Word: celling
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Spiegelman and Kamen worked with yeast cells, proved that their chemical behavior could be changed, while the genes remained unchanged. This suggested strongly that something besides the genes affected cell characteristics...
...What we started to do," said Dr. Spiegelman, "was to find out how genes operate." Genes are infinitesimal bodies (perhaps single protein molecules) in the nucleus of every living cell, from bacteria to man. According to orthodox, "Mendelian" biology, they are the sole arbiters of heredity. When a cell divides, each gene divides too, and transmits a definite characteristic to the "daughter" cells...
...Self-Duplicating Bodies." When the cells were allowed to multiply freely, some of the protein molecules characteristic of the nucleus (where the genes are) tended to flow into the "cytoplasm," the part of the cell outside the nucleus. This indicated (along with related biochemical data) that the genes were sending out "partial replicas" of themselves, which entered the cytoplasm and multiplied there independently...
...basic difference between the quick & the dead is ability to grow. Biologists feel that if they could understand growth, they might understand what life is. But growth in nature is complicated. Within a growing cell are hundreds, probably thousands of chemical compounds, their molecules weaving in & out, exchanging atoms and energy. Like a nation, the cell imports (absorbs), exports (excretes), and is influenced by its environment: the innumerable chemical substances in the plant or animal juices outside its frontiers...
...study the growth of such a cell is difficult; it involves too many factors. So forward-looking biologists are trying to reduce cell growth to simplest terms. One of these simplifiers is British-born Professor Kenneth Vivian Thimann of Harvard. Last week, in an air-conditioned room (hot and humid), he was sprouting oat kernels in total darkness, observing them in dim red light...