何形状。
“Protection’s a real important thing,” Hangarter said.
“保护确实很重要，”汉加特说。
“If you can’t move your chloroplasts, they’re likely to get some damage, and then you’ve got to expend energy repairing them.
“如果你无法移动叶绿体，它们可能会受到一些损害，然后你就必须花费能量来修复它们。
It could even kill the plant.”
它甚至可能杀死植物。”
Prior to retiring, Indiana University’s Roger Hangarter investigated chloroplast motion in about 50 different plants.
退休前，印第安纳大学的 Roger Hangarter 研究了大约 50 种不同植物的叶绿体运动。
“There’s still a lot of open questions,” he said.
“还有很多悬而未决的问题，”他说。
For every possible biological inquiry, Jalaal found, the physics involved was under-explored.
贾拉尔发现，对于每一个可能的生物学探究，所涉及的物理学都没有得到充分探索。
Physicists know that small units of all sorts can self-organize into large, complicated structures from simple interactions — a phenomenon known broadly as emergence.
物理学家知道，各种小单元可以通过简单的相互作用自组织成大型复杂的结构——这种现象被广泛称为涌现。
Picture murmurations of starlings staining the sky like ink drops or flocks of sheep flowing like liquid.
想象一下椋鸟的低语声像墨滴一样染红了天空，或者羊群像液体一样流动。
Self-organization intersects with mathematics in so-called packing problems, which date back to Johannes Kepler.
自组织与所谓的包装问题中的数学相交叉，该问题可以追溯到约翰内斯·开普勒。
The 17th-century astronomer, best known for his studies of planetary motion, proposed that the densest way to stack spheres is to arrange them in a pyramidal pile, the way you’d set out oranges in a grocery store (in two dimensions, this problem is more like arranging pennies on a flat tabletop).
这位以研究行星运动而闻名的 17 世纪天文学家提出，堆叠球体最密集的方法是将它们排列成金字塔形，就像在杂货店里摆放橙子一样（在二维中，这个问题更像是在平坦的桌面上排列硬币）。
This might seem obvious, but proving it was quite challenging , especially for higher dimensions or other shapes .
这似乎是显而易见的，但证明它相当具有挑战性，特别是对于更高维度或其他形状。
Plant cells must solve their own packing problem, Jalaal realized: A handful of discs in different sizes must organize and pack themselves efficiently in both bright and dim sunlight.
贾拉尔意识到，植物细胞必须解决它们自己的堆积问题：少量不同大小的圆盘必须在明亮和昏暗的阳光下有效地组织和堆积自己。
When he looked at Elodea cells under the microscope, he saw chloroplasts packing the cell evenly.
当他在显微镜下观察伊乐藻细胞时，他看到叶绿体均匀地包裹着细胞。
This suggested a sort of “computation” occurring in the plant, Jalaal said.
贾拉尔说，这表明植物中发生了某种“计算”。
“Even before going to how chloroplasts move, [the microscope image] was a clear sign there’s so much happening here.”
“甚至在研究叶绿体如何移动之前，[显微镜图像]就清楚地表明这里发生了很多事情。”
Chloroplasts evolved long before plants did.
叶绿体的进化早于植物。
Around 3 billion years ago, a bacterium evolved the chemical tools to feed on light.
大约 30 亿年前，一种细菌进化出了以光为食的化学工具。
Then, a billion years later, another cell swallowed one without killing it and took the bacterium’s light-harvesting tools for itself.
然后，十亿年后，另一个细胞吞下了一个细菌，但没有杀死它，并把细菌的光捕获工具据为己有。
This primordial gulp, creating a condition known as endosymbiosis (also thought to be the origin story of mitochondria ), is believed to have happened just once.
这种原始的吞噬创造了一种称为内共生的条件（也被认为是线粒体的起源故事），据信只发生过一次。
But the hybrid cell it created was so fit that its descendants blossomed into every alga and plant species on Earth.
但它创造的杂交细胞非常适合，以至于它的后代发展成了地球上的每一种藻类和植物物种。
“We think of symbiosis as something like a clown fish and an anemone, but a plant cell with its domesticated chloroplasts is also,” McCoy said.
“我们认为共生就像小丑鱼和海葵一样，但植物细胞及其驯化叶绿体也是如此，”麦考伊说。
Around the early 1800s, microscopists noticed chloroplasts ambling around plant cells; decades later, they observed the organelles reacting to light.
