There is a quest to find the smallest living things. It seems that 100 nanometers is about as small as scientists have found for completely self-sufficient biological entities. Viruses can get smaller, but they cheat in the "are they living" department, because they cannot reproduce without other cells to parasitize and therefore aren't technically living beings.
The little tubule dudes in the picture to the right are being dubbed "Nanobes." They were discovered in ancient sandstones brought up during oil drilling in Western Australia may be the new smallest living thing. They run 20 - 150 nanometers in size, so are definitely the right size.
The problem lies in their life histories. It isn't known yet whether they are capable of reproducing on their own, for example. One problem is that at such small sizes, DNA really doesn't fit well inside the (potential) organism, nor the machinery for producing proteins (such as Ribosomes).
Some scientists are quite excited, and some are singularly unimpressed.
Whether these are in fact "little dudes" or not, they are something that will spawn a lot of research and probably open a lot of new doors for the microbiological sciences.
Enjoy science pushing the limits of what people are liable to give a shit about,
Bp
[via The Good Reverend; photo credit in linked NYT Science article]
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