大约在 1800 年代初，显微镜学家注意到叶绿体在植物细胞周围漫步；几十年后，他们观察到细胞器对光的反应。
Some 200 years after that, Schramma earned curious looks from neighboring physicists as he carried a second fish tank into his lab.
大约 200 年后，当施拉姆将第二个鱼缸搬进实验室时，周围的物理学家投来了好奇的目光。
Compared to land plants, Elodea densa has simpler leaves that are easier to inspect under a microscope.
与陆地植物相比，伊乐藻的叶子更简单，更容易在显微镜下检查。
A plant cell is a crowded venue .
植物细胞是一个拥挤的场所。
Much of its inner volume is taken up by a fluid-filled blob — the central vacuole — that exerts pressure on other occupants.
它的大部分内部体积被充满液体的斑点（中央液泡）占据，对其他占据者施加压力。
Caught between a vacuole and a hard place, the chloroplasts, nucleus, and other organelles are smushed against the plant cell’s rigid rectangular walls.
叶绿体、细胞核和其他细胞器夹在液泡和坚硬的地方之间，被压在植物细胞坚硬的矩形壁上。
How might a chloroplast elbow its way through the crowd?
叶绿体如何从人群中挤过？
Hangarter and Wada had debated the possible mechanics: Maybe the cytoskeleton of protein filaments ferries it about, maybe the chloroplast buzzes along randomly, maybe a mix of both.
Hangarter 和 Wada 就可能的机制进行了争论：也许是蛋白质丝的细胞骨架在运送它，也许是叶绿体随机地嗡嗡作响，也许是两者的混合。
From the biophysical side, Jalaal and Schramma wondered how a plant cell can organize the movement of its chloroplasts, which its survival depends on.
从生物物理学的角度来看，贾拉尔和施拉玛想知道植物细胞如何组织其生存所依赖的叶绿体的运动。
Their answer: glassy behavior.
他们的答案是：玻璃行为。
A so-called glass transition occurs when a material can reversibly move between solid and liquid states without undergoing a full phase transition, the way a gelatinous glob of chicken stock melts with a little heat and solidifies again when cool.
当一种材料可以在固态和液态之间可逆地移动而不经历完全相变时，就会发生所谓的玻璃化转变，就像一团凝胶状的鸡汤在稍微加热下就会融化，并在冷却时再次凝固。
A similar transition is known to happen in some bacterial cells .
已知一些细菌细胞中也会发生类似的转变。
In 2023, using a combination of experiments and mathematical modeling, Schramma and Jalaal reported that Elodea cells occupy a critical point at such a transition.
2023 年，Schramma 和 Jalaal 结合实验和数学模型，报道了伊乐藻细胞在这种转变中占据了一个关键点。
When light conditions are constant, the cell is stable and firm, and chloroplasts remain in place.
当光照条件恒定时，细胞稳定而坚固，叶绿体保持在原位。
When a change in light intensity prompts activity, the dense cellular contents behave more like a liquid.
当光强度的变化促进活动时，致密的细胞内容物表现得更像液体。
To hide from light, some chloroplasts even tuck themselves behind others in a 3D cluster along the cell wall — an arrangement that’s only possible if the cell interior becomes more fluidlike first.
为了躲避光线，一些叶绿体甚至将自己塞在其他叶绿体后面，沿着细胞壁形成 3D 簇——这种排列只有在细胞内部首先变得更像流体的情况下才有可能实现。
A time-lapse microscope video shows the dynamic transition that occurs as chloroplasts in a packed, light-absorbing state respond to bright light: At the 20-minute mark, the lights turn on and the organelles scurry to the cell walls.
一段延时显微镜视频显示了叶绿体在紧密吸收光的状态下对强光作出反应时发生的动态转变：在 20 分钟时，灯亮起，细胞器迅速爬向细胞壁。
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2216497120
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2216497120
But that explanation left questions open.
但这种解释留下了疑问。
Differences in the size, shape, or density of chloroplasts in the cell could steer the system away from a glassy transition.
细胞中叶绿体的大小、形状或密度的差异可以使系统远离玻璃态转变。
“Why this density?
“Why this density?
Why this shape?” Schramma said.
Why this shape?” Schramma said.
“Does it mean anything?”
“这有什么意义吗？”
Jalaal and Schramma reframed their question as a packing problem.
Jalaal 和 Schramma 将他们的问题重新定义为包装问题。
The chloroplasts are discs that can come in various sizes and quantities in different cells.
叶绿体是圆盘，在不同的细胞中可以有不同的大小和数量。
Their container, a rectangular cell, can grow to virtually any length and width — but must allow chloroplasts to pack when lights are dim and hide along its walls when light shines brightly.
它们的容器是一个矩形细胞，几乎可以生长到任何长度和宽度，但必须允许叶绿体在光线昏暗时堆积起来，并在光线明亮时沿着细胞壁隐藏。
Given those constraints, they asked, what is the relationship between the plant cell’s size and shape and the chloroplasts’ size and number?
考虑到这些限制，他们问道，植物细胞的大小和形状与叶绿体的大小和数量之间有什么关系？
In his lab at the University of Amsterdam, Mazi Jalaal uncovers fluid dynamics in living organisms, including plants and algae.
在阿姆斯特丹大学的实验室中，Mazi Jalaal 揭示了生物体（包括植物和藻类）的流体动力学。
Working with the soft matter physicist Eric Weeks at Emory University, they borrowed an algorithm from theoretical physics.
他们与埃默里大学的软物质物理学家 Eric Weeks 合作，借鉴了理论物理学的算法。
They programmed 30 to 130 discs, which varied in diameter, to scatter around a two-dimensional rectangle of fixed length and width.
他们对 30 到 130 个直径各异的圆盘进行编程，使其分散在长度和宽度固定的二维矩形周围。
At first, the discs collectively covered 1% of the box.
起初，圆盘总共覆盖了盒子的 1%。
The simulation enlarged first one disc and then another by the same growth factor, and so on.
模拟首先放大一个圆盘，然后用相同的生长因子放大另一个圆盘，依此类推。
The process continued for many rounds — discs grew, empty space shrank, the growth factor tightened — until the discs could no longer grow.
这个过程持续了很多轮——椎间盘生长，空间缩小，生长因子收紧——直到椎间盘不再生长。
At that point they were as densely packed as they were going to get.
那时他们已经挤得很密了。
After 30,000 simulations under a slew of parameters, the model predicted an optimal geometry for the cells to maximize both light absorption and avoidance.
在一系列参数下进行 30,000 次模拟后，该模型预测了细胞的最佳几何形状，以最大限度地提高光吸收和避免光的能力。
At this cellular size and shape, chloroplasts would have the space to pack optimally in a single layer to maximize light absorption — filling a cell’s exposed surface area between 70% and 80% — while still having enough room to shuffle away to the walls to avoid the light when they needed to.
在这种细胞大小和形状下，叶绿体将有足够的空间以最佳方式堆积在单层中，以最大限度地吸收光——填充细胞暴露的表面积70%到80%——同时仍然有足够的空间移动到墙壁上，以便在需要时避开光线。
But this was just theory, a perfect world imagined and solved on a laptop.
但这只是理论，是在笔记本电脑上想象和解决的完美世界。
To prove out the findings in real biology, Schramma stuck his arm back into the fish tank, nipped more leaves, and snapped microscope images of the cells within to measure Elodea ’s actual packing fractions.
为了在真实的生物学中证明这一发现，施拉姆将手臂伸回鱼缸中，咬住更多的叶子，并拍摄了内部细胞的显微镜图像，以测量伊洛藻的实际堆积分数。
The real data matched his predictions almost perfectly.
真实的数据与他的预测几乎完全吻合。
Schramma couldn’t believe it at first.
施拉玛一开始不敢相信。
“I ran a couple of times into Mazi [Jalaal]’s office like, ‘I made a mistake!’ Then, 10 minutes later: ‘Oh, actually, no!’” he recalled.
“我有几次跑进 Mazi [Jalaal] 的办公室，心想，‘我犯了一个错误！’然后，10 分钟后：‘哦，实际上，不！’”他回忆道。
“I was obsessed with checking.”
“我沉迷于检查。”
The chloroplasts were indeed packed in a mathematically optimal way.
叶绿体确实以数学上最佳的方式包装。
The Elodea cells were small enough for the particular assemblage of chloroplasts within to pack themselves tightly to absorb maximum light, and large enough for chloroplasts to maneuver around one another to avoid it when needed.
伊乐藻细胞足够小，可以让内部叶绿体的特定组合紧密地包裹起来，以吸收最大的光线，并且足够大，可以让叶绿体在需要时相互移动以避开它。
When Schramma considered what the result meant for still-growing cells (which change shape), he concluded that cells would maintain optimal packing only if they grew in a single direction.
当施拉马考虑这个结果对仍在生长的细胞（形状发生变化）意味着什么时，他得出的结论是，只有当细胞沿单一方向生长时，它们才能保持最佳堆积。
Turns out, that’s how Elodea cells grow.
事实证明，这就是伊乐藻细胞的生长方式。
Finding a pattern in nature is one thing; proving that it is an evolutionary product is another.
在自然界中寻找模式是一回事，但又是一回事。证明它是一种进化产品是另一回事。
Either chloroplast packing evolved to optimize light absorption and avoidance as the researchers suspected, or it arose coincidentally out of adaptations to other pressures they face.
正如研究人员怀疑的那样，叶绿体堆积的进化是为了优化光吸收和避光，或者它是出于对它们面临的其他压力的适应而巧合地出现的。
“I’m very convinced that efficient packing is itself the product of evolution,” said McCoy, who was not involved in the study.
“我非常确信高效包装本身就是进化的产物，”未参与这项研究的麦考伊说。
“The hand of natural selection is brutal.
“自然选择之手是残酷的。
If you’re not efficient enough or not good enough at your job, it’s pretty easy to go extinct.”
如果你的工作效率不够或者不够好，那么很容易就会被淘汰。”
Schramma himself is cautious about this conclusion.
施拉玛本人对这个结论持谨慎态度。
Ruling out a coincidence would require proof that a leaf prioritizes the versatility it gets from mobile chloroplasts of a particular size.
排除巧合需要证明叶子优先考虑从特定大小的移动叶绿体获得的多功能性。
Some such evidence appears to exist.
一些这样的证据似乎是存在的。
In a 2023 study, the experimental botanist Katarzyna Glowacka grew tobacco variants with different-size chloroplasts at the University of Nebraska.
在 2023 年的一项研究中，内布拉斯加大学的实验植物学家 Katarzyna Glowacka 种植了具有不同大小叶绿体的烟草变种。
She expected an army of small chloroplasts to make leaf cells more agile photosynthesizers.
她期望大量的小叶绿体能够使叶细胞成为更敏捷的光合作用器。
It didn’t.
It didn’t.
In fact, getting tobacco to shrink its chloroplasts was surprisingly difficult.
事实上，让烟草收缩叶绿体是非常困难的。
“It’s almost like the plant was resistant,” Glowacka said.
“这几乎就像这种植物具有抗药性一样，”格洛瓦卡说。
“Almost like there is something stopping them from getting smaller.” Ultra-small chloroplasts could be weak collectors of light and carbon dioxide, or they may be crammed too tightly, like the contents of a large home stuffed into a studio apartment.
“几乎就像有什么东西阻止它们变小一样。”超小的叶绿体可能是光和二氧化碳的弱收集者，或者它们可能被挤得太紧，就像一个大房子里的东西被塞进单间公寓一样。
She concluded that the natural size of tobacco chloroplasts was optimal.
她得出的结论是，烟草叶绿体的自然大小是最佳的。
To Jalaal, a firmer conclusion will require looking at these traits in other plants.
对贾拉尔来说，更确定的结论需要研究其他植物的这些特征。
The answer may differ from species to species, and among other photosynthesizers such as algae.
不同物种以及藻类等其他光合作用者的答案可能有所不同。
Elodea ’s solution to its chloroplast problem could be widespread — or totally unique.
伊乐藻解决叶绿体问题的方法可能是广泛应用的，也可能是完全独特的。
The only way to know for sure is to look.
唯一能确定的方法就是看。
“In physics, we search for universality,” Jalaal said.
“在物理学中，我们寻求普遍性，”贾拉尔说。
“In biology, we embrace non-universality and biodiversity.”
“在生物学中，我们拥抱非普遍性和生物多样性。”
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辱骂、亵渎、自我推销、误导、语无伦次或偏离主题的评论将被拒绝。
